Control of Gas Cresting/Coning in Horizontal Wells with Tubing-Deployed Inflow Control Devices

ABSTRACT

Currently there are two approaches to capture the deliverability in wellbore/reservoir interaction: finite-difference or finite-volume methods numerical packages (i.e., CMG, Intersect, tNavigator) and Nodal Analysis (i.e., NETool, PROSPER, PIPESIM, WEM). Both approaches cannot model the dynamics of the near-wellbore gas-liberation. In this study, a modified version of boundary-element-method (BEM) is implemented and the pressure is used as a tracer and all the properties such as saturation and mobility variation are calculated normal to the well bore. And to model gas cresting, the capillary pressure between the gas and the liquid phase should be incorporated into the interaction. To incorporated into the model the concept of “global pressure” and pressure shift applied to different phases at the sand-face is presented and tested on the well with multiple inflow-control-devices (ICDs). This advancement can be helpful in recompleted wells that new completion such ICD is required to be analyzed for new equilibrium. If restriction on new completion reduces the drawdown lower than minimum required drawdown, the well will not produce any oil. Such phenomenon cannot be captured by previous modifications even if user fudge the initial saturation to extreme values.

A full version of this paper is available on ResearchGate Online.