Journal of Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology

A general mathematical model for predicting temperature profiles in drilling, fracturing, and producing wells in liquid-rich shale reservoirs

World Congress on Petroleum and Refinery

July 21-22, 2016 Brisbane, Australia

Boyun Guo and Gao Li

University of Louisna at Lafayette, USA
Southwest Petroleum University, China

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pet Environ Biotechnol

Abstract:

Production of oil and gas from liquid-rich shale reservoirs has revolutionized the energy industry in the United States. However, the performance of wells is very unpredictable in many areas due to lacking of proper design of parameters in drilling, fracturing, and production operations because of inadequate modeling of well fluid temperature profiles. The currently available mathematical models are found not suitable to use for the purpose because of the unrealistic assumptions made during model derivations. A new analytical solution for predicting fluid temperature profiles inside work strings and in the annulus was derived in this study, considering the formation fluid production, Joule-Thomson cooling effect, and solid flow. The temperature profiles given by the new analytical solution are significantly higher than that given by a previous analytical model for gas-drilling operations. Results of sensitivity analyses show that formation fluid production rate can significantly increase the temperature profiles in both the work string and the annulus. The Joule-Thomson cooling effect lowers the temperature in the annulus only at the bottom hole. The solid particle entrained at the bottom hole can slightly increase the temperature profile in the annulus. The new solution can replace numerical simulators that are not readily available to most field engineers in general.

Biography :

Email: guo.boyun@gmail.com