Experimental study of horizontal well performance in fractured reservoirs with bottom-water drive

An experimental investigation has been conducted to study the production performance of horizontal wells with single- and multiple orthogonal fractures in bottom water drive reservoirs. The effect of the number of fractures intersecting the well and of the vertical penetration and horizontal extension of the fracture on production performance has been studied. A scaled three-dimensional rectangular model, representing the drainage volume for a single horizontal well in one of the Middle East reservoirs, has been used. The model was packed with glass beads yielding a porosity of 0.36 and a permeability of 400 Darcies. Kerosene and distilled water were used to represent the reservoir fluids. The production rate was chosen so that the oil-water interface would remain stable until it approaches the producing well. The fractured wells provided much better performance than the un-fractured well, yielding higher oil recovery and delayed water breakthrough. Increasing the number of orthogonal fractures improved the production performance of the well. However, there is a limit beyond which no further improvement in the performance would be possible. Similarly, increasing the fracture penetration and/or extension improved the production performance up to a limit beyond which no further improvement was obtained.