A semi-analytical streamline simulation in near-wellbore regions and its applications under constant pressure boundaries

Tang, Xiaoyan (2017) A semi-analytical streamline simulation in near-wellbore regions and its applications under constant pressure boundaries. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Streamline simulation is a powerful tool that can be used for full field forecasting, history matching, flood optimization, and displacement visualization. This research thesis presents the extension of a semi-analytical streamline simulation method and its application in the near-wellbore region in two-dimensional polar coordinate systems and three-dimensional cylindrical coordinate systems. The main objective of this research thesis is to study the effects of the permeability heterogeneity and well completion details in the near-wellbore region. These effects dictate the streamline geometries, which in turn influence well productivity. It is revealed that the semianalytical streamline simulation method developed in this research thesis is the only known streamline method with sufficient accuracy for streamline simulation in polar/ cylindrical geometries. Previous streamline applications used a constant flow rate condition for each stream tube. However, wells in low permeability reservoirs are often produced at constant pressure. In this research thesis, streamline simulation is performed under constant pressure boundaries. This is a novel and non-trivial extension of streamline simulation. The semi-anlytical streamline method is applied in the perforated wells. Results indicate that it is the only method that can accurately simulate the streamline path in such wells. A new skin calculation method based on the semi-anlytical streamline simulation method is introduced and applied in perforated wells. This new skin calculation method is believed to be superior and can be used to examine the effect of the perforation parameters. It provides useful information for evaluating the well completion strategy. In this work, the two-phase displacement process is simulated along stream tubes. Solutions are constructed by treating each stream tube as a flow unit by invoking novel analytical solutions for such geometries. Visualization experiments are direct ways to investigate the effect of the heterogeneity on flow distribution. Two-dimensional radial waterflooding visualization experiments are performed under constant pressure boundaries for homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media. The homogenous case is used to history match and determine the relative permeabilities. Using these relative permeabilities, the semi-analytical streamline simulation method is independently validated against the results from the heterogeneous visualization experiments.

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