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Darcy and non-Darcy Flows in Fractured Gas Reservoirs

Conference Paper · September 2018

DOI: 10.2118/175596-M S

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SPE-175596-MS

Darcy and non-Darcy Flows in Fractured Gas Reservoirs

Hussein Mustapha, Louis de Langavant, and Marie Ann Giddins, Schlumberger

Copyright 2015, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Reservoir Characterisation and Simulation Conference and Exhibition held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 14 –16 September
2018.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written
consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
In this paper, we discuss the application of Forchheimer’s model in flow problems where high sensitivity
to capillary pressure is involved. The Forchheimer equation is basically composed of a Darcy term and
a non-Darcy term to account for the inertial effects involved by high flow rates inside porous media.
However, the Forchheimer equation does not offer an easy and systematic approach for estimating the
flow, given that the β parameter, a non-Darcy flow coefficient, also known as the Forchheimer coefficient,
is specific to different reservoir characteristics and must be determined accurately through experiments.
It is, therefore, very important, before applying the Forchheimer model, to have an idea of its domain of
applicability.
It is commonly accepted that non-Darcy flow may occur especially in gas reservoirs, fractured
reservoirs, near-wellbore regions, and inside wells. But the limits of the Forchheimer model limits are not
clearly defined and its impact at field scale for reservoir engineering purposes is not very well established.
This paper presents one possible domain of applicability of the Forchheimer model for a fractured gas
reservoir model with water injection. The model has been designed to approach the conditions requiring
the use of the Forchheimer model, which are high rates and high permeability. Oil and gas fractured
reservoirs with water injection are also known to be very sensitive to capillary pressure data. Capillary
pressure is a determinant parameter influencing fluid mobility in two-phase reservoirs. The determining
of accurate capillary pressure data is essential to get satisfying results, especially in fractured reservoirs.
Therefore, this study investigates the impact of capillary pressure on non-Darcy flows and compares the
results with the results predicted by the Darcy model.

Introduction
Hydrocarbon recovery from naturally fractured reservoirs by capillary imbibition is a well-recognized
process (Mattax and Kyte 1962; Bourbiaux and Kalaydjian 1988; Kantzas et al. 1997; Pooladi-Darvish
and Firoozabadi 2000; Babadagli 2001; Rangel-German and Kovscek 2002; Babadagli and Hatiboglu
2007). The capillary imbibition mechanism occurs in a countercurrent manner in which water spontane-
ously enters a water-wet rock while oil escapes by flowing in the opposite direction. The effects of
matrix-fracture transfers, gravity forces, interfacial tension, and rock type on oil recovery by spontaneous
countercurrent imbibition are well studied (Babadagli and Hatiboglu 2007). Cocurrent imbibition may,
2 SPE-175596-MS

however, be defined as an imbibition where fluids flow in the similar flow paths or along the same
direction. Countercurrent imbibition is generally considered as the dominant spontaneous imbibition in
fractured reservoirs; however, it has been concluded in several studies that co-current imbibition plays a
more dominant role (Bourbiaux and Kalaydjian 1988; Pooladi-Darvish and Firoozabadi 2000).
Models of fluid flow in porous media are widely used in multiple engineering and science applications
(Scheidegger 1974; Green and Duwez 1951; Bejan 1984). The traditional linear equation for flow in
porous media is based on Darcy’s law (Darcy 1856; Whitaker 1986):
(1)

It is well known that Darcy’s law is not sufficient for describing accurately high-rate flows. When the
flow reaches a high velocity, or high Reynolds number, for instance in gas flow in the near-wellbore
region, inertial effects can also become significant. Sometimes an inertial term is added to Darcy’s
equation, known as the Forchheimer term to account for the nonlinear behavior of the pressure difference
versus velocity data. The empirical Forchheimer equation was introduced by Forchheimer in 1901, to
model the recovery process more accurately at high flow rates (Li and Engler 2001; Belhaj et al., 2003;
Jones, 1987; Ling et al. 2013; Barree and Conway 2005; Zeng and Zhao 2006, 2008). Forchheimer’s
formula provides a general relation including this nonlinear effect:
(2)

where β is a non-Darcy flow coefficient, also known as the Forchheimer coefficient.

The coefficient β is defined in units of atma.s2.g—1 (the Forchheimer). A typical value of β is 107cm—1,
which is 9.86 Forchheimer units. The β parameter depends on reservoir characteristics including
permeability, porosity, and flow path complexity or tortuosity. Some correlations can be established with
laboratory experiments so as to determine β accurately. The possible variability of β factors within the
reservoir is still subject to discussion. From Eqs. 1 and 2, we can see that for the same pressure gradient,
Forchheimer should give smaller velocities than Darcy. In general, both Darcy and Forchheimer models
predict similar flow behavior at low velocity. Thus, using Forchheimer instead of Darcy can be acceptable
in most cases whereas the can be wrong at high velocity. However, the domain of applicability of
Forchheimer is still not clearly established.
In this paper, one possible scenario of a fractured gas reservoir model with water injection is studied.
The impact of the capillary imbibition efficiency on flow linearity behavior is investigated, and the results
predicted by the Darcy and non-Darcy models are compared.

Method and Analysis

Method
This study investigates the difference between Darcy and Forchheimer flow results in gas fractured
media, with focus on the capillary pressure effects. The deviation from Darcy, Be, is a dimensionless
number that gives a way of quantifying the relevance of the use of Forchheimer instead of Darcy. From
Eqs. 1 and 2, one can write Be as
(3)

Thus, we can write explicitly the pressure drop ratio (PDR) as a function of Be as follows:
(4)
SPE-175596-MS 3

For example, when Be = 0.0, PDR=1, and there is no deviation from Darcy flow; when Be = 0.05,
PDR=0.9 and there is 5% deviation from Darcy behavior.
Simulations with zero capillary pressure, as well as with different nonzero capillary pressure curves are
investigated. The following three cases are considered for both Darcy and Forchheimer simulations:
● Case 1/1F: Darcy/Forchheimer: No capillary pressure considered
● Case 2/2F: Darcy/Forchheimer: Capillary pressure considered in the fracture and the matrix
● Case 3/3F: Darcy/Forchheimer: Capillary pressure considered in the fracture and the matrix;
higher capillary pressure in the matrix
Model
Throughout the study, we considered a 2D representation of a fractured medium, to focus on horizontal
flows in the fractures.
A set of six fractures, forming a total of 249 fracture grid blocks, are integrated in the model, as shown
in Fig. 1. The fractures are 3 mm thick. The porosity and permeability in the fractures are 1 and 1000 md,
respectively. The matrix porosity and permeability are, respectively, 0.2 and 50 md.

Figure 1—Fractured gas reservoir model.

The domain is meshed with a Cartesian grid of 43×43 grid blocks. Each block is 5.65 m × 5.65 m,
so the model dimension is 243 m × 243 m. The model vertical thickness is 1 m. The reservoir is initially
saturated with gas. Water is injected from the four corners of the domain to produce gas at the center, as
shown in Fig. 1.
The producer operates on a target rate control with a production rate target set to 0.007 sm3/d, and a
bottomhole pressure (BHP) lower limit of 276 bar. Water injection is controlled by reservoir fluid volume
rate target and is set in each injector to 6.3 sm3/d, and the BHP upper limit is set to 690 bar. The production
period for this study is 1 year. Two regions were defined to accommodate two different saturation
functions for the fractures and the matrix. The matrix relative permeability curves are shown in Fig. 2.
Linear relative permeability curves are used in the fractures. For sensitivity analysis, two different
oil-water capillary pressure curves are considered in the matrix, as shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3, set 1 is the
case for which capillary pressure is considered in the fracture and the matrix; set 2 is the case for which
4 SPE-175596-MS

capillary pressure is considered in the fracture and the matrix and capillary pressure is higher in the matrix.
Gas-oil capillary pressure curves are shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 2—Relative permeability curves in the matrix.

Figure 3—Oil-water capillary pressure curves in the fracture and the matrix.
SPE-175596-MS 5

Figure 4 —Gas-oil capillary pressure curves in the fracture and the matrix.

Numerical Results

Capillary Pressure Effect on Darcy Flow

For cases 1 to 3, the water saturation profiles after 1 year of simulation time are shown in Fig. 5. This
figure shows that more gas remains in case 1 (in which no capillary pressure is considered) than in cases
2 and 3 (which consider capillary pressure in the matrix and the fracture). It can be seen that the higher
the capillary pressure, the more water imbibes into the matrix surrounding the fractures. Capillary pressure
also seems to enhance the spreading of the water in certain fractures far from the wellbore, as clearly
shown in Fig. 5 for cases 2 and 3. These observations are confirmed by the gas production cumulative
charts shown in Fig. 6 (left). The higher the capillary pressure in the matrix, the better the gas recovery.
Fig. 6 (right) shows the cumulative water production and highlights the water breakthrough. The higher
the capillary pressure, the later the water reaches the producer. The absence of capillary pressure causes
a more significant and early breakthrough.
6 SPE-175596-MS

Figure 5—Water saturation profiles after 1 year of simulation time for cases 1, 2, and 3.

Figure 6 —Cumulative gas (left) and water (right) production.

As the capillary pressure increases, the high permeability in the fracture has less influence on water
mobility towards the producer. To get a better understanding of the underlying physics of this phenom-
enon, we must analyze the flow behavior at the scale of the cell. According to our first observations,
capillary pressure seems to affect mostly the water and gas mobility around the fractures. It is then
important to check the water saturation inside and close to fracture cells, as shown in Fig. 7. The water
saturation inside the fracture is always higher in case 1 than in case 2, except in the first two neighboring
rows of matrix cells parallel to the fracture. In those cells, capillary pressure forces apparently push the
water out of the fracture. Without capillary pressure, the water bypasses the matrix rapidly through the
SPE-175596-MS 7

fractures without even visiting certain regions where the gas remains trapped in greater amounts. To
confirm this observation, we plotted the gas flow across the fracture.

Figure 7—Water saturation inside the fracture and the close matrix for cases 1 and 2.

Fig. 8 shows a very clear gas flow drop across the fractures in cases 2 and 3 that is much less noticeable
in case 1. Capillary imbibition is characterized by a significant gas flow across the fracture, towards the
matrix, and thus results in more efficient imbibition. The reason for this phenomenon lies in the fact that
capillary pressure affects the pressure difference across the interface between water and gas, and thus it
improves the efficiency of imbibition into the matrix (Pooladi-Darvish and Firoozabadi 2000). We can
also investigate the influence of capillary pressure on the field average pressure.

Figure 8 —Gas flow across the fracture.

Fig. 9 shows that, as the water breakthrough comes later when capillary effects are considered, the
pressure increases more inside the reservoir for the same injection rate. This later water breakthrough and
the consequent increased pressure result in higher gas recovery.
8 SPE-175596-MS

Figure 9 —The influence of capillary pressure on the field average pressure.

Comparison with Forchheimer Flow

We repeated all the previous simulations with the Forchheimer equation (cases 1F, 2F, and 3F). In this
study, we chose arbitrarily β=10 Forchheimer units. A more detailed sensitivity analysis on the value of
β will be presented in a future work. All three cases show high maximum deviation from Darcy, above
0.8, as shown in Fig. 10.

Figure 10 —Maximum deviation from Darcy in fractured media.

As a result, we can see some difference between the Darcy equation and Forchheimer equation results
(Fig. 11). Ignoring Forchheimer seems to result in overestimating the gas recovery and a delay in water
breakthrough, especially when capillary pressure effects are considered.
SPE-175596-MS 9

Figure 11—The effect of Forchheimer on the cumulative gas production.

To explain these global observations, consider the field behavior at the scale of the grid blocks. For the
same pressure gradient, Forchheimer predicts smaller velocities than Darcy because it accounts for inertial
effects. Indeed, if we apply Darcy and Forchheimer to a certain pressure gradient (Eqs. 1 and 2), we will
obtain
(5)

From Eq. 5, clearly Vf ≤ Vd and, by rearranging the terms, it can be seen that
(6)

Thus, the lower the flow rate, the lower the difference between Darcy and Forchheimer (for the same
pressure gradient), because the term becomes negligible.
Fig. 12 shows the injector and producer BHP results for Darcy and Forchheimer. By comparing the
difference between the curves, which remains equivalent between the injector and the producer BHP, it
can be seen that the pressure gradient is roughly the same between the Darcy case and the Forchheimer
case.
10 SPE-175596-MS

Figure 12—Comparison of injector and producer BHP in Darcy and Forchheimer cases.

Fig. 13 shows the gas flow rate for different points on the fracture (see location map inset). The
Forchheimer effect results in slower gas flow rates, especially in the fractures that are closer to the
wellbore. In particular, the higher the gas rate, the higher the overestimation due to the neglected
Forchheimer term. Moreover, Fig. 13 also shows the minimum value of the flow rate above which the
error becomes significant. In this case, if Darcy predicts a flow rate above 300 to 400 sm3/d, then use of
Forchheimer is appropriate.

Figure 13—The influence of the Forchheimer equation on the gas flow inside the fracture (case 2).

Fig. 14 shows that the inertial effect of Forchheimer also results in significantly higher gas saturation
inside the fracture, especially close to the wellbore. This is a good illustration of the inertial effects
described by the Forchheimer correction. However, Darcy does not overestimate the rate everywhere. For
instance, in the matrix cells closest to the fracture, Forchheimer predicts higher rates than Darcy, as shown
in Fig. 15. The very high flow rates in the fracture do not let the water penetrate deeply into the pores of
the neighboring matrix.
SPE-175596-MS 11

Figure 14 —The influence of Forchheimer equation on the gas saturation inside the fracture (case 2).

Figure 15—The influence of Forchheimer equation on the gas saturation inside the fracture [cell (16 22 1)] and next to the fracture [cell
(16 21 1)].

In Fig. 16, we compare gas flow rate inside the fractures at two different points. The left chart is in a
fracture close to the wellbore, and the right chart is in a more distant fracture. Refer to Fig. 14 for exact
locations. The curves in solid lines represent Darcy results, and the curves in dashed lines represent
Forchheimer results.
12 SPE-175596-MS

Figure 16 —The influence of capillary pressure on Darcy and non-Darcy gas flow rate data, in the fracture, close to the wellbore (left
chart), and more distant (right chart). Refer to Fig. 13 for locations.

In the cells nearest to the wellbore, higher rates, due to capillary pressure effects, lead to a higher
difference between the results from Darcy and Forchheimer. In particular, as highlighted with arrows in
Fig. 16, we notice that the flow rate difference between Darcy and non-Darcy is very significant in case
2 whereas it is close to zero in case 1.

Conclusions
In this study, we have demonstrated the importance of accurate capillary pressure data for studying flows
in fractured gas reservoirs. Capillary pressure imbibition is a significant drive mechanism in gas fractured
reservoirs with water injection enhanced recovery. Capillary pressure in the fractures is responsible for a
more homogeneous drainage of water throughout the fractures. Capillary pressure in the matrix is
responsible for a significant water and gas flow within the fracture, leading to better imbibition into the
matrix close to the fractures. The tests performed in this study confirm the impact of variations in capillary
pressure data. Overestimating the capillary pressure will result in overestimating the recovery.
Sensitivity studies can be used to determine the effects of the Forchheimer equation in simulations of
fractured gas reservoirs. Extreme reservoir conditions such as high permeability, thick fractures, gas, and
high injection and production rates are likely to involve non-Darcy flows. For the same pressure gradient,
Forchheimer results in smaller velocities than Darcy, and more inertial effects. The higher the flow rates,
the bigger the discrepancy between Forchheimer and Darcy.
Capillary pressure effects are linked with higher rates and thus with more significant deviation from
Darcy. The recovery uncertainties linked with non-Darcy flows are significant, but not as much as the
uncertainties linked with inaccurate capillary pressure data.
Further study is recommended to investigate capillary pressure and non-Darcy effects in heterogeneous
reservoirs and in three-dimensional grid models.

Nomenclature
∇ Gradient operator
p Pressure (bar)
β Forchheimer parameter
SPE-175596-MS 13

p Density
µ Viscosity
k Permeability
∇p Pressure gradient
t Time
Pcow Oil-water capillary pressure
Pcgo Gas-oil capillary pressure
V Velocity
Vd Darcy velocity
Vf Forchheimer velocity

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