Analysis of hydraulic fracturing of high permeability gas wells to reduce non-Darcy skin effects

Hydraulic fracturing has become increasingly popular in high permeability g as reservoirs in order to reduce apparent skin and thus improve well produc tivity. The remaining post fracture rate dependent skin effect varies from case to case and it is unclear whether this is a result of non-Darcy flow i n the fracture, the reservoir or both. This paper presents a study of the effects of reservoir and fracture turbul ence in fractured gas wells. A quantification of the fracture length requir ed to eliminate the effects of reservoir turbulence is obtained by means of a numerical study. A similar study with non-Darcy flow in both the reservo ir and the fracture results in a correlation of fracture length required to get zero apparent skin at 75% of AOF as a function of reservoir permeabili ty, pressure, fracture conductivity and beta factor.