Modelling of Hydraulic Flow Characteristics in Depleting Tight Gas Reservoirs

Fluid flow properties of tight Rotliegend sanstones show a strong sensitivity to stress conditions. To improve the understanding how fluid flow properties depend on the stress situation experimental measurements have been conducted on low to ultra-low Rotliegend sandstone samples from a North-German gas reservoir under simulated reservoir stress conditions. The measurements have been performed in the project DGMK 593-9/4 in the framework of the tight gas program of the DGMK (German Society for Petroleum and Coal Science and Technology). From the results of the experiments models could be derived, which describe the stress dependency of permeability and porosity. The experimental study improves the understanding of stress dependence behavior of low permeable North- German sandstones and provides relevant reference data for simulation of flow processes. The correlation models based on the experimental results presented enable the evaluation of representative in-situ effective stress, permeability and porosity in low permeable Rotliegend sandstones from routine laboratory permeability and porosity data as well as depletion effects during the gas production.