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Estimated Ultimate Recovery and Productivity of Deep Shale Gas Horizontal Wells
1 Exploration and Development Department, Chongqing Shale Gas Exploration and Development Co., Ltd., Chongqing, 401120, China
2 Oil & Gas Technology Research Institute, Changqing Oilfield Company, Xi’an, 710018, China
3 Exploration and Development Research Institute, Zhejiang Oilfield Company, Hangzhou, 310023, China
4 Geological Exploration and Development Research Institute, Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Co., Ltd., Chengdu, 610056, China
5 School of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, China
6 Technology Department, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, China
* Corresponding Author: Ming Jiang. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Fluid and Thermal Dynamics in the Development of Unconventional Resources II)
Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2025, 21(1), 221-232. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2024.053496
Received 01 May 2024; Accepted 13 September 2024; Issue published 24 January 2025
Abstract
Pressure control in deep shale gas horizontal wells can reduce the stress sensitivity of hydraulic fractures and improve the estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). In this study, a hydraulic fracture stress sensitivity model is proposed to characterize the effect of pressure drop rate on fracture permeability. Furthermore, a production prediction model is introduced accounting for a non-uniform hydraulic fracture conductivity distribution. The results reveal that increasing the fracture conductivity leads to a rapid daily production increase in the early stages. However, above 0.50 D·cm, a further increase in the fracture conductivity has a limited effect on shale gas production growth. The initial production is lower under pressure-controlled conditions than that under pressure-release. For extended pressure control durations, the cumulative production initially increases and then decreases. For a fracture conductivity of 0.10 D·cm, the increase in production output under controlled-pressure conditions is ~35%. For representative deep shale gas wells (Southern Sichuan, China), if the pressure drop rate under controlled-pressure conditions is reduced from 0.19 to 0.04 MPa/d, the EUR increase for 5 years of pressure-controlled production is 41.0 million, with an increase percentage of ~29%.Keywords
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