The Productivity of a Well with a Vertical Infinite-Conductivity Fracture in a Rectangular Closed Reservoir

Abstract

Summary In this work, we have evaluated the productivity index (PI) of a well with a vertical, infinite-conductivity fracture in a closed rectangular reservoir for a wide range of fracture lengths, reservoir aspect ratios, and fracture eccentricities. The reported PIs are based on a rigorous analytical solution for the semi-steady-state pressure distribution created by a uniform-flux fracture in combination with Muskat’s method to convert the uniform-flux to a uniform-pressure solution. The PIs based on Earlougher’s shape factors are too optimistic. The equivalent-pressure (EP) method works very well at small fracture lengths but overestimates the PI at medium and large fracture lengths. The average-pressure (AP) method is too pessimistic at all fracture lengths.