Hydraulic fracturing strategy in gas condensate reservoirs

Abstract

Gas condensate reservoirs usually exhibit complex flow behaviors. The gas condensate reservoir is initially gas at the reservoir condition. Liquid forms in the reservoir when the bottomhole pressure drops below the dew point pressure. The accumulated condensate in the vicinity of the well bore causes a blockage effect, reduces the gas effective permeability, and causes reduction in well productivity and recovery of heavy components at the surface. Hydraulic fracturing is a well known and common practice to improve the well productivity, especially in tight gas condensate reservoirs. Horizontal well with hydraulic fractures can achieve significant productivity improvements over a non-fractured horizontal well. Many horizontal wells have been drilled in gas condensate reservoirs, but a few of them was hydraulically fractured. The main objective of this paper is to study hydraulic fracturing for horizontal wells in gas condensate reservoirs using reservoir simulation model to obtain better understanding of its effect on gas and condensate recovery. Effect of different hydraulic fracture design parameters on the performance of hydraulically fractured horizontal well was studied. These parameters are fracture spacing, fracture half-length, fracture width, fracture permeability and number of fracture. The results found in this study show that fracturing the well significantly decreases gas production time. Hydraulic fracturing reduces the pressure drawdown, leading to less liquid condensate dropout near the wellbore and more condensate produced at surface.