Flow processes with change of regime in fractured reservoirs

Abstract

Experimental and industrial observations indicate a strong nonlinear dependence of the parameters of the flow processes in a fractured reservoir on its state of stress. Two problems with change of boundary condition at the well — pressure recovery and transition from constant flow to fixed bottom pressure — are analyzed for such a reservoir. The latter problem may be formulated, for example, so as not to permit closure of the fractures in the bottom zone. For comparison, the cases of linear [1] and nonlinear [2] fractured porous media and a fractured medium [3] are considered, and solutions are obtained in a unified manner using the integral method described in [1]. Nonlinear elastic flow regimes were previously considered in [3–6], where the pressure recovery process was investigated in the linearized formulation. Problems involving a change of well operating regime were examined for a porous reservoir in [7].