Experimental Study on the Productivity of Complex Well Configurations

Abstract

Abstract This study presents experimental results for the productivities of complex well configurations. The experimental study covers the productivity measurement for selectively completed vertical wells, horizontal wells with multiple flow entries, duallaterals, multilaterals including chicken-foot well configuration, perforated wells, and hydraulically-fractured horizontal wells. Inasmuch as an analogy exists between electrical and fluid flow, an electrolytic analog apparatus was constructed to perform the experiments. The apparatus was basically composed of a 100×100×50-cm Plexiglas tank, a variable voltage source, and several ammeters and voltmeters. Experimental results were used to verify the analytical productivity models. In all cases, excellent agreement was established between the experimental and analytically calculated productivity values. The experimental data presented in this study is very useful for engineers and researchers to verify their analytical productivity models and the computer codes.