Development and application of type curves for pressure transient analysis of horizontal wells in shale gas reservoirs

Abstract

Even though significant progresses have been made in the past few years, there appears to be a lack of information regarding the characterisation of shale gas formations. A major purpose of this study is to demonstrate impacts of horizontal well geometries and gas flow parameters as well as shale gas reservoir system on horizontal well production behaviour and flow regime on pressure transient analysis (PTA). Extensive numerical simulations were conducted to model transient pressure behaviour of a horizontal well and apply the results to well test analysis in shale gas reservoirs. Based on the results from numerical simulations, a set of type curves have been developed in terms of dimensionless pseudopressure and time. Results from type curve matching for synthetic pressure data in shale gas reservoirs demonstrate that the conventional analysis approach may still be applicable for the quantitative analysis on the transient gas flow behaviour and determination of formation properties.