Gas-condensate flow modelling for shale gas reservoirs.

Labed, Ismail

Abstract

In the last decade, shale reservoirs emerged as one of the fast growing hydrocarbon resources in the world unlocking vast reserves and reshaping the landscape of the oil and gas global market. Gas-condensate reservoirs represent an important part of these resources. The key feature of these reservoirs is the condensate banking which reduces significantly the well deliverability when the condensate forms in the reservoir below the dew point pressure. Although the condensate banking is a well-known problem in conventional reservoirs, the very low permeability of shale matrix and unavailability of proven pressure maintenance techniques make it more challenging in shale reservoirs. The nanoscale range of the pore size in the shale matrix affects the gas flow which deviates from laminar Darcy flow to Knudsen flow resulting in enhanced gas permeability. Furthermore, the phase behaviour of gas-condensate fluids is affected by the high capillary pressure in the matrix causing higher condensate saturation than in bulk conditions. A good understanding and an accurate evaluation of how the condensate builds up in the reservoir and how it affects the gas flow is very important to manage successfully the development of these high-cost hydrocarbon resources. This work investigates the gas Knudsen flow under condensate saturation effect and phase behaviour deviation under capillary pressure of gas-condensate fluids in shale matrix with pore size distribution; and evaluates their effect on well productivity. Supplementary MATLAB codes are provided elsewhere on OpenAIR: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2145

Citation

LABED, I. 2016. Gas-condensate flow modelling for shale gas reservoirs. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Feb 2, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 2, 2017
• Keywords: Gas condensate fluids; Shale gas; Gas condensate reservoirs; Knudsen flow; Oil and gas engineering
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2144
• Related Public URLs: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2145
• Contract Date: Feb 2, 2017
• Award Date: Oct 31, 2016