The significance of non-Darcy and multiphase flow effects in high-rate, frac-pack gas completions
Conference Paper
Overview
Overview
abstract
Hydraulic fracturing combined with gravel packing in high-permeability gas reservoirs (frac-packing, F&P) is currently considered the most reliable completion technology for offshore Gulf of Mexico completions. Reservoir simulation and an inflow equation for pressure drop across the perforation tunnels to quantify the relative pressure drop contributions in the reservoir, fracture, and gravel pack system were used. Non-Darcy flow in the fracture and perforation tunnels led to substantial near-wellbore pressure drops for typical F&P gas wells with gas rates > 0.2-3 million scf/day/ft. Increasing fracture conductivity and fracture lengths and using proppants with lower non-Darcy flow coefficients could help in reducing non-Darcy pressure drops and optimizing F&P completions. The non-Darcy pressure drop increased significantly with gel damage and/or mobile formation water. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (Houston, TX 9/26-29/2004).
