Abstract: New Tools for Modeling Fracture Networks and Simulating Gas Flow in Low-Permeability Sand and Shale Reservoirs

Mark L. McKoy, W. Neal Sams

The U.S. Department of Energy, Morgantown Energy Technology Center, has an on-going project to model and simulate gas flow in low-permeability sands and shales that contain irregular, sometimes discontinuous, fracture networks (i.e., the types of networks not adequately represented by existing models/simulators). A FORTRAN code and methodology for modeling and simulating flow in these fracture networks has been developed. The goal was to convert the locations and orientations of fractures, as observed along a horizontal well bore, into two-dimensional, geometrically and hydraulically equivalent networks, which can be used to study variability in yield and drainage pattern. The fracture network generator implements four models of increasing complexity through a Monte Carlo process of selecting fracture network attributes from fitted statistical distributions. A process of shifting fracture end-point locations along the axes of fractures provides a partial control of fracture intersection/termination frequencies. Output consists of fracture end-points and apertures. The flow simulator divides each fracture-bounded matrix block into subregions that drain to the midpoint of the adjacent fracture segment in accordance with a one-dimensional, unsteady idealization. The idealization approximates both the volume and the mean flow

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90950©1996 AAPG GCAGS 46th Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas