A simulation approach for shale gas development in China with embedded discrete fracture modeling.

Abstract A simulation approach using the embedded discrete fracture method (EDFM) is proposed to predict the productions of multistage hydraulic fractured horizontal wells(MHFHWs)in Fuling Shale gas field in China. The approach is divided into four stages: 1) geological structure model; 2) characterize the geometry details of hydraulic and natural fractures with micro-seismic data and embedment of the fractures into structured background grids; 3) adjust the properties of effective fractures as well as other uncertain parameters by history-matching; 4) predict and analyze the performance. The proposed approach is implemented to a real case with three MHFHWs and contributes to determine the next development strategy. Highlights • Microseismic data is used to determine the hydraulic fractures distribution. • Embedded discrete fracture method (EDFM) is applied to simulate the flow in fracture network. • Component subdivision method is applied to analyze the composition of total production. • Impact factors on well performance during shale gas development are investigated in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]