Co-written by a world-renowned petroleum engineer, this breakthrough new volume teaches engineers how to configure, place and produce horizontal and multilateral wells in geologically complicated reservoirs, select optimal well spacings and fracture separations, and how to manage factors influencing well productivity using proven cost-effective and user-friendly simulation methods. Charged in the 1990s with solving some of petroleum engineering's biggest problems that the industry deemed "unsolvable," the authors of this innovative new volume solved those problems, not just using a well-published math model, but one optimized to run rapidly, the first time, every time. This not only provides numerical output, but production curves and color pressure plots automatically. And each in a single hour of desk time. Using their Multisim software that is featured in this volume, secondary school students at the Aldine Independent School District delivered professional quality simulations in a training program funded by some of the largest energy companies in the world. Think what you, as a professional engineer, could do in your daily work. Valuable with or without the software, this volume is the cutting-edge of reservoir engineering today, prefacing each chapter with a "trade journal summary" followed by hands-on details, allowing readers to replicate and extend results for their own applications. This volume covers parent-child, multilateral well, and fracture flow interactions, reservoir flow analysis, many other issues involving fluid flow, fracturing, and many other common "unsolvable" problems that engineers encounter every day. It is a must-have for every engineer's bookshelf.

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Acknowledgements xv 1 Parent-Child, Multilateral Well and Fracture Flow Interactions 1 Additional questions raised 1 Problem identified 2 Why call them frac hits? 5 Is a frac hit model possible? 5 1.1 Reference 7 2 Reservoir Flow Analysis – Concise and Rigorous Summary 9 2.1 Governing Equations and Numerical Formulation 9 Steady flows of liquids 10 Difference equation formulation 10 The iterative scheme 12 Modeling well constraints for liquids 13 Steady and unsteady nonlinear gas flows 15 Steady gas flows 16 Well constraints for gas flows 18 Transient, compressible flows 19 Compaction, consolidation and subsidence 22 Boundary conforming grids 23 Stratigraphic meshes for layered media 24 Modeling wellbore storage 25 2.2 References 27 3 Reservoir Simulation – Strengths, Limitations and Strategies 28 Deficiencies affecting all simulators 28 3.1 Rectangular versus Curvilinear Coordinates 29 3.2 Fracture Simulations and Analytical Subtleties 33 Aerodynamic analogies 33 3.3 A Digression – Advances in Geometric Modeling 35 3.3.1 Airfoil and three-dimensional wing flows 35 3.3.2 Two dimensional planar reservoir flows 36 3.4 Formulation Errors in Commercial Simulators 40 Commingled reservoirs 40 Unit mobility flow 40 Well constraints, pressures and rates, kh products 40 Upscaling methods and averaging 41 Geometric gridding 42 Input/output issues and 3D color graphics 42 Matrix solvers and numerical inversion 42 Meaning of farfield boundary conditions 43 Grid density 43 Simulator design philosophy 44 3.5 References 45 4 Parent-Child Well and Fracture Flow – A Simple Steady-State Example 46 4.1 A Simple Example – Steady Flow Parent-Child Well and Fracture Interactions 46 Reference examples 47 More interesting calculations 47 Closing remarks 53 4.2 Two Reference Single-Well Analyses 54 Reference Example A 54 Reference Example B 57 4.3 Detailed Two-Well and Fracture Flow Analyses 59 Run 1 – Two wells, different pressure constraints, homogeneous medium 59 Run 2 – Two wells, identical pressure constraints in homogeneous isotropic medium 81 Run 3 – Return to Run 1 well constraints, with Wells 1 and 2 joined using uniform fracture 84 Run 4 – Incomplete fracture penetration at Well 1 91 Closing remarks 96 4.4 References 96 5 Hydraulic Fracture Flow for Horizontal Wells in Anisotropic Media 97 5.1 Horizontal or Multilateral Wells Intersected by General Hydraulic Fractures in Fully Transient Flow 97 Run 1 99 Runs 2, 3 and 4 101 5.2 Detailed Software Analysis 105 5.2.1 Run 1. No fractures along vertical-to-horizontal well (for reference baseline comparisons) 105 5.2.2 Run 2. Horizontal well intersected by a single hydraulic fracture 142 5.2.3 Run 3. Horizontal well intersecting two fracture planes 147 5.2.4 Run 4. Horizontal well intersecting three fractures 149 5.2.5 Runs 5-6. Effects of anisotropy and fracture orientation 153 Run 5 153 Run 6 155 5.3 References 157 6 Cube Models in Reservoir Development 158 6.1 Well Spacings, Parent-Child Effects and Reservoir Strategy in Modern Drilling 158 6.1.1 Basic optimization problems 158 6.1.2 Reservoir flow simulation versus statistical modeling approaches 160 6.1.3 Cube model set-up and computed results 161 6.1.4 Reservoir optimization and cost effectiveness 166 6.1.5 Closing remarks 168 6.1.6 References 169 6.2 Detailed Software Analysis 170 6.3 A More Optimal Production Method 197 6.4 References 200 7 Simulating While Drilling – Extending a Vertical Well Horizontally During Transient Production 201 7.1 Declining Production with Horizontal Lateral Solution 201 7.2 Detailed Software Analysis 207 7.3 References 236 8 Simulating While Drilling – Adding a Complicated Multilateral Well During Transient Production from a Vertical 237 8.1 Vertical and Subsequent Multilateral Neighboring Well 238 8.2 Detailed Software Analysis 243 8.3 References 264 9 Heterogeneous, Anisotropic, Layered Reservoir with Finite Tilted Fracture Plane Produced by Multilateral Wells 265 9.1 Five Comparative Production Scenarios 266 Run 1. Uniform isotropic reservoir (base reference) 267 Run 2. Effect of high permeability fracture on Run 1 272 Run 3. Highly heterogeneous three layer reservoir, isotropic flow within each sub-domain, no fracture planes 274 Run 4. Effect of anisotropy on Run 1 (again, uniform kx, ky, with kz 50% smaller), no fractures 276 Run 5. Nonlinear gas flows, results compared with Run 1 liquid baseline, assuming uniform kx, ky and kz, no fractures 278 Closing remarks 279 9.2 Detailed Software Analysis 280 Run 1. Uniform isotropic reservoir (base reference) 281 Layered geological description 281 Software caution 283 Layered drilling description 287 Layer results and flow decline curves 300 Run 2. Effect of high permeability fracture on Run 1 308 Run 3. Highly heterogeneous three layer reservoir, isotropic flow within each sub-domain, no fracture planes 312 Run 4. Effect of anisotropy on Run 1 (again, uniform kx, ky, with kz 50% smaller), no fractures 316 Run 5. Nonlinear gas flows, results compared with Run 1 liquid baseline, assuming uniform kx, ky and kz, no fractures 321 9.3 Closing Remarks 328 9.4 References 328 10 Advanced Reservoir Modeling with Multisim 329 10.1 Features 330 Reservoir Description 330 Well System Modeling 330 Additional Simulator Features 330 10.2 Licensing Options 331 Multisim 331 Complementary Models 331 4D TurboView 331 Fluid Tracer 331 Formation Testing Suite 331 10.3 Disclaimer 332 End-User License Agreement (EULA) 332 Grant of license 332 Descriptions of other rights and limitations 333 Termination 334 Copyright 334 No warranties 334 Limitation of liability 334 Further disclaimers 335 Additional restrictions 335 End of EULA 335 Cumulative References 336 Index 351 About the Authors 359 Wilson C. Chin 359 Xiaoying Zhuang 376