Numerical Simulation Study on Fracture Parameter Optimization in Developing Low-Permeability Anisotropic Reservoirs

The diamond-shape inverted nine-spot well pattern is widely used in developing low-permeability reservoirs with fractures. However, production wells with equal fracture lengths will lead to nonuniform displacement, especially in anisotropic reservoir. Previous researches mainly focused on equal-length fractures, while studies on the unequal-length fractures which can dramatically improve the development efficiency were little. In this paper, a corresponding numerical model with unequal length of fracture designed in the edge and the corner wells was built in a low-permeability anisotropic reservoir. The main objective was to examine and evaluate the effects of anisotropic permeability and fracture parameter on the waterflooding in the diamond-shape inverted nine-spot well pattern. The results indicate that different fractures penetration ratio and anisotropic permeability both result in different development efficiency. Fracture of the edge well are more easily to be water breakthrough, while the increase of penetration ratio of injection well effectively enhance oil recovery. Moreover, the most optimal penetration ratios of production well fractures under different k(x):k(y) are determined. With the increase of k(x):k(y), the optimized penetration ratio of corner wells fracture decrease, while that of the edge wells increase. Setting unequal length fractures in low-permeability anisotropic reservoirs can effectively improve the oil displacement efficiency in the waterflooding process.