Application of multi-segment well modeling to simulate well interference

Well interference has become a major concern in current shale reservoir development. Inter-well fracturing interference raised by drilling infill well/well pad in shale reservoir can lead to either beneficial or detrimental impact on existing producer. To better simulate the wellbore cross flow raised by fracture communication and the well performance under well group control, we fully couple a generalized multi-segment well (MSW) model to our in house 3D compositional simulator. The model discretizes wellbore into segments, allowing a comprehensive representation of fluid flow dynamic in the wellbore. The changing of hydraulic fracture network due to infill wells is modeled by Embedded Discrete Fracture Modeling (EDFM), which avoids the complication of regenerating the reservoir mesh. We first create two extreme cases to illustrate possible mechanisms for the positive and negative well interference effects. Furthermore, we introduce a 3D case with parent well completed vertically above a two-well infill pad. The joint effect of wellbore cross flow and stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) overlap can be observed in this case. We further investigate the impact of interference between two infill wells on the cumulative production of parent well and infill well pad. The simulation results demonstrate the capability of the coupled MSW-reservoir model in simulating different well interference scenarios. The model can be a flexible tool in analyzing and forecasting the interfered well production performance.