Investigating the Impact of Undulation Amplitude of Unconventional Oil Well Laterals on Transient Multiphase Flow Behavior: Experimental and Numerical Study

Abstract

The growing popularity of unconventional wells has led to increased interest in assessing and predicting their production performance. These wells, with their extended-reach structures, are able to generate and access larger reservoir volumes. Therefore, understanding the impact of a well’s lateral trajectory on its transient production performance is crucial. This study investigates the effect of lateral-trajectory undulation amplitude on flow behavior based on the experimental results obtained at the University of North Dakota using an undulated two-phase (UTP) flow loop. The experiments involved injecting an air-and-water mixture through a section with variable undulation amplitude followed by a vertical section. The results revealed that the increasing undulation amplitude resulted in lower translational velocity, frequency, and length, with consistent slug acceleration along the system profile. Additionally, the frequency of slugs decreased as they traveled through the vertical section. The measured data indicated that higher undulation amplitudes led to increased horizontal pressure losses and variability, suggesting larger instabilities. The numerical simulations predicted lower translational velocity and frequency, longer slug length, and similar vertical pressure losses when compared to the experimental results.

Keywords

• unconventional wells
• slugging
• trajectory
• lateral undulation
• amplitude
• shale oil