The Application of Wellbore Embedded Discrete Fracture Model (EDFM) in Fracture Diagnosis Through DTS and Well Interference Analysis
Author | : Zihao Zhao |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2021 |
ISBN-10 | : OCLC:1381289163 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 (63 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: The advancement of hydraulic fracturing techniques has boosted the economic development of the unconventional reservoir. The created complex fracture networks provide a high-conductivity flow channel for the production and increase the ultimate recovery. However, they also posed great challenges to efficiently model the flow inside. The newly developed Embedded Discrete Fracture Model (EDFM) enables efficient fracture modeling without sacrificing accuracy. It has been widely applied in many challenging research topics associated with complex fracture networks including Enhanced Geothermal System, gas huff-n-puff, well interference analysis, and automatic history matching. But the mechanism of EDFM makes it hard to incorporate a discrete wellbore module into the commercialized simulator, which limits its application in some topics that require detailed wellbore modeling. The objective of this study is to establish a new workflow that can integrate EDFM with a fully-coupled wellbore-reservoir model to simulate the flow behavior. The idea is to generate the pseudo parameters for the simulator input to force the simulator to get the correct wellbore perforation and trajectory information with EDFM. The developed wellbore EDFM module is integrated with thermal EDFM to simulate the temperature distribution in the wellbore and reservoir with complex fracture networks, which is applied as the forward model for fracture diagnosis through Disributed Temperature Sensing (DTS). A field case is conducted, which verifies the potential application of our workflow in fracture diagnosis. By matching the temperature distribution along the wellbore, we can estimate the fracture geometry and properties, which provide valuable information for future operation optimization. Subsequently, we applied our wellbore EDFM module to simulate the well interference through fracture hits. It verifies the great capacity of our wellbore EDFM module to handle complex flow regimes inside the wellbore even when counter flow exists. It is also the first time for the simulator to handle the wellbore flow at closed wells. Our newly developed wellbore EDFM should have great potential in other research topics in the future