Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering

Committee Chair

Kashy Aminian

Committee Co-Chair

Samuel Ameri

Committee Member

DANIEL DELLA-GIUSTINA

Abstract

The discovery of unconventional reservoirs such as tight gas sands and shale gas, the resolve for the United States to become independent of foreign hydrocarbons, toppled with depleting conventional fields around the world, has pushed for new technologies and effective and efficient approaches in unconventional reservoirs long-term production to supply their ever-growing demand.;Horizontal drilling along with hydraulic fracturing are the two most popular methods used to render low-permeability formations such as the Marcellus Shale economically productive. Nowadays, coupled with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, new strategies and tools such as coil tubing and multi-lateral horizontal wells are being strategized and used for unconventional reservoirs as well as conventional reservoirs to maximize recovery. However, the understanding of the production performance of recently drilled hydraulically fractured horizontal wells in low-permeability formations represents a challenge because of the lack extensive production history on these new producing wells. The same is true about the multi-lateral horizontal wells, though they have great potential for improving the recovery. The objective of this study was to conduct a modeling study, to investigate the impact of wells spacing on the production performance of hydraulically fractured multi-lateral horizontal wells in low permeability formations.

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