Study on Productivity Model of Herringbone-Like Laterals Wells and Optimization of Morphological Parameters Considering Threshold Pressure Gradient in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Abstract

Compared with conventional well, herringbone-like laterals wells can increase the area of oil release, and can reduce the number of wellhead slots of platforms, and also can greatly improve the development efficiency. Based on threshold pressure gradient in heavy oil reservoir, and the applied principle of mirror reflection and superposition, the pressure distribution equation of herringbone-like laterals wells is obtained in heavy oil reservoir. Productivity model of herringbone-like laterals wells is proposed by reservoir-wellbore steady seepage. The example shows that the productivity model is great accuracy to predict the productivity of herringbone-like laterals wells. The model is used to analyze the branching length, branching angle, branching symmetry, branching position and spacing and their effects on productivity of herringbone-like laterals wells. The principle of optimizing the well shape of herringbone-like laterals wells is proposed.