Study on the Numerical Simulation of Gravel Packed Water Control Completions in Horizontal Wells in Bottom Water Reservoirs

Efficient development of bottom-water reservoirs is seriously affected by low recovery due to the rapid rise in water content in horizontal wells. In order to cope with this problem, a number of water control devices (including ICD and AICD) have been installed in horizontal wellbores in recent years. These are used in conjunction with packers to achieve the effect of balancing the fluid production profile and controlling water in sections. As an alternative to packers, the method of horizontal-well gravel packing has been widely used. This technique utilizes the permeability of gravel to block axial flow in the annulus of the horizontal wellbore, and uses water control devices for the purpose of sectional flow restriction. In this paper, a coupled method of numerical simulation of the production dynamics of gravel-packed water-control completions in horizontal wells in bottom-water reservoirs is proposed, which can consider multi-phase flows in porous media, in layers packed with gravel particles, and in water control devices simultaneously. In order to obtain the blocking capacity of the layer packed with gravel, we built an experimental setup of the same size as the borehole and annulus of a horizontal well, tested the permeability of the layer using Darcy’s law, and applied it to a coupled numerical simulation model. After comparison with actual well examples, it was proved that the coupled numerical simulation model has good accuracy, and can be used to carry out production predictions for gravel-packed water-control completions in horizontal wells in bottom-water reservoirs. The study also provides field engineers with a design tool for parameter optimization using a different water control method.