SPE 54630 ey ante | Non-Darcy and Multiphase Flow in Propped Fractures: Case Studies Illustrate the Dramatic Effect on Well Productivity Michael,C. Vincent, SPE, Insight Consulting; C. Merk Pearson, SPE; and John Kullman, SPE, CARBO Ceramics, inc copy 198, Soe feta Knee “oe emt nto 108 SPE Ht Fae Maen a pape wat aici reseraon by an SFE Program Cone cling rvw | SEIRE Cousin S Sat Sted oy we sens. Comets eg a rosa ira tebe rend ye Soe a Soro Soiears ord we Sete Ensen trike aunote Te mani as reseed das trees ele 2 "Tors Be Sicurat Peis Engr sai. marr, Papers ered Pa eee pilcson vow eae Commies 8 SCY © ‘sn eoeinves econ eefuton, Sevan, ram wy fa ce ape nae ane ae ep eato © a tke! 7a ee at STEMI oy et be copes Tne sstac et can cient EROS LSS HS ER eer ETS Abstract ‘The dramatic effects of non-Darcy and multiphase flow in propped hydraulic fractures have been documented by several authors"? However, many engineers disregard these effects when designing fracture weauments under the assumption that they only apply to high rate wells. This paper shows these effeets are significant even in wells considered to be low rate by current industry standards. Ignoring these effects will ofien lead to inaccurate production forecasts, sub- optimal fracture design, and selection of am inappropriate ‘ppant type. These mistakes result in lost revenues which an exceed $2 million per facture eatmen! for typical gas “dil well fracture treatments conducted in North America ant permeability values reported by the industry and dele aro reas = Single-phase fluid at extremely low velocities. The laboratory tas capulmed in the American Peuolewm Taste? (API) Recsmmuade Practice ramber 61 typically covrespord to cereal fad veloofies ranging ftom 02 0 2.0 inches per sen ower, intel fects, te actual Dud velocity seaetccond no feet per second, approximately 1000 tines Meester than in te laboratory measurements, AKough the Related ‘hat the lamrecamved values would not be blste under seta! facue conditions, the industry has Cea led to nuorporate conection factors into production erst compensie for aon Darcy flow elects.” a addison to aon-Darey efloets, the measured proppant perestiliy values fal to. incorporate the effet of Perpinse fw. Most gas wes will produce some fee se oe cron conloustey aad Masa ei wel wil Ee Paodicod below the bubblepomt-of We of, resting in volumes of free gas in the { This paper shows that non-Darcy and multiphase flow effects tequently resull in an effective facture conductivity 50% t0 989 lower, than the reference value obiained from the API_testng SeDEGS een Fedtions” for gel damage and proppent embedment often result in fracture permeabilities cr Eonductivities (the product of fiacture permeability and effective frecture width) of 1 t9 10% of the published values. “This paper examines the mistakes that are likely to be made when ignoring these effects, and cotimates the additional cashflow whick can be obtained by optimizing fracture design ‘ith consideration of makiphase and non Darcy flow. Introduction os) W? fois re pescey insite has publhed sandrd testing procedures’ yhich involve owing a single phase Ce eee gy Ket) ough a Tee Lowe de et ol ae extenaly Iw wats of 0 10 aoe i hes screspond toa range of #40 bpd a ea mand orf at 100 pn ode om ‘io fracture wings of 30 ft, high fracue. The superficial Oe tee On the bu nom he cde 2 Tach pe mits whim acta ec, te ve fed cere Pe ta feat per sosmas The AP oropaed TORS aa at ceprtonatve o cual codton snd Se ag Rieinanee™ wath te pecndues: UeaiirtOhe he tain procetresn tis pabcation are to cence prowde abselete vaca ofproppant renner ner dowmbote reservoir conan The "* While these authors report differing results regarding the absolute value of the ‘conductivity loss, all conclude thatthe effets are substantial Sud ahould et be ignored. Although he recommends measuring multiphase effects for specific cases, Penny. cst the effective conductivity ie typical Any a factor of three for each 4 barrels of I juced per ‘Evans reported that beta fictors increase by tenfold with sry small mobile liquid saturations.’ Milton-Tayler reported Feisor ognitede reductions ineffective conductivity dve to multiphase flow." Schubarth reviewed actual production fesulis from 550 gas wells and found a strong correlation between condensate yield (multiphase flow) and reduced productivity.'* Ia the literature, as in this paper, the effect of Faultiphase and non-Darcy flow can be teported in several ways. If the pressure drop across the proppant pack increases by ten-fold, the ie cynonymous with reporting a tenfold reduction i effective conductivity or a ten-fold increase in Yeu Converting the pressure drop to an effective conductivity is one technique to account for multiphase and nomDary elfess in » profvction model willing Derey’s law.® ced viscosity differences, ‘gas _phas vels_at tantially higher velocity than the liquid phase in the _ ‘However, due to the tormous flow path inside the _ Propper two_phases_ often. remain _in_ intimate contact Liquid droplets may de picked up (entrained) by the gas and substantial onergy is consumed ar the liguid is, tecelerated to many times its superficial velocity. When the droplet collides with a proppant grain, it andergocs substantial ecelerction only to be accelerated again by the ges phase "The sxteome inefficiencies in flow path and inertial losses are, sesponsible for th ly large pressure drops observed ‘Fike lboranry Sou adnan of # ea saline pence af liquid to « gas system. ‘A common mistake with oil wells is failure to recognize thatthe pressure in the fracture is typically far below bubble point, Although the average reservoir pressure can often be Iaintained a! ot above bubble point, the bottom hole pressure ‘@u) of the producing well is typically reduced to maximize ‘drawdown and production rates from the well, Tt is imporant ‘o realize that an oil well with a gas-cil ratio (2) of $60 sef'bel produces 90% gas by volume and only 1% liquid when evaluated at atmospheric pressure conditions. The bottom hole pressure may be 150 psi for wells with submersible pumps and may yield 90% gas and 10% liguid by volume. At some distance away fiom the wellbore, the pressure in the fracture may be 1500 psi; in which case, the fracture may be filled with 50% liquid and 509% gas. Unless the production ‘made! is linked to a compositional simulator, iti ualikely that it rigorously handles the evolutioa of sohution gas in the body of the fracture. Failing to consider that 50% to 90% of the fracture can be filled with free gas has obvious implications regarding the effective capacity of the fracture fo produce ‘Experimental measurements of multiphase, and noa-Darcy ‘low effects have been documented by Penny." As shown in Figure 3, the proppant conductivity measured at extremely low flowrates according to API specifications can be exceedingly optimistic. Even with 2 fairly modest well (1 rmimscfa from a bi-wing 50 ft fracture height), the non-Darcy flow effects reduce the effective conductivity of the proppant pack by approximately 70%. Addition of mere 10 bwEd to the 1 tmsefd causcs an incremental reduction of approximately 25% of the reference conductivity. Altough 10 bbls of water in 1 mmscfd appears to be © negligible volumetric percentage (0.006%) when evaluated at atmospheric pressure, the volumetric percentage is ~1% when evaluated at 3000 psi. Note, however, that adding a mere 19% liquid to the system increased the pressure drop by 550%! Saturation changes and relative permeability changes alone femnot account for this dramatic effect. Itis believed thatthe primary factor is the increased complexity of the flow regime Gu to phase interactions. Additional darnage to the proppant, “subs4 M,C. VINCENT, C. M. PEARSON, J. KULLMAN. pack duc t9 gel damage, embedment, long-term degradation, fines migration and other factors can result in effective conductivities that are 99% lower than suggested by the API testing procedures. predtion Models Few production models accurately handle non-Darcy flow. Although sophisticated 3-phase models can predict the effects of ntuation changes and relative permeability, tt appears that no mechanistic model currently available can accuretzly predict the extreme pressure drop due to phase interactions ‘within the intimately mined flow regimes typical in fractures Production models which assume infinite fracture conductivity are often unsuitable for these analyses. The ascumption of infinite fiacture conductivity provides fearonible results when the dimensionless fracture conductivity (Cp) is greater than 5007" In concept, infinite Snduetvity modele assume that the pressine drop in the fracture is negligible compared to the pressure drop in dhe ‘crmation. For a constant fracture length, Holditch has shown that to optimize economic retam. the Co should be in the range of 10 10 30. Elbel has shown that fracture designs with 2 Gp, of thee o© less cannot be improved significantly by inoveasing fracture Iength with the same conductivity. If the Gp io greater than 20, increasing, length will be_-more beneficial than increasing conductivity.” The case studies in {his poper indicate that the pressare drop in the fracture is frequently significant and fracture conductivities obtained in pravtcr will typically be far lower than optimal ‘Preduction ané economic forecasting tn this paper was prepared with Stim-Lab's SLFrac production model. This tool ar ehoten because it has the highest quality permesbility end bea factor deta in the industry and the production move! is available and used by the 40+ companies who are members of the Stim-Lab proppant consortium All the major service Companies are members of the congortium and may use the _Sfogram to evaluate potential facture 9.005 5 3 0.0087} = 0,003 & = 0.002 é 0.001 0.000 Lwe 2040 LG 1670 RCS zOME RCS I8NO Sandz0M40 Sand sono Data: SLErc, ly 9, Gas Well 8 ps stress, 20F,3e6 Modus, St el danas, ea Fig. 3 - Impact of Multiphase Non-Darcy Flow 20/40 Proppants at 2 sq , 6500 psiand 225 F “Adapted from SPE 30404 so soos — Goran Sang MResin Coated Sand BLignt Weight ceramic __ 2000 E = 20 2000 $ 1000 a] 1 a 202 ° a renee \ [wm tower) a win $0% Get) wen Long Form cconaucvay, ) "ew tow Dasey Poy)” Damage arsumad] grdnion, mele Reference Conductivity Conditions: Velocity ecivalent 65 MSCFD dry sn from bi-ving. 5 Fata heig at 300 pai ertom ok es. "Nox Dare Flow Canditons: Velocity equivalent io 1 MMSCTD chy ga rm bi-wing £0 fate eight t 2000p tom ole resus "Matiotuse Flow Cundldons: Equvala cf 10 dupe adsdw | MMSCED of ry gas at same condos.0 M. ©. VINGENT, ©. M, PEARSON, J. KULLMAN SPE 04030 Table 1. Deep Gas Well, Proppant Stress = 9278 psi Disregar Thcludes non-Darey Taclucing both Analytical Predictions: Proppant Multiphase and Effects, non-Darcy and Non-Darcy Effects Disregards multiphase Flow Multiphase flow” Trilla Production Rate 20140 Send 2764 423) 384 (1000 scfd) 20/40 RCS 3614 820 470 20/40 LWC 3763 1756. 1578 Effective Conduciiviy 20/40 Send 7é 15 04 {me-t) 20/40 RCS 387 42 24 20'40 LWC 717 15.4 88 Dimensiontess Fracture 20/40 Sand 14 0.03 O07 Conductivity (Fed) 20/40 RCS 70 0.08 0.04 20/40 LWe 42.9 0.28 0.46 Cash Flow after 3 years 20/40 Send Bris 117 602 of production 20/40 RCS 4487 1352 776 (S000, net of proppant cost) 20/40 LW 4662 2718 2507 Most Economic Proppant : for assumed trac geometry 20/40 LWC 20140 LW 20/40 LW “Time required to payout incremental investment for 20/40RCS <2 months <2 months <2 months premium proppant 2040LWG __<2 months <2 months <2 months % return on incremental Investment after three years 20/40 RCS 3600% 332% 916% 20/40 LWE 3419% 696% T327% Table 2. Shallow Ges Well, Proppant Stress = 1780 psi Disregarding Tholudes non-Darey Taduding Both Analytical Predictions: Multiphase and Effecis, non-Darey and Non-Darcy Effects _Disregards multiphase Flow Multiphase flow" Tritia Production Rate 20/40 Sand vit 614 a6t (1000 scfd) 20/40 RCS m 502 428 20/40 LWC 748 635, 520 Effective Conduciivily 20/40 Sand 1769 282 122 (md-it) 20/40 RCS. 1886 180 86 20/40 LWC 2033 387, 198 Dimensionless Fracture 20/40 Sand 32 64 24 Conductivity (Fed) 20/40 RCS. 34 32 16 20/40 LWC at. 10 36 Cash Flow afier Sears 20/40 Send a5 722 589) of production 20/40 RCS 797 65 550 (S000. net of proppant cost) _20/40 LW 794 m 622, ‘Most Economic Proppant for assumed frac geometry 20/40 Sand 20/40 Sand 20/40 LW “Time required to payout incremental investment for 20/40 RCS never never never premium proppant 20/40 LWC never ~4years 4 yoar % return on incremental investment after three years 20/40 RCS 95% 563% “258% 20!40 LWC 81% 42% £8%SSPE 54530 ON-DARCY AND MULTIPHASE FLOW IN PROPPED FRACTURES: (CASE STUDIES ILLUSTRATE THE DRAMATIC EFFECT ON WELL PRODUCTIVITY " Table 3. Moderate Depth Oil Well, § Ib/eq ft 20/40 Proppants, Proppant Stress = 3400 psi Analytical Predi Non-Dar Disregarding Multiphase and Including both rron-Darey and Tritial Production Rate 20/40 Sand 724 280 (bop) 20/40 RCS 734 293 20/40 LW 747, 654 Effective Conductivity 20/40 Sand 5903 484 (mo-tt) 20/40 RCS 7863 518 20/40 LW 16336 4677 Dimensionless Fracture 20/40 Sand 0.68 0.05 Conductivity (Fed) 20/40 RCS 087 0.06 20/60 LW 4.82 0.19 Cash Flow after Syears 20/40 Sand ‘5607 2482 of production 20/40 RCS. 5635 2556 |_(s000, net of proppant cost) 20/40 LWC sr04 5124 Most Economic Proppant for assumed frac geometry. 20/40 LW 20/40 LW “Time required to payout incremental invesment for 20/40 RGS 1.25 years 6 months premium proppant 20/40 LWC___§ months <4 month % return on incremental investment after three years 20/40 RCS 122% 322% 20/40 LWC 313% 8523% Table 4, Lower Rate Oil Well, 4 Ib'sq ft 20/40 Proppants, Proppant Stress = 3160 psi Disregarding inoluding both ‘Analytical Predictions: Mukiphase and non-Darey and Non-Darcy Effects Multiphase Flow Initia Production Rate 20/40 Sand 280 7 (bopd) 20/40 RCS. 283 404 20/40 LWC 293 266 Effective Conductiviy 20/40 Sand 3193 261 (md-tty 20/40 RCS 4089 300 20/40 LWC 8302 931 Dimensionless Fracture 20/40 Sand 0.53 0.04 Conductivity (Fod) 20/40 RCS 0.68 0.05 0/40 LWC 4.40 0.46 of production 20/80 RCS 2031 753 (8000, net of proppant cost) 20/40 LWC 2067 1813 ‘Most Economic Proppant for assumed frac geometry 20/49 LWC 20/40 LW Time required 10 payout incremental investmont for 20/40 RCS never 1.6 years premium proppant 20/40 WC __1.25 years <1 month, return on incremental investment afier three years 20/40 RCS 40% 83% 20/40 LWC 59% 246%SPE s4ea0 NON-DARCY ANO MULTIPHASE FLOW IN PROPPED FRACTURES: (CASE STUDIES ILLUSTRATE THE DRAMATIC EFFECT ON WELL PRODUCTIVITY tat Gash Flow fe sand (6000) "Slander anc 'Premiun’ RG Sand Light Weight Ceramic Heavy Weight Ceramic Incremet Relative to Sand (6000) ntal Cast Flow jncreme! Relative Fig. 5(b) Sa) Disregards Muitiohase and Non-Darcy Effects 5b) Includes Multiphas Fig. 5 - Incremental Gash Flow due to Proppant Selection — Oil Well Non-Darey Effectsome tum MOON) yes a AO oroz2uerg nomi ne au) 60m 40, io x rnin ‘on su aramie "oraz Sou onto "ovo Sb mine ‘hoe bs ‘noe foes ‘nazis ‘vos bars mips awe soy ven sar wae é ¢ ° ode 1 seasjeuy thy 30} "eq Indu) =xypueddy rare 35, NaW7n "P NOSEIVSE "WD “LNSONIA'O-WL *