Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pme 417 - L6-8 - Dmim
Pme 417 - L6-8 - Dmim
Pme 417 - L6-8 - Dmim
L ECTURES 6-8
Course Instructor
Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah
Associate Professor
Dept. of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, CUET
1
Fracture Storage Capacity
▪ In contrast to the 𝜙𝑚 , fracture porosity contributes only a few percent to the total porosity.
▪ Fracture aperture is typically up to a few millimeters in width, and typical fracture spacing is in the
range of centimeter to meter. Because fracture apertures are significantly greater than typical
matrix pore-throat sizes, they contribute the major portion of the total transmissivity of the
petroleum rocks and, consequently, are an important factor in the movement of fluids.
▪ Fracture porosity initially is very high, but, over time, fractures may become partially filled with
fines. This filling process considerably reduces the fracture porosity to less than 5%.
▪ Since only fracture conductivity is necessary in flow calculations, not much attention has been
given to fracture porosity or storage capacity.
▪ The overall fracture storage capacity, which indicates how much fluid is held within the fracture
network of a particular reservoir, is best estimated from pressure buildup tests.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 2
Fracture Conductivity
▪ In reservoir engineering, fractures have been categorized on the basis of their fluid
transmission capacity or conductivity as follows:
• Finite conductivity: Finite conductivity fractures allow a limited amount of the fluid to flow. If
the fracture has dimensionless conductivity FCD=(kfwf)/(krxf) <300, it is termed as FC.
• Infinite conductivity: Infinite conductivity fractures are highly conductive and their fluid
transferring capacity is greater than that of the finite conductivity fractures.
• If FCD= (kfwf)/(krxf) > 500, the fracture is infinitely conductive. This number is accepted by
many researchers; however, some works assume FCD>300 for infinite conductivity.
• Uniform flux: Uniform flux fractures allow the fluid to flow through them such that there occurs a
certain pressure drop and the amount of the fluid entering and leaving the fracture remains
constant.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 3
Warren and Root Model
▪ Several reservoir idealizations of the dual-porosity reservoir systems have been introduced
for modeling and describing the fluid flow in naturally fractured reservoirs.
▪ Warren and Root (1963) idealized and represented the naturally
fractured dual-porosity system by a stack of rectangular blocks, as
shown in Figure 6.1. The assumptions for Warren and Root model:
i. The rock matrix containing the primary porosity is homogeneous and isotropic, and is contained
within a systematic array of identical rectangular parallelepipeds. Although most of the hydrocarbon
is stored in the matrix, the authors assumed that the fluid cannot flow to the well directly; however,
the fluid has to enter the fractures and flow to the wellbore.
ii. The secondary porosity is contained within a system of continuous and uniform fractures that are
oriented so that each fracture is parallel to one of the principal axes of permeability. These fractures
are uniformly spaced with a constant width.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 4
Warren and Root Model-Cont’d
▪ Warren and Root (1963) presented an extensive theoretical work on the behavior of naturally
fractured reservoirs.
▪ They assume that the formation fluid flows from the matrix system into the fractures under
pseudo-steadystate conditions with the fractures acting like conduits to the wellbore.
▪ Mathematically, Warren and Roots introduced the matrix–fracture transfer function Γ as
defined by the following relationship:
where km = matrix permeability
σ = block-shape factor (A/Vx)
µ = fluid viscosity
▪ Kazemi (1969) developed a widely used expression for V = matrix rock volume
determining the shape factor based on finite-difference Pm = matrix pressure and Pf = fracture pressure
as given by:
where Lx , Ly , and Lz represent the dimensions of a matrix block.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 5
Warren and Root-Dual Porosity System
▪ In addition to permeability and skin, which control the behavior of double-porosity systems,
Warren and Root introduced two other characteristic parameters to describe fully the fluid
exchange between the matrix and fractures.
• a) Storativity ratio (ω) defines the storativity of the fractures as a ratio to that of the total
reservoir.
• Mathematically, it is given by (a typical range of ω is 0.1 to 0.001):
• b) Interporosity flow coefficient (λ), which describes the ability of the fluid to flow from the matrix
into the fissures, and is defined by the following relationship:
• In general, the interporosity flow parameter ranges between 10−3 and 10−9 .
• Thus, ω is pressure dependent and therefore λ is greater than 10−3, the level of heterogeneity is
insufficient for dual-porosity effects to be of importance and the reservoir can be treated with a single
porosity. Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 6
Warren and Root Dual Porosity System
▪ Most of the proposed models assume that the matrix–fissures system can be represented by
one the following four block-shape factor geometries:
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 7
Interporosity Flow Conditions
▪ Cinco and Samaniego (1981) identified the following two extreme interporosity flow
conditions:
• Restricted interporosity flow, which corresponds to a high skin between the least permeable media
(matrix) and the high permeable media (fissures), and is mathematically equivalent to the
pseudosteady-state solution, i.e., the Warren and Root model.
• Unrestricted interporosity flow, which corresponds to zero skin between the most and high
permeable media and is described as the unsteady-state (transient) solution.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 8
Warren and Root Double Porosity Model
▪ Warren and Root proposed the first identification method of the double porosity system, as
shown by the drawdown semilog plot of Figure 7.1.
▪ The curve is characterized by two parallel straight lines
because of the two separate porosities in the reservoir.
▪ Secondary porosity (fissures), having greater transmissivity
and being connected to the wellbore responds first as
described by the first semilog straight line.
▪ Primary porosity (matrix), having a much lower
transmissivity, responds much later, combined effect of the
two porosities gives rise to the second semilog straight line.
▪ The two straight lines are separated by a transition period
during which pressure tends to stabilize
Figure 7.1: Pressure drawdown according to the model by
Warren and Root. (Kazemi, 1969, SPEJ.)
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 9
Warren and Root Model- ω
▪ Warren and Root indicated that the storativity ratio (ω) can be determined from the vertical
displacement between the two straight lines, identified as Δp in Figures 7.1 and 7.2
(pressure-buildup data for a naturally fractured reservoir), by the following expression:
or
or
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 11
Well Test Data- Dual Porosity System
▪ Pressure-buildup data as presented by Najurieta (1980) and Sabet (1991) for a double-
porosity system are tabulated below:
i. Estimate ω and λ,
ii. Storativity of the fractures (φhct )f
or
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 12
Pressure Type Curves- Dual Porosity System
▪ Based on the Warren and Root double-porosity theory, Bourdet and Gringarten (1980)
developed specialized pressure type curves that can be used for analyzing well test data in
dual-porosity systems.
▪ They showed that double-porosity behavior is controlled by the following independent
variables:
With the dimensionless time tD, dimensionless pressure pD, and
dimensionless wellbore-storage coefficient CD as defined below:
where
k = permeability, md
t = time, hours
µ = viscosity, cp
rw = wellbore radius, ft
C = wellbore storage coefficient,
or
bbl/psi
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 13
Pressure Type Curves- Dual Porosity System
▪ Bourdet et al. (1984) extended the practical applications of these curves and enhanced their
use by introducing the pressure-derivative type curves to the solution.
▪ They developed two sets of pressure-derivative type curves as shown in Figures 8.1 and 8.2.
▪ The first set (Fig. 8.1) is based on the assumption that the interporosity flow obeys the pseudosteady-
state flowing condition, and the other set (Fig. 8.2) assumes transient interporosity flow.
Copyright PME 315 @Dr. Mohammad Islam Miah, Ass. Professor, Dept. of PME, CUET. E-mail: islam.m@cuet.ac.bd 15
Home Task/Self Study-Cont’d
1. Explain the effect of fracture shape on the permeability-porosity relationship.
2. Analyze buildup or drawdown data from naturally fractured formations using
both semilog and type-curve techniques.
3. Example 6.11: Buildup Test Analysis in a Naturally Fractured Gas Reservoir
16