Practical methods to forecast production performance of horizontal wells

Conference · Sun Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:103909

Permadi, P ^[1]

---

1. Inst. Teknologi Bandung (Indonesia)

Hundreds of horizontal wells have been drilled and completed successfully in many oil producing countries. When properly utilized, horizontal wells produce more oil at lower cost. To support its economic evaluation, production prediction models are needed before the implementation. This paper presents two analytical methods for predicting performance of a horizontal well. One method uses a steady-state inflow equation to estimate breakthrough time for water.The second method proposed, which has been derived from a pseudosteady-state inflow and material balance equations, is suggested to forecast oil production versus producing time. The former method should be used for a horizontal well producing oil from a bottom water drive reservoir, while the latter should be applied to a horizontal well producing from a depletion drive reservoir. Field examples are given to show that the proposed methods work well. The presented correlations may help field engineers in designing or evaluating their planned horizontal wells before a sophisticated prediction tool available on hand.

• OSTI ID: 103909
• Report Number(s): CONF-950326--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
DIRECTIONAL DRILLING
FLUID FLOW
FORECASTING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
OIL WELLS
PERFORMANCE