Journal of Geophysics and Engineering

J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835–1842 (8pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-2140/aab939

A method for production data analysis

considering significant discontinuities in
unconventional reservoirs
Qingyu Li1, Peichao Li2, Wei Pang3, Jianping Huang4, Haibo Liang5 and
Detang Lu1

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1
Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027,
People’s Republic of China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620,
People’s Republic of China
3
Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Beijing 100101, People’s Republic of China
4
Well Testing Company of CNPC Xibu Drilling Engineering Co, Ltd, Karamay 834000, People’s Republic
of China
5
Xinjiang Petroleum Engineering Construction Supervision Co, Ltd, Karamay 834000, People’s Republic
of China

E-mail: dtlu@ustc.edu.cn

Received 6 December 2017, revised 28 February 2018

Accepted for publication 23 March 2018
Published 4 June 2018

Abstract
Significant discontinuities exist in the production data of many unconventional reservoirs, which
always causes difficulties in production data analysis (PDA). This paper proposes a PDA method
to address the problem caused by the significant discontinuities based on the virtual equivalent
time, which is calculated by using the average formation pressure. With the virtual equivalent
time, production data with significant discontinuities are converted into several interconnected
segments, and new type curves are then generated and applied to PDA, which improves the
fitting precision of the production data. With the improved fitting results, accurate productivity
forecasting can be achieved. A field case study is carried out, comparing the new method with
commercial software. The results show that the new method has better fitting results, and that the
errors caused by significant discontinuities are effectively eliminated. The effectiveness of the
proposed method is further verified by the comparison between the forecasting data and the field
data. The method proposed in this paper can improve the precision of the interpreted parameters,
which is beneficial to the more reliable and efficient prediction of well production performance.

Keywords: unconventional reservoirs, production data analysis, significant discontinuities,

virtual equivalent time
(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction flow regimes (Nobakht et al 2013). In particular, the multiple

Nowadays, unconventional reservoirs such as tight and shale
reservoirs are being aggressively explored and developed in
North America and China (EIA 2016). The ultra-low porosity
and permeability always lead to no natural productivity, and
thus multi-fractured horizontal wells are the most popular
stimulation technique. The application of multi-fractured
horizontal wells is expected to create a complex sequence of
flow mechanisms in shale, such as adsorption/desorption and
diffusion, lead to more complex production behaviors.
Meanwhile, the transient flow regimes in a formation will last
for many years due to the ultra-low permeability, which
increases the difficulty of pressure transient analysis. There-
fore, to ensure that such unconventional reservoirs produce
efficiently and stably, production data analysis (PDA) is
essential during field production (Clarkson 2013).

1742-2132/18/0501835+08$33.00 1835 © 2018 Sinopec Geophysical Research Institute Printed in the UK

J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835
PDA is widely applied to long-term production data of a
single well (Ali et al 2013), and provides a full-life analysis for
unconventional oil and gas production. It can estimate flow
regimes and formation parameters, and provide history matching
and production forecasting results (Matter 2008). The conven-
tional PDA method for vertical wells was first proposed by Arps
(Arps 1945). He presented the decline curve analysis method to
obtain the reserves of oil reservoirs and forecast their production.
Fetkovich (1980) developed the decline curve analysis method,
extending the Arps type curves to the unsteady flow prior to
the boundary control flow. Palacio and Blasingame (1993) pre-
sented the definition of material balance time and normalized
pressure/rate to deal with the variable bottom hole pressure
condition. PDA of gas wells can be conducted on the basis of
Blasingame type curves.
The above traditional methods apply to vertical wells.
However, as for horizontal wells, the resulting estimates
of reservoir and fracture properties may be inaccurate
(Vardcharragosad et al 2015). In other words, the traditional-
type curves are always unsuitable for unconventional reser-
voirs. Recently, a few methods have been proposed to deal
with shale and tight reservoirs (Li et al 2016a). Ilk et al
(2008) provided a ‘power-law exponential’ rate relation
based on Arps’ method under the condition of the loss ratio
b>1. This relation can describe the flow regimes in shale
and tight reservoirs. Clarkson and Beierle (2011) proposed a
new method, which discussed the relation between [m(pi)-m
(pwf)]/qg and the superposition function. Nobakht et al (2013)
developed new type curves for horizontal wells with multiple
fractures for shale gas reservoirs. Wei et al (2016a, 2016b)
presented Blasingame decline type curves for multi-fractured
horizontal wells in shale gas reservoirs with a new definition
of material balance pseudo-time.
In view of the extremely low permeability of uncon-
ventional reservoirs (Lin et al 2017), PDA is usually the only
practical way of evaluating and diagnosing long-term pro-
duction. However, PDA methods still have some problems to
be addressed. For most unconventional reservoirs, frequent
shut-ins and nozzle size changing occur, leading to significant
discontinuities (abrupt rise or drop), fluctuation, or even loss
of production data. Thus, when there exist several significant
discontinuities in production data, it is difficult for the
existing curve types to satisfactorily match the production
data. One possible reason is the changing of flow regimes.
Take a well in which the flow regime is radial as an example
—if the well shuts down for a long enough time and then
restarts production, the flow regime will no longer be radial.
Correspondingly, the type curves need to be modified.
The cumulative error is another possible reason. During field
production in unconventional reservoirs, the pressure and
flow rate data are always measured once per day, which will
lead to a certain error. In particular, when a well restarts
production after shut-ins, it is worth noting that the measured
time points are not exactly the starting time points. The dif-
ference can even be several hours, leading to substantial
cumulative errors when calculating the pressures or flow rates
with the superposition principle.
1836
Q Li et al
However, most of the present PDA methods cannot
address the issues caused by significant discontinuities ade-
quately. In the case of significant discontinuities in production
data, the currently popular approach is to divide the produc-
tion data into several stages and choose the favorable stages
for analysis. Although the impacts of significant dis-
continuities can be reduced in this way, the initial formation
pressure of each period becomes unknown. This will affect
the result’s accuracy considerably. On the other hand, the
commercial software (Topaze NL 2016) presented the time-
dependent skin method to address the issue of significant
discontinuities. The skin factors of different time stages are
assumed to be different. In fact, both the stage division and
skin assignment are determined by the operators. Thus, this
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may increase uncertainties and result in multiple solutions.
To address the issues caused by significant discontinuities,
we propose a new PDA method based on the virtual equivalent
time. This method is on the basis of the conventional Blasingame
type curve method. First, we introduce the PDA method and
obtain the type curves for multi-fractured horizontal wells. Sec-
ond, the virtual equivalent time, which can solve the matching
problem for production data with significant discontinuities, is
introduced to modify the type curves. These modified type
curves, based on the virtual equivalent time can then be used in
PDA and history matching. Finally, the procedure of the pro-
posed PDA is provided, and a field case study is carried out
using both the new method and commercial software.
2. PDA
2.1. Type curves
For most reservoir models and wellbore conditions, type
curves used for PDA can be obtained on the basis of the
analytical solutions of bottom hole pressure. Currently, multi-
fractured horizontal wells are widely used in unconventional
reservoir simulation. Here we take a multi-fractured hor-
izontal well in the rectangle formation as an example to
illustrate the PDA method. The dimensionless bottom hole
pressure solution pD = f (tD ) is derived in appendix.
By solving equation (A-2), the relation of pD - tD can be
obtained and plotted; then the two auxiliary dimensionless
variables pDi and pDid are defined as follows (Blasingame
et al 1989):
2 tD
pDi =
tD ò0 pD dt (1 )
dpDi dp
pDid = = tD Di = 2pD - pDi . (2 )
d ln tD dtD
According to the Blasingame type curve method, the type
curves of pD - tD, pDi - tD and pDid - tD are illustrated in
figure 1.
2.2. Type curve matching
In order to conduct type curve matching, the field production
data need to be converted from p−q−t form into pd−tc form.
J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835 Q Li et al

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Figure 1. Type curves of multi-fractured horizontal wells in
rectangular formation.

Here, we give the definitions of material balance time and

normalized pressure (Doublet et al 1994) as below:

tc =
ò qdt (3 ) Figure 2. Definition of virtual equivalent time.
q
pi - pwf
pd = . (4 ) • Fracture half-length:
q
K 1 B P
As for type curve matching, besides the above pd , xf = ⋅ = ⋅ M. (10)
another two auxiliary variables are employed so as to improve fmc TM 2phfc TM
the resolution and function of type curve matching:
tc pi - pwf • Skin factor:
2
pdi =
tc ò0 q
dt (5 )
⎛r ⎞
S = ln ⎜ w ⎟. (11)
⎝ xf ⎠
dpdi dp
pdid = = tc di = 2pd - pdi . (6 )
d ln tc dtc

With the field data converted, type curve matching can be 3. PDA considering significant discontinuities
conducted. Then with any match point recorded we can obtain
the matched values of time and pressure: When there exist several significant discontinuities, the above
type curves cannot always match the field production data
⎛t ⎞ very well, as mentioned in the Introduction. In this section,
TM = ⎜ D ⎟ (7 )
⎝ tc ⎠ MP the virtual equivalent time is introduced to address the issues
caused by significant discontinuities.
⎛p ⎞
PM = ⎜ D ⎟ . (8 ) 3.1. Definition of virtual equivalent time
⎝ pd ⎠ MP
Figure 2 shows the history data of well bottom hole pressure
Note that some formation parameters such as oil and gas with one shut-in. Herein, pi is the initial formation pressure, t0
reserves, permeability, skin factor, can be calculated via the is the starting time. The well produces at constant rate q0 from
above matched values (Ilk et al 2010), as shown below: t0 to t1, and it is shut down until t2. p represents the average
formation pressure at t1. Clearly, the pressure first drops
• Formation effective permeability:
before the well is closed (t0 < t < t1). The pressure buildup
then occurs during the shut-in period (t1 < t < t2 ), and after
mB
K= ⋅ PM. (9 ) the short shut-in, the well resumes production and the pres-
2ph sure continues to drop (t > t2 ).

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J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835 Q Li et al

With the relation of pwf =f (t), we calculate a piece of 3.3. Procedure for PDA with consideration of significant
virtual data under the condition of constant flow rate q2 (flow discontinuities
rate at t2). In this piece of virtual data, p is the initial for-
In summary, the overall procedure of PDA for multi-fractured
mation pressure, and the flow rate is q2. The virtual equivalent
time te is defined as horizontal wells in unconventional reservoirs is provided as
follows:
te = f -1 ( p - p2 ) (12) 1. Verify the basic parameters of the reservoir, and
where p2 is the pressure at t2. configure the field production data with pd−tc, pdi−tc,
By integrating the pressure distribution (Lu and and pdid−tc form on a scaled log−log grid.
Kong 1993, Li et al 2000), the average formation pressure p 2. Choose a group of reasonable well parameters and
can be obtained as formation boundaries xe ´ ye , and generate the type
curves using the methods.
3. Calculate the virtual equivalent time te at the time points
∬ p (x, y, t ) dxdy of significant discontinuities and modify the type curves
p (t ) =

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(13)
A at period tD >teD.
4. Conduct type curve matching and record the match
where A is the area of the formation.
values TM and PM. Then calculate the formation
The physical meaning of virtual equivalent time is a
virtual starting time after shut-ins. The production data before parameters such as K and xf.
well startup are converted to an equivalent data of which the 5. With the obtained parameters, conduct history matching
starting time is (t2 − te), and the initial formation pressure is using the superposition principle.
p . In other words, the discontinuous field data caused by a For gas reservoirs, the procedure for history matching is the
shut-in are converted into a new continuous dataset (con- same, except that the pressure and time are to be replaced by the
taining the dotted parts noted as virtual data in figure 2) from normalized pseudo-pressure and normalized pseudo-time.
(t2 − te) to t3, and the initial formation pressure is calculated
as p .

3.2. Determination of virtual equivalent time 4. Field example

For unconventional reservoirs, the relationship between bot-
4.1. Basic parameters and type curve matching
tom hole pressures and time can be obtained by solving
equation (A-2). We can express the relation in functional The 17208-hour data of multi-fractured horizontal shale gas
form: well are investigated. We assume that the formation is iso-
pwD = f (tD). (14) tropic, homogeneous with a finite rectangular closed bound-
ary, and the 1100-meter-long horizontal well with 15 fractures
Recalling equation (A-7), the dimensionless virtual
equivalent time teD can be expressed as follows: of equal length is located in the center of the formation, and
the dimensions of the formation are estimated as
⎡ 2p ( p - p ) Kh ⎤ 1200 m×600 m. The interference among the fractures is
teD = f -1 ⎢ 2
⎥. (15) ignored. In case of the unique properties of shale (Li
⎣ q2 Bm ⎦
et al 2016b, 2016c), Wang (2014) provided the bottom hole
Take the point source solution as an example pseudo-pressure solution with consideration of adsorption
(Kong 2010) to obtain the virtual equivalent time. In this case, effects. The definitions of normalized pseudo-pressure pp and
the pressure distribution is material balance pseudo-time tca are
qBm ⎛ r 2 ⎞ ⎛ mg z ⎞
p (x , y , t ) = pi + Ei ⎜ - ⎟ (16) p
4pkh ⎝ 4ct ⎠ pp = ⎜
⎝ p ⎠
⎟ ò mg z dp, (18)
k ¥ ey
where c =
fmct
, Ei (-u ) º -
u
ò
y
dy.
(mg ct )i q
With pi replaced by p , the virtual equivalent time can be
obtained as
tca =
q ò mg ct dt. (19)

4c -1⎡ 4pkh ( p2 - p ) ⎤ Note that the nozzle was changed at about the 3100th hour,
te = - Ei ⎢ ⎥. (17) and well interference occurred around from the 10200th hour to
r2 ⎣ q2 Bm ⎦
the 13000th hour. The four key time points are 3168, 6192,
10 968, 13 704 h. The basic properties are listed in table 1. The
For the production data with several significant dis- fitting parameters are shown in table 2. We conduct the type
continuities, we can follow the above steps to calculate the curve matching as shown in figure 3. We can see that significant
virtual equivalent times at each abrupt change point. discontinuities lead to distinct breaks in type curves.

1838
J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835 Q Li et al

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Figure 4. History matching of flow rate (q) and cumulative
production (Q) in the shale gas well.
Figure 3. Type curve matching of the shale gas well.

Table 1. Parameters and components of the shale gas well.

Basic parameters Values (unit) Gas components Percentage

pi 42 (MPa) CH4 94.07
h 38 (m) C2H6 3.01
T 358.15 (K) C3H8 1.40
f 4% N2 0.25
VL 7.45 (m3/m3) CO2 0.73
pL 6.02 (MPa) Others 0.54

Table 2. Fitting parameters.

Fitting Proposed Commercial

parameters method (unit) software (unit) Figure 5. History matching of bottom hole pressure (p) in the shale
−3 −3 gas well.
k 5.34×10 (md) 5.36×10 (md)
Skin 0.1 Time-dependent
tM 71.91 (1/hour) 72.02 (1/hour) Table 3. Time-dependent skins.
PM 0.011(MPa−1) 0.010 (MPa−1) Time duration (hours) Skin
xf 126 (m) 126 (m)
0∼740.164 0.005
740.164∼3010.054 0.043 49
3010.054∼3846.563 0.1
4.2. History matching 3846.563∼5743.143 0.02
5743.143∼7809.653 0.043 49
Based on the type curve matching results, the history 7809.653∼8845.801 0.01
matching is carried out with the presented method and com- 8845.801∼16 538.301 0.043 49
mercial software, as illustrated in figures 4, 5. It is mentioned 16 538.301∼17208 0.043 49
that the skin factors given by commercial software at different
time periods are different from each other, as shown
in table 3. The related data illustrated in table 4 are employed
in the presented method to conduct history matching at four Figure 5 shows that the pressures given by the proposed
time points. method are in good agreement with the field data. However,
It can be seen from figure 4 that both the flow rates and the pressures given by commercial software deviate remark-
cumulative production given by the proposed method agree ably from field data at the 3000th-4000th hour and the
well with the field data, while the flow rates given by com- 8000th-18000th hour. This shows that the history matching is
mercial software have certain deviations at the 500th-1500th obviously affected by the nozzle changing at the 3000th hour.
hour and 7900th-8800th hour. Correspondingly, the cumula- The time-dependent skin method presented by commercial
tive production given by commercial software deviates from software can improve the quality of history matching, but the
field data a little after the 6500th hour. results are not accurate enough.

1839
J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835 Q Li et al

Table 4. Related data used in history matching.

Time points (hours) Pressure (MPa) Flow rate (m3/d) Average pressure (MPa) Virtual equivalent time (hours)
3168 36.72 62 664 41.604 27.27
6192 32.50 66 643 40.881 139.42
10 968 24.50 59 855 39.903 150.22
13 704 28.84 61 000 39.540 136.48

5. Conclusion

This paper proposes a revised PDA method to address the

problems caused by the significant discontinuities in uncon-
ventional reservoirs facing methods based on conventional

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Blasingame type curves. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the
proposed method is verified via a field case study. The main
conclusions are summarized as follows.

(1) By using the average formation pressure and discontin-

uous field data, the virtual equivalent times are defined
according to the pressure solutions. With virtual
equivalent time, the production data with significant
discontinuities can be converted into several intercon-
nected segments with known initial formation
pressures.
Figure 6. Comparison between the forecasting pressure data and the (2) Based on the virtual equivalent time, the modified type
field data. curves for discontinues field data are derived. Sig-
nificant discontinuities of production data lead to
In summary, the history matching data given by com- distinct breaks in these type curves.
mercial software agree with the field data in tendency, while (3) The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified via
occasionally fluctuating and deviating remarkably from field a field example. Compared with the commercial
data. In contrast, the history matching data given by the new software, better fitting results are achieved. The
method show good agreement with the field data. This implies agreement between the forecasting pressure data and
that the errors are nearly eliminated. In this case, the com- the field data further indicates the validity of the
putational time is less than 0.1 s. The results above show that method.
the analytical method presented in this paper is more reliable
The proposed method can apply to most unconventional
and practical, and that the computational efficiency is high.
reservoirs. Our future work will focus on the application in
shale gas reservoirs, considering such unique properties as
adsorption, diffusion and pressure-sensitive effects.
4.3. Further verification of the proposed method

Furthermore, we forecast the production data of the well for

8640 h based on the above matching results to verify the Acknowledgments
effectiveness of the proposed method.
According to the history flow rate, it is clear that the flow This work is supported by CAS Strategic Priority Research
rate remains approximately 60 000 m3/d at the later produc- Program (Grant No. XDB10030402), CNPC-CAS Strategic
tion stage. Thus, we forecast the bottom hole pressure data Cooperation Research Program (Grant No. 2015A-4812), and
with a constant flow rate (60 000 m3/d). The comparison National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
between the forecasting bottom hole pressure data and the 41672114).
field data is then conducted; the result in this case is illustrated
in figure 6.
Figure 6 shows that the tendency of forecasting data is Appendix
reasonable, and the field data fluctuate around the forecasting
data. The good agreement between the forecasting data and According to Duhamel’s principle, the pressure expression
the filed data proves the validity of type curve matching and under the condition that the flow rate is variable can be given by
history matching results. Moreover, the effectiveness of the
t
proposed method to address the problems caused by sig-
nificant discontinues is further confirmed.
Dp (x , y , t ) = ò0 q (t ) S (x , y , t - t ) d t (A-1)

1840
J. Geophys. Eng. 15 (2018) 1835 Q Li et al

where S (x, y, t ) is the pressure solution under the condition that Clarkson C R and Beierle J J 2011 Integration of microseismic and
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