ABSTRACT
It has been proved by laboratory and field experiments that the low-permeability interbed under the horizontal section is able to restrain bottom water cresting efficiently. However, the effect of the lower permeability interbeds is barely considered when computing the critical productivity of a horizontal well in a bottom drive reservoir. As a modification, this article presents a new critical productivity equation for horizontal wells by using equivalent flow resistance method. In this paper, the 3-dimensional seepage field is split into a 2-dimensional (2D) inner seepage filed and a 2D outer one. The production rate in the outer seepage field is achieved by Dupuit critical production equation, and the productivity equation in the inner field is obtained by using imaging principle. Then, the critical productivity of a horizontal well with low-permeability interbed is achieved and the water breakthrough is able to be predicted. The case study is conducted to demonstrate that the low-permeability interbed can restrain the rate of water cresting and delay the water breakthrough efficiently.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions for improving this paper. The authors also wish to thank the anonymous Associate Editor for his handling of the manuscript and additional suggestions.
Funding
This work was supported by the special fund of China’s central government for the development of local colleges and universities–the project of national first-level discipline in Oil and Gas Engineering and the key project of Education Department of Sichuan Province (No. 11ZA016).
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Geological Modeling and Geospatial Data Analysis
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Fu, Y. A critical productivity equation of horizontal wells in a bottom water drive reservoir with low-permeability interbeds. Arab J Geosci 12, 758 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4930-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4930-y