Numerical study of the effect of propped surface area and fracture conductivity on shale gas production: Application for multi-size proppant pumping schedule design

Bhandakkar, Parth; Siddhamshetty, Prashanth; Sang-Il Kwon, Joseph

doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2020.103349

Numerical study of the effect of propped surface area and fracture conductivity on shale gas production: Application for multi-size proppant pumping schedule design

Journal Article · Wed May 13 04:00:00 EDT 2020 · Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2020.103349· OSTI ID:1799394

Bhandakkar, Parth ^[1]; Siddhamshetty, Prashanth ^[2]; ^[2]

Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A&M Energy Institute; OSTI
Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A&M Energy Institute

Hydraulic fracturing is a technique extensively used in the oil and gas industry, where water, proppant (sand) and additives are injected into unconventional reservoirs to enhance the recovery of shale hydrocarbon. Although some previous studies have developed pumping schedules that maximize gas production for a single-size proppant, there are very few studies that consider the effect of varying proppant diameters across pumping stages on shale gas production. Motivated by this, we carried out an extensive sensitivity analysis to determine the effect of different proppant diameters on the average fracture conductivity (FC), average propped surface area (PSA) and cumulative shale gas production volume. We found out that the cumulative shale gas production volume depends on both the average PSA and average FC. We also found out that small-diameter proppant resulted in higher average PSA and lower average FC, whereas large-diameter proppant resulted in lower average PSA and higher average FC. Hence, we designed a multi-size proppant pumping schedule considering both of these parameters into account for simultaneously propagating multiple fractures to maximize shale gas production from unconventional reservoirs. Since the size of injected proppant particles determines the average PSA and average FC for the propped hydraulic fractures, we developed a novel framework called Sequentially Interlinked Modeling Structure (SIMS) to predict the average PSA, average FC and cumulative shale gas production volume at the end of 10 years for a given pumping schedule. Then, we used this SIMS framework to obtain a multi-size proppant pumping schedule that maximizes shale gas production. In closing, we demonstrated that the obtained pumping schedule gives a cumulative shale gas production volume greater than the values obtained from the existing pumping schedules.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), New York, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: EE0007888

OSTI ID:: 1799394

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1630258

Journal Information:: Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering, Journal Name: Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering Journal Issue: C Vol. 79; ISSN 1875-5100

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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