Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology最新文献

Bedding planes are abundant in shale oil reservoirs, but the intrinsic mechanism of fracture-height containment by these weak interfaces remains unclear. To investigate the effects of interface properties, stress conditions, and fracturing fluid viscosity on the vertical propagation of fracture heights in laminated shale oil reservoirs, a three-dimensional hydro-mechanical coupling numerical model was developed. The model is based on the 3D discrete lattice algorithm (DLA), which replaces the balls and contacts in the conventional synthetic rock mass model (SRM) with a lattice consisting of spring-connected nodes, resulting in improved computational efficiency. Additionally, the interaction between hydraulic fractures and bedding planes is automatically computed using a smooth joint model (SJM), without making any assumptions about fracture trajectories or interaction conditions. The results indicate that a higher adhesive strength of the laminated surface promotes hydraulic fracture propagation across the interface. Increasing the friction coefficient of the laminated surface from 0.15 to 0.91 resulted in a twofold increase in the fracture height. Furthermore, as the difference between vertical and horizontal principal stresses increased, the longitudinal extension distance of the fracture height significantly increased, while the activated area of the laminar surface decreased dramatically. Moreover, increasing the viscosity of the fracturing fluid led to a decrease in filtration loss along the laminar surface of the fracture and a rapid increase in net pressure, making the hydraulic fracture more likely to cross the laminar surface directly. Therefore, for heterogeneous shale oil reservoirs, a reverse-sequence fracturing technique has been proposed to enhance the length and height of the fracture. This technique involves using a high-viscosity fracturing fluid to increase the fracture height before the main construction phase, followed by a low-viscosity slickwater fracturing fluid to activate the bedding planes and promote fracture complexity. To validate the numerical modeling results, five sets of laboratory hydraulic fracturing physical simulations were conducted in Jurassic terrestrial shale. The findings revealed that as the vertical stress difference ratio increased from 0.25 to 0.6, the vertical fracture area increased by 1.98 times. Additionally, increasing both the injection displacement and the viscosity of the fracturing fluid aided in fracture height crossing of the laminar facies. These results from numerical simulation and experimental studies offer valuable insights for hydraulic fracturing design in laminated shale oil reservoirs.

Most of oil reservoirs in the world have faced decrease in production and they are in the second half of their life cycle. Therefore, tertiary and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques are needed for continuous production from these reservoirs. As choosing the most appropriate EOR methods for a reservoir is a challenging task for reservoir engineers, screening of EOR approaches is of high importance before any full field simulation and experiments. Enhanced oil recovery screening is a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem and hence, a systematic statistical algorithm based on MCDM can be used for this purpose. In this study, for the first time, a new EOR screening method is proposed by using VIKOR and Monte-Carlo algorithms. The approach used a large database of successful EOR projects around the world and was applied to 12 various EOR methods including a wide range of conditions and properties. Pre-processing was performed on the gathered database and then based on reservoir engineering analyses and using a pairwise comparison matrix, initial weights were considered for the parameters in each EOR method. Afterward, these weights were used in the proposed VIKOR MCDM calculation algorithm and the corresponding numerical values of EOR techniques for each reservoir were obtained. Finally, the EOR method with the highest corresponding value was selected as the most suitable method. Results demonstrated that by using the presented approach, a high classification accuracy of 98% was obtained for different cases, which shows the proficiency and robustness of the developed screening algorithm. In addition, the reliability of the developed method was validated using data obtained from 11 oil reservoirs in the southwest of Iran. Also, the results were compared with the results of previous studies and they were in a very good match. The developed approach is less expensive and faster than full field simulation method and can be used as an efficient EOR screening approach for reservoirs with different properties in the world.

In order to realize the efficient development of unconventional oil and gas, the measurement accuracy of wellbore spacing in the drilling of parallel horizontal wells is more and more required. Although the Rotating Magnet Ranging System or Magnetic Guidance Tool is used to achieve a good ranging effect in the drilling of dual horizontal wells, the position measurement of the magnetic sub leads to a large ranging error. A new ranging algorithm for the Two Sensor Packages-Rotating Magnet Ranging System is presented in this paper. The algorithm takes the magnetic signal generated by the rotation of the magnetic sub at a fixed position, the tilt measurement data of the two wells, the length of the magnetic sub, and the distance between the two fluxgate sensors as input parameters to avoid measuring the position of the magnetic sub and to reduce the influence of the degree of non-parallelism and the length of the magnetic sub. The simulation and experiment demonstrate that the inclination and azimuth angles of the two wells have a significant impact on the magnetic ranging results when the ranging well sections are not parallel and that the distance between the bottom of the drill bit and the center of the magnetic sub cannot be ignored. Moreover, the accuracy of the relative distance calculated by this new algorithm can reach 97%, and the error of direction calculation is less than 3°. Applying this algorithm in the field can successfully aid in controlling the spacing of cluster horizontal wells more accurately.

Conventionally, volcanic margins have been considered devoid of hydrocarbon, but many discoveries and research in recent past have proved the presence of hydrocarbon prospects within them. However, hydrocarbon exploration within volcanic margin is constrained by seismic imaging. Further, identification of continent to oceanic boundary (COB) is critical to hydrocarbon search as hydrocarbon is found mostly over continental crust. Seaward dipping reflectors, associated with volcano-sedimentary sequences, located along rifted continental margins and represented by highly dipping strong amplitude seismic reflectors, play an important role to study volcanic margins. Keeping in view the problems of hydrocarbon exploration within volcanics, seaward dipping reflectors (SDRs) in Indian context have been studied in detail in this paper. It facilitates mapping of continent-oceanic boundary (COB). It has impact on hydrocarbon prospectivity in volcanic margins as it can provide formidable seal and secondary induced maturity. In India, several discoveries have been made in volcanic margins along west coast, from weathered, fractured basalt and sub-basalt sediments. In the present work, long offset regional seismic data (18 dip lines and 1 cross line), along east coast, have been interpreted. SDRs help in hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment for both discrimination of interbedded sediments and preferential accumulation of hydrocarbon. Mapping of linear features not only helped to demarcate COB but also their presence at 6–10 km depth. For the first time, such comprehensive study on SDRs has been done along Indian peninsular region with indications for hydrocarbon prospectivity at deeper levels along Indian peninsular region.