Influence of Flow Geometry on Sandface Temperatures During Single-Phase Oil Production: Dimensionless Analysis

Abstract

Summary This paper evaluates the impact of flow geometry on sandface temperature behavior under conditions of high drawdown in which Joule-Thomson thermal effects are significant. The temperature behavior of both radial- and linear-flow regimes is evaluated under steady-state and transient conditions. Through a dimensionless analysis of the thermal-energy equation, a systematic evaluation of the contributing terms is presented. The steady-state analysis is based on analytic solutions that demonstrate identical temperature behavior at asymptotic limits but are offset by a geometric factor at intermediary Péclet numbers. The transient analysis is based on a combination of analytical and numerical solutions. The transient analysis demonstrates that temperature changes occur earlier in time for the radial geometry compared with the linear geometry. The impetus behind this study is to address the impact of transient-temperature development in hydraulically fractured vs. nonhydraulically fractured vertical completions. The flow regime in nonhydraulically fractured vertical completions is radial whereas in hydraulically fractured vertical completions a linear-flow regime can dominate a significant portion of the flow history. All analyses assume that skin, wellbore-storage, and thermal-storage effects are negligible.