Numerical Simulation of Inflow Performance for Perforated Horizontal Wells

WANG Haijing1, XUE Shifeng2 1. College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, China, 210016 2. College of Pipeline & Civil Engineering, University of Petroleum, China, 257061 lnsywhj@163.com Abstract: Accurate prediction of inflow performance for perforated horizontal wells is of great significance to reservoir engineering analysis and perforation design optimization. A reservoir/wellbore coupling method using a numerical reservoir model and a semi-analytical wellbore model was proposed in this paper. To solve to the modeling and calculating problem caused by the large scale difference between large-scale reservoir and small-scale perforation width or wellbore diameter, high-permeability line elements and nodes on the well trajectory were used to model perforations and wellbore respectively. The wellbore flow model considered the pressure loss inside the horizontal well and the effect of radial influx at the perforations. An explicit iteration scheme was developed to achieve pressure and mass continuity at the interface. With the proposed model, the inflow performance of perforated horizontal wells was investigated. The inflow profile and the streamlines around the perforations were presented. Sensitivity studies were conducted to identify the impact of perforation depth and permeability heterogeneity on the inflow profile and productivity. Keywords: Perforated horizontal wells, Inflow performance, Reservoir/wellbore coupling method, Numerical simulation

1 Introduction
Perforated completion is a widely used method in horizontal well completions. Perforations are the only channel between the wellbore and the producing formation. Accurate prediction of inflow performance for perforated horizontal wells is of great significance to reservoir engineering analysis and perforation design optimization. A considerable amount of analytical and numerical work has been done on the inflow performance of open-hole horizontal wells and perforated vertical wells. Chen Chongxi et al. [ 1,3 ] presented a conception of equivalent hydraulic conductivity (EHC) to couple Darcy flow in the reservoir and non-Darcy flow in the wellbore with numerical method. Ouyang [2] proposed a reservoir/wellbore coupling model using an analytical reservoir model and a semi-analytical wellbore flow model. Akim Kabir et al.[4]proposed an explicit method to couple a 3D numerical reservoir simulator with a wellbore simulator. Yildiz[5] decompose the3D flow into a perforated horizontal well into a transient 3D model for flow into selectively completed horizontal well, and a perforation totalpseudoskin model to construct a simple and computationally fast model. Joseph Ansah et al. [6 ] developed a finite-element well inflow model with asymmetric, spiral distribution of cone-shaped perforations around a wellbore to predict the flow performance of perforated vertical well completions. Turhan Yildiz[7]presented a 3D analytical model to investigate the transient pressure characteristics of perforated vertical wells. All these studies provided insight into the inflow behaviors of open-hole horizontal wells and perforated vertical wells. However, fewer studies have been made on the perforated horizontal wells. Erdal Ozkan[8]presented 3D analytical models to investigate the transient pressure behavior of perforated horizontal wells. Liu Xiangping[9] derived 3D steady state pressure distribution of oil flow due to a perforated horizontal well base on Greens function and superposition principle. Yula Tang[10] developed a semi-analytical reservoir/wellbore coupling model for perforated completed horizontal wells. These analytical or semi-analytical methods have the limitations that they are rather complicated and cumbersome to calculate, and not applicable to heterogeneous computational domain. Therefore, numerical methods are required to solve this problem. In this paper, we proposed a numerical

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reservoir/wellbore coupling method to investigate the inflow performance of horizontal perforated wells.

2 Coupled Reservoir/Wellbore Simulation

The fluid flow from the reservoir to the well influences the pressure distribution in the wellbore. On the other hand, the pressure distribution in the wellbore conversely influences the flow from the reservoir. Therefore, a comprehensive model coupling reservoir and horizontal well is of great importance to the accurate description of inflow performance. 2.1 Simplified treatment of wellbore and perforations For a perforated horizontal well, the perforation width is very small, about 10 mm. However, the dimension of the drainage area is very large, usually several hundred meters or more. So big scale difference increases the difficulties in modeling and calculating of this problem. Considering that the perforation channel width is very small, and the permeability is very high, a high-permeability line element is used to model the perforation. The horizontal wellbore can be represented by nodes on the well trajectory. A segment of discrete reservoir/wellbore model is presented in Fig.1. The high-permeability line elements are shown in red. The contribution of perforation to the flow can be implemented by the superposition of high-permeability line-element stiffness matrix to the reservoir stiffness matrix. The pressure of the wellbore can be calculated by the pressure loss between every two adjacent nodes. This new treatment can simplify the modeling and meshing significantly.
Reservoir grid High-permeability line element

Wellbore node

Figure 1 A segment of discrete reservoir/wellbore model

2.2 Model description 2.2.1 Reservoir flow model Assume that a single-phase slightly compressible Newtonian fluid flows in a heterogeneous and anisotropic reservoir under isothermal conditions. Furthermore, the flow obeys Darcy's law and the porosity of the reservoir is independent of pressure. With these assumptions, the 2D partial differential equation:
K P K P (P P0 ) ( x ) + ( y ) = c f (1) x y y x t Where is fluid density, kg/m3; K is reservoir permeability, m2; is fluid viscosity, Pas; P is reservoir pressure, Pa; is reservoir porosity; c f is fluid compressibility, Pa-1; P0 is initial pressure,

Pa; x, y are coordinates. 2.2.2 Wellbore Flow model Wellbore flow differs from regular pipe flow in that radial inflow affects both wall friction and kinetic energy change. The pressure loss in the horizontal well can be calculated using the single-phase wellbore-flow model and wall-friction-factor correlations for pipe flow with perforation influx developed by Ouyang11. The overall pressure gradient consists of four different components: the pressure gradient caused by kinetic-energy change, the frictional-pressure gradient, the 319

inflow-direction-pressure gradient, the gravitational pressure gradient. dpw fv 2 2n Al n Al g = sin 2 vl2 sin vl v + A gc dx 2d 2 Bgc A

(2)

Where Pw is well pressure, Pa; d is pipe diameter, m; n is perforation density, shot/m; is fluid density, kg/m3; Al is cross-sectional area in each perforation,m2; A is pipe cross-sectional area, m2; vl is inflow velocity in each perforation, m/s; v is velocity averaged over a cross section, m/s; B is momentum correction factor; gc is conversion factor; is inflow direction angle; is wellbore inclination angle from horizontal. The wall friction factor with both axial flow in the pipe and inflow through perforations takes the form: For laminar flow 0.6142 f = f0 (1 + 0.04304 N Re, w ) (3) For turbulent flow 0.3978 f = f0 (1 + 0.0153N Re, w ) (4)

Where N Re,w is wall Reynolds number, based on pipe inner diameter and equivalent inflow velocity; f0 is no-wall-flow friction factor. 2.2.3 Initial and boundary conditions Let and represent the flow region and boundary of reservoir. Assume the pressure at the heel of the well is constant. The initial condition and boundary conditions are: Initial condition: P t =0, = P0 (5)

t , P

P n t , = q (8) Where P0 is initial reservoir pressure, Pa; Pw 0 is the well pressure at the heel of the well, Pa; P is
v

the boundary pressure, Pa. q is flow rate, m/s. 2.3 The coupling approach The finite element program generator (FEPG) was chosen as the finite element code to calculate the reservoir/wellbore model. The reservoir model was run with pressure boundary condition at the interface. In order to achieve continuity at the interface, an iteration scheme was used which will converge quickly. Fig.2 shows the flowchart of the algorithm used.

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Boundary conditions

Pw

x=0

= Pw 0

(6) (7)

Preprocessor Set initial pressure for reservoir, Assume uniform pressure profile for wellbore

Time step T=dT Iterative step i =1 i=i+1 Calculate the pressure of reservoir T=T+dT

Calculate the flow rate for each wellbore node, Get the total flow rate at this iterative step Qi Calculate pressure drop between each two neighboring wellbore nodes, get the pressure of each wellbore node No No

i >1 Yes

Criteria for convergence |Qi-Qi-1|/Qi-1< Yes T<Tmax No Postprocessor

Figure 2 Flow chart describing reservoir/wellbore coupling algorithm

3 Example Runs
In this section, results of the coupling model are presented and discussed. A horizontal well was placed at the center of a rectangular shaped reservoir. The wellbore was strictly horizontal and parallel to the x axis. The pressure at the heel of the wellbore is specified. Reservoir and fluid parameters are listed in Table 1.
Table 1 Basic reservoir and fluid parameters Parameter Value Reservoir dimension in x direction, m 200 Reservoir dimension in y direction, m 100 Permeability in x direction, mD 3000 Permeability in y direction, mD 3000 Reservoir porosity 0.3 Initial reservoir pressure,MPa 10 3 Fluid density, g/cm 0.9 Fluid compressiblitity,Pa-1 1.010-9 Wellbore radius, mm 139.7

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Yes

Perforation shot density, shot/m Perforation channel depth, mm Fluid viscosity, mPas Perforation length,m Drawdown at the hell, Mpa

10 400 50 100 0.5

Fig.3 shows the inflow profile along the well. One can see that, due to the larger drainage area, the specific inflow (flowrate per unit meter into the wellbore) at the two ends of the well is much higher than that in the middle. In addition, influenced by the pressure loss in the wellbore, the drawdown at the heel of the well is higher than that at the toe. Therefore, the inflow rate at the heel of the well is a little higher than that at the toe.
20
Specific inflow m3/d/m

15 10 5 0 0 20 40 60 Well position m 80 100

Figure 3 Inflow profile along the well

Figure 4 Streamlines around a perforation

Fig.4 shows streamlines around a perforation. The length of the vector is proportional to the flow rate. One can see that, away from the perforation, the flow streamlines are approximately parallel to the axis of the perforation. However, around the perforation, the flow streamlines become almost perpendicular to the axis of the perforation. Besides, the flow rate decreased gradually from the toe to the heel of the perforation. Figures 5 shows how the inflow rate changes with well position for different perforation depths. Five cases were considered. In these cases, all other parameters are fixed except for the perforation depth. In the first case, the perforation depth was 400mm. In the second case, the perforation depth was 600mm. In the third case, the perforation depth is 800mm. In the fourth case, the perforation depth was 1000mm. In the fifth case, the perforation depth is 1200mm. It was found that, with the increase of perforation depth, there is a slight increase in the specific inflow at the two ends of the well and the well productivity. Neglecting the impact of formation damage, when the perforation depth is larger than 400mm, the increase of perforation depth has little influence on the inflow profile and productivity of perforated horizontal wells. Figures 6 shows how the flow rate changes with well position for different permeability distribution. Three cases were considered. In these cases, all other parameters are fixed except for the permeability. In the first case, the permeability increased linearly along the well from 3000mD at the heel to 4500mD at the toe. In the second case, the permeability along the well kept constant. In the third case, the permeability decreased linearly along the well from 3000mD at the heel to 1500mD at the toe. It was found that, when all other parameters are fixed, the specific inflow and the well productivity increase with the increase of permeability. The permeability heterogeneity has a great influence on the inflow profile of perforated horizontal wells.

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Figure 5 Variation of inflow distribution with perforation depth

Figure 6 Variation of inflow distribution with permeability

4 Conclusion
A reservoir/wellbore coupling method using a numerical reservoir model and a semi-analytical wellbore model has been proposed. Simplified treatment of perforations and wellbore was presented. The wellbore flow model considered the pressure loss inside the horizontal well and the effect of axial influx at the perforations. An explicit iteration scheme was developed to achieve pressure and mass continuity at the interface. This model provides an important method for productivity prediction and perforation design optimization of perforated horizontal wells. With the proposed model, the inflow performance of perforated horizontal wells was investigated. The streamlines around the perforation were presented. Sensitivity studies using this model were conducted to identify the impact of deviation angle and permeability heterogeneity on the inflow profile and productivity. Based on the results presented in this study, the following conclusions are obtained: (1) For a perforated horizontal well in a homogeneous reservoir, due to end effects, the specific inflow (flowrate per unit meter into the wellbore) at the two ends of the well is much higher than that in the middle. In addition, influenced by the pressure loss in the wellbore, the drawdown at the heel of the wellbore is higher than that at the toe, the inflow rate at the toe of the wellbore is a little lower than that at the heel. (2) Away from the perforation, the flow streamlines are approximately parallel to the axis of the perforation. However, around the perforation, the flow streamlines become almost perpendicular to the axis of the perforation. Besides, the flow rate decreased gradually from the toe to the heel of the perforation. (3) Specifying the pressure at the heel of the well and neglecting the impact of formation damage, when the perforation depth is larger than 400mm, both the specific inflow at the ends of the well and the well productivity increase slightly with the increase of perforation depth, the increase of perforation depth has little influence on the inflow profile and productivity of perforated horizontal wells. (4) Specifying the pressure at the heel of the well, both the specific inflow and the well productivity increase with the increase of permeability. The permeability heterogeneity has a great influence on the inflow profile and productivity of perforated horizontal wells.

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