An analytical model for analyzing the impact of fracturing fluid-induced formation damage on rate transient behavior in tight formations

Abstract

Abstract An enormous amount of fracturing fluid is irreducible in the tight formation after hydraulic fracturing stimulation. This will cause serious damage to the fracture face as well as the matrix close to the hydraulic fractures by invading into the matrix. Modeling the effect of water blockage on rate transient behavior is significant in reservoir engineering. This paper presents a modified trilinear model to analyze the rate transient behavior after flowback period. Single-phase flow is assumed in this stage because most injected water is hard to be reduced. For damage to the matrix caused by rock-fluid interaction, clay swelling, and polymer adsorption, a fracturing fluid invasion layer is added to the model between hydraulic fractures and the inner stimulated reservoir volume to capture this kind of damage. A skin factor is used to capture the damage to the matrix-fracture face caused by gel filter cake formation and polymer adsorption. The analytical model is benchmarked using the commercial numerical simulator Eclipse. Several synthetic cases and a field case are studied, the results show that water blockage has a great impact on the productivity of the well and decline curves. The effect of choking effect, convergence flow, and gel filter cake could be incorporated using a skin factor in the model. In addition, two more flow regimes could be observed on the theoretical type curve if the well is affected by water blockage, and the two flow regimes would happen before linear flow dominated by the inner stimulated zone. Besides, the duration of the inner zone linear flow regime could be shortened if the permeability of the fracturing fluid invasion layer is lower and invasion depth is larger. These phenomena can be used in matching the field production data from water blockage affected wells, which exhibit a transition flow regime before the formation linear flow regime. This transition flow regime could be matched quite better using the proposed model than the classical trilinear flow model. The reason is that the linear flow regime could be much longer if the water blockage effect is not considered in the model. On the other hand, the skin factor has a different impact on the flow regimes, so the water blockage effect could be characterized properly only by adding a skin factor to the model. The main contribution of this paper is the provision of an analytical model for evaluating the formation damage caused by irreducible fracturing fluid, analyzing production data and making forecasts.