Abstract—Transient linear flow is commonly considered as the dominant flow regime in multistage hydraulically fractured horizontal wells in shale gas reservoirs. A slab transient dual porosity model was built and skin effect was studied to interpret the early period production performance. However, the mechanism of early period performance characteristics is not revealed by skin effect. When flow from the vertical fracture into the horizontal wellbore, gas converges in the near-wellbore-zone due to the decreasing flow area. In other words, besides linear flow, there is another flow behavior in vertical fracture: radial flow. This paper presents a slab transient dual porosity model with radial flow effect in natural fractures. The model is consists of three flow regimes: fracture radial flow, fracture linear flow and matrix linear flow. Analytical solution is obtained by Laplace transformation and type curves are drawn. The results show that different from skin effect model, the radial flow effect not only results in severe reduction of early period production performance, but also the late period production performance.

Index Terms—shale gas, fractured horizontal well, radial flow, production forecasting

Cite: Shuang Ai, Linsong Cheng, Hongjun Liu, Jin Zhang, and Shijun Huang, "Production Forecasting of Multistage Hydraulically Fractured Horizontal Wells in Shale Gas Reservoirs with Radial Flow," Journal of Industrial and Intelligent Information, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 303-307, December 2014. doi: 10.12720/jiii.2.4.303-307