Investigating the Behavior of Permeable and Impermeable Reservoirs in Southern of Iraq

Abstract

The effect of hydraulic fracturing on the permeability and fluid flow of various Iraqi oil storage cores has been studied. Rumaila, Majnoon, and Zubair fields with different permeability were included in this study. Experiments were performed to determine the breaking pressure of the permeable core. Therefore, numerical and experimental results were compared to test the constant pressure on the impermeable core. Finite Volume Method (EbFVM) corresponding to the Dual Porosity Dual Permeability Model (DPDP) was used. A fractured reservoir in the Iraqi fields was studied for its single-phase fluid flow behavior. To represent the pressure distributions, ANSYS-CFX program was used. The comparisons between the fractured and non-fractured cores has been presented. In this paper, the pressure for permeable cores of Rumaila field has been determined and verified during the experimental and numerical simulation due to its lower fracture pressure. Hence, the required pressure has been determined for impermeable cores of Majnoon and Zubair fields due to the difficulties to measure such high pressure. The results show that the expected pressure to make a flow for the core belongs to the Majnoon field reaches to 1.724×107 Pa (2500 psi), while the expected pressure for the fluid to flow into the core belongs to the Zubair field reaches 1.379×108 Pa (20000 psi).