Pressure control in deep shale gas horizontal wells can reduce the stress sensitivity of hydraulic fractures and improve the estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). In this study, a hydraulic fracture stress sensitivity model is proposed to characterize the effect of pressure drop rate on fracture permeability. Furthermore, a production prediction model is introduced accounting for a non-uniform hydraulic fracture conductivity distribution. The results reveal that increasing the fracture conductivity leads to a rapid daily production increase in the early stages. However, above 0.50 D·cm, a further increase in the fracture conductivity has a limited effect on shale gas production growth. The initial production is lower under pressure-controlled conditions than that under pressure-release. For extended pressure control durations, the cumulative production initially increases and then decreases. For a fracture conductivity of 0.10 D·cm, the increase in production output under controlled-pressure conditions is ~35%. For representative deep shale gas wells (Southern Sichuan, China), if the pressure drop rate under controlled-pressure conditions is reduced from 0.19 to 0.04 MPa/d, the EUR increase for 5 years of pressure-controlled production is 41.0 million, with an increase percentage of ~29%.
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Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2025, 21(1): 221-232
Published: 31 January 2025
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