Long-Term Performance Of Hydraulically Fractured Layered
Rich Gas
Condensate Reservoir
Al-Hashim, HS; Hasmi, SS
MARCEL DEKKER INC, PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; pp: 505-521;
Vol: 22
King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals
http://www.kfupm.edu.sa
Summary
Compositional simulator has been used to investigate the effect of hydraulic fracture
on the performance of a layered rich gas condensate reservoir in Saudi Arabia. The
reservoir consists of five layers having permeabilities ranging from 0.08 to 115 md
with about 68% of the gas reserve located in the lowest permeability layer. The
fracture is assumed to penetrate all layers. The results of this investigation showed
that hydraulic fracturing of such a reservoir is effective in improving the productivity
of the gas condensate wells. The productivity index (PI) of the cases investigated was
found to increase by as much as 3.6 folds. Hydraulic fractures were also found to
delay the onset of the dew point pressure and consequently extend the production
plateau above the dew point pressure. The production plateau above the dew point
pressure was found to increase with increasing the dimensionless fracture
conductivity. The results of this study also showed that once the dew point pressure is
reached, the flowing bottom hole pressure was found to drop sharply to the specified
minimum flowing bottom hole pressure in the fractured and nonfractured cases.
However, the drop is less severe in the fractured case. This sharp drop in the flowing
bottom hole pressure results in dropping the productivity of the gas condensate wells.
Condensate build up along the fracture faces was found to be more significant in the
high permeability layers. At early times after reaching the dew point pressure, the
highest condensate saturation was found to be in the highest permeability layer.
However, at late times (after reaching pseudo steady state) it decreased to a certain
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Copyright: King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals;
http://www.kfupm.edu.sa
level above the critical condensate saturation. Finally, formation cross-flow is found
to improve the productivity of the fractured and the nonfractured gas condensate
wells. However, the improvement is more pronounced in the fractured cases.
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©
Copyright: King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals;
http://www.kfupm.edu.sa