An improved reservoir simulation model in the petroleum industry

Sensible prediction of petroleum production from a well relies heavily on the accurate determination of reservoir constants during pressure drawdown or build-up tests. Models for simulating a fractured reservoir have been developed to accommodate the slope changes in the measured pressure curves. This paper presents a modification to Barenblatt et al.'s prototype, suitable for the simulation of a fractured reservoir. The modification is intended to provide an improved interpretation of fluid flow in fractured porous media, as compared with the traditional conceptualization. The significant differences in terms of reservoir pressure prediction between this model and the one suggested by Warren & Root are identified and shown to depend on the compressibility magnitudes of fractures and matrix blocks. The analytical solutions of this improved model have been obtained for both the case of radial flow with quasi-steady matrix flow and the case of one-dimensional linear flow where transient matrix flow is retained.