Flowback and early-time production modeling of unconventional gas wells using an improved semi-analytical method

Multiple fractured horizontal wells (MFHWs) currently are the only possible means of commercial production from the low and ultra-low permeability unconventional gas reservoirs. In early production time, flowback fluid, which constitutes of hydraulic water and gas flow within fractures, is collected and analyzed. Flowback analysis has been shown to be a useful tool to estimate key properties of the hydraulic fracture such as conductivity and pore volume. Until date, most tools of flowback analysis rely on empirical and approximate methods. This study presents an improved Green-function-based semi-analytical solution for performance analysis of horizontal gas wells during flowback and early production periods. The proposed solution is derived based on coupling the solutions of two domains: a rigorously derived Green’s function-based integral solution for single-phase gas flow in matrix, and a finite-difference, multiphase solution for gas–water two-phase flow in the fracture. The validity of proposed semi-analytical solution is verified by finely gridded numerical models built in a commercial simulator for a series of synthetic cases considering a variety of fluid and reservoir property combinations, as well as various different production constraints. Comparisons against available empirical and approximate methods are also provided for these cases.