Productivity and Injectivity of Hoeizontal Wells

A number of activities have been carried out in the last three months. A list outlining these efforts is presented below. The Ph.D. Dissertation on developing correlations for breakthrough time and post breakthrough behavior of horizontal wells was successfully defended in March. A paper on this work will be presented in the Fifth SPE Latin American and Caribbean Conference to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in September. Multi-lateral wells offer higher productivity than single horizontal wells. However, the increase in their productivity depends on the length and form of the laterals. We have initiated a simulation study to investigate the productivity of multi-lateral wells in terms of their arrangement and positioning. The experimental work on using horizontal wells as injectors and producers in a gas injection gravity drainage process is progressing. Experimental setup is near completion and trial runs will follow next. Work on generalized gridding methods continued by considering streamline grids. In this approach, gridblock boundaries are aligned along streamlines to better rep- resent flow paths governed by heterogeneities. The correct well index for a typical partially penetrating horizontal well could be very different from the classical well index and can be calculated in a semi analytical fashion in which the well pressure is obtained analytically and the well block pressure is computed numerically. In the so called explicit well modeling approach, the need to calculate any well index is eliminated by fine gridding the well. We have studied this second approach and have shown that it can lead to incorrect results. The last activity listed above is the subject of this quarterly report