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Hydraulic fracturing stimulation is considered a successful development technique in tight gas reservoirs. However, these expensive operations sometime underperform due to ineffective fracture fluid (FF) clean-up. This paper concentrates on FF clean-up efficiency for a Multiple Fractured Horizontal Well (MFHW) completed in both homogeneous and naturally fractured (NF) tight gas reservoirs. The emphasis is on NF reservoirs that make up a large percentage of tight gas assets, as their clean-up efficiency has received little attention. In this study, two numerical simulation models, i.e. a single-porosity single-permeability and a dual porosity-dual permeability model representing a homogeneous and a NF tight gas reservoir respectively, were used. Simulations were conducted on a MFHW with seven hydraulic fractures (HF). The process comprised of injection of FF, then a soaking time (ST) followed by production. The impact of various parameters which includes ST, FF viscosity, pressure drawdown and parameters pertinent to relative permeability and capillary pressure in matrix, hydraulic and natural fractures, were evaluated. In addition, based on a newly proposed treatment process that generates in-situ pressure and thermal energy that breaks gel viscosity, the effect of resultant viscosity reduction and local pressure increase, for improving the clean-up efficiency was also assessed. In these simulations, and due to uncertainty in its value, NF permeability was varied over a wide range. For conclusive purposes, Gas Production Loss i.e. GPL (%) defined as the difference in total gas production between the completely clean and un-clean cases as a percentage of the clean case, after a specific production period was used. This paper prioritizes the impact of pertinent parameters and highlights the influence of thermochemicals on the clean-up efficiency thereby justifying its commercial practicality. For instance, it is shown that the presence of NFs results initially in higher GPL but then GPL reduces significantly. Reducing the FF viscosity improves clean-up significantly especially for the NF models as NFs are the main contributor to the gas and FF flow from the reservoir to surface via hydraulic fractures. The sometimes non- monotonic trend of GPL variations, depends on the specific combination of NFs’ permeability and FF viscosity which results in the certain fluid invasion profile and mobility in the system. The paper emphasis is on the impact of thermochemicals and natural fractures on the cleanup up efficiency of hydraulic fracturing stimulations that should be optimized to reduce cost, thereby increasing the profit from these projects. |
