Measurement and modelling of gas condensate flow around rock perforation

In the petroleum production industry wells are mostly cased and perforated in the producing formation. Perforation characteristics such as size, length, number of perforation tunnels and their arrangements as well as fluid and rock properties determine fluid flow behaviour in the wellbore region, hence, well productivity. Flow of gas and condensate around a perforation tunnel (including the damaged zone) has been studied by performing steady-state core experiments and simulating the results numerically, using a finite element modelling approach. The model allows for the changes in fluid properties and accounts for the coupling of the two phases and the inertial effect using a fractional flow based correlation. The results indicated that different sets of thickness-permeability (h - k) values obtained from matching single-phase flow performance could be assigned to the damaged zone around perforation to represent the two-phase flow performance. The status of the tip of the perforation for two extreme cases of totally closed and fully open was investigated and found to have a minimal effect on the performance of the system. © Springer 2006.