Perpustakaan Digital ITB

An integrated modelling approach between geomechanical aspects and conventional fluid flow simulation is imperative in planning shale gas reservoir development, particularly due to the involvement of horizontal well drilling and hydraulic fracturing for production completion which requires a good understanding of the geomechanical prognosis from the reservoir. A geomechanical coupling must be implemented towards fluid flow simulation models to account for changes in geomechanical properties induced by fluid flow and pressure drainage effects. Among numerous coupling methods, the fully coupled approach offers better stability in terms of iteration convergence though at the expense of higher computational capacity. While different mathematical formulations are readily available, they involve rigorous physical descriptions that would put additional burden into computational time. In this study, we attempt to conduct geomechanical coupling of fluid flow model using a relatively simple fully coupled scheme utilizing the ordinary porous flow equation, time-dependent rock mass conservation, and linear elasticity equation. The finite element method (FEM) is applied for discretization over tetrahedral grid blocks that have been tailored to match Barnett shale gas production. Using this coupled model, we demonstrate the simulation of stress evolution from multistage fractured wells under different sensitivity studies, including the number of fracture stages and horizontal well spacing. It is shown that the utilization of this approach produces a consistent result with the theoretical stress behavior and production outcomes.