Robust and Flexible Hydrocarbon Production Forecasting Considering the Heterogeneity Impact for Hydraulically Fractured Wells

Producing oil and gas from increasingly more difficult reservoirs has become an unavoidable challenge for the petroleum industry because the conventional hydrocarbon resources are no longer able to maintain the production levels corresponding to the global energy demand. As the industrial investments in developing lower permeability reservoirs increase and more advanced technologies, such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, gain more attention and applicability, the need for more reliable means of production forecasting also become more noticeable. Production forecasting of hydraulically fractured wells is challenging, particularly for heterogeneous reservoirs, where the rock properties vary dramatically over short distances, significantly affecting the performance of the wells. Despite the recent improvements in well performance prediction, the issue of heterogeneity and its effects on well performance have not been thoroughly addressed by the researchers and many aspects of heterogeneity have yet remained unnoticed. In this paper, a novel empirical approach for production forecasting of multi-fractured horizontal wells is presented in an attempt to effectively include the effect of heterogeneity. This approach is based on the integration of hyperpolic decline curve analysis (DCA) and heterogeneity impact factor (HIF). This newly defined ratio quantifies the heterogeneity impact on the hydraulically fractured well performance and is calculated on the basis of net pressure match interpretation and post-fracture well test analysis. The proposed approach of the decline curve using heterogeneity impact factor (DCH) is validated against data from a southern North Sea field. The results show a maximum of 15% difference between the outcome of the proposed method and the most detailed three-dimensional history-matched model, for a 15 year period of production forecasts. DCH is a novel, fast, and flexible method for making reliable well performance predictions for hydraulically fractured wells and can be used in forecasting undrilled wells and the range of possible outcomes caused by the heterogeneity.