Quasi-Analytical Model of the Transient Behavior Pressure in an Oil Reservoir Made Up of Three Porous Media Considering the Fractional Time Derivative

Abstract

The present work proposes a new model to capture high heterogeneity of single phase flow in naturally fractured vuggy reservoirs. The model considers a three porous media reservoir; namely, fractured system, vugular system and matrix; the case of an infinite reservoir is considered in a full-penetrating wellbore. Furthermore, the model relaxes classic hypotheses considering that matrix permeability has a significant impact on the pressure deficit from the wellbore, reaching the triple permeability and triple porosity model wich allows the wellbore to be fed by all the porous media and not exclusively by the fractured system; where it is considered a pseudostable interporous flow. In addition, it is considered the anomalous flow phenomenon from the pressure of each independent porous medium and as a whole, through the temporal fractional derivative of Caputo type; the resulting phenomenon is studied for orders in the fractional derivatives in (0, 2), known as superdiffusive and subdiffusive phenomena. Synthetic results highlight the effect of anomalous flows throughout the entire transient behavior considering a significant permeability in the matrix and it is contrasted with the effect of an almost negligible matrix permeability. The model is solved analytically in the Laplace space, incorporating the Tartaglia–Cardano equations.