History matching and production prediction of a horizontal coalbed methane well

This paper presents a numerical simulation study that demonstrates history matching and production prediction for an actual horizontal coalbed methane (CBM) well located in Australia. A brief analysis of limited core analysis and well log data is presented. Numerical reservoir simulation is used to carry out a manual history matching to the field data of gas and water production rates and well bottomhole pressure. The matching parameters are porosity, relative permeability and skin factor. The reported field data show that there are sharp changes in the well bottomhole pressure and water and gas rates. This response of the reservoir is matched with a numerical model that has a varying skin factor along the horizontal well. This is deemed reasonable given that the drilling fluid has longer contact with the formation at the heel of the well, causing more formation damage. But the field data indicates that the formation damage is mitigated quickly with production. This is explained by the fact that the invaded mud is forced back during water and gas production and coal shrinkage. The production predictions show that skin factor and coal shrinkage have important effects on the CBM production of a horizontal well. However, the coal formation damage controls the gas rate more than the shrinkage for the examined case study with the assumed coal shrinkage parameters. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.