Modeling and Simulation of Natural Gas Production from Unconventional Shale Reservoirs

Gary Feast¹, S. Sina Hosseini Boosari², Kim Wu¹, John Walton^3*, Zufang Cheng³, Bao Chen³

¹Novel Energy, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
²Petroleum and Natural Gas Department, West Virginia University, USA.
³Subsurface Shale Group, Columbus, OH, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/ijcce.2015.42003                

Abstract

Modeling and simulation of unconventional reservoirs are much more complicated than the conventional reservoir modeling, because of their complex flow characteristics. Mechanisms, which control the flow in the reservoir, are still under the investigation of researchers. However, it is important to investigate applications of mechanisms which are present to our knowledge. This paper presents the theory and applications of flow mechanisms in unconventional reservoir modeling. It is a well-known fact that most of the reservoir flow problems are non-linear due to pressure dependency of particular parameters. It is also widely accepted that fully numerical solutions are costly both computational and time wise. Therefore, the presented model in this paper follows semi-analytical solution methods. Gas adsorption in unconventional reservoirs is the major pressure dependent mechanism; in addition existence of natural fractures is also taken considerable attention. This paper aims to investigate combined effect of existence of natural fractures gas adsorption, and gas slippage effect while keeping the computational effort in acceptable range. Unlike the existing literature (Langmuir is widely used), BET multi-layer isotherm employed in this paper for gas adsorption modeling. A modified dual porosity modeling is used for natural fracture and gas slippage effect modeling. For model verification purposes a history matched is performed with real field data from Marcellus shale. The proposed model in this paper shows a good agreement with the field data. It is observed that BET isotherm models early time production performance more accurately than Langmuir isotherm. It is also concluded that gas adsorption significantly improves the production performances of unconventional reservoirs, with natural fractures. In addition, gas slippage has a slight effect in long term production.

Keywords

BET Desorption Isotherm, Shale Gas Reservoirs, Hydraulic Fracturing

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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