Numerical study of the effect of reservoir permeability and fluid leak-off factor on the Hydraulic fracture characteristics in oil reservoirs and comparison with KGD and PKN analytical models

From the point of view of oil reservoir engineering, increasing the production from low permeability reservoirs and damaged wells is one of the most important and challenging issues. Especially if these reservoirs have high oil reserves and have more production potential. The Hydraulic Fracturing method is one of the methods of increasing the extraction of oil reservoirs that have been considered by many researchers in the last few decades.By injecting pressurized fluid into the reservoirs, in situ stresses and tensile strength of the rock can be overcome and cracks can be created in the rock. Geomechanical conditions of the reservoir such as rock hardness, in situ stresses, tensile strength, the permeability of the reservoir, the amount of fluid leak-off inside the crack to the reservoir, etc. directly affect the characteristics of the created Hydraulic Fractur. There are various analytical models for predicting Hydraulic Fractur characteristics. Among these, two models, KGD and PKN, are among the most famous and practical analytical models of Hydraulic Fracture. Both models calculate the crack characteristics by considering the plane strain conditions in two-dimensional space, but with two different approaches (the first model in the horizontal plane and the second model in the vertical plane). In these models, some effective components such as the permeability of the reservoir and the amount of fluid leak-off from the crack walls have not been considered.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of fluid leak-off, which has a great impact on the success or failure of Hydraulic Fracturing operations. In the present paper, the effect of two important parameters of reservoir rock permeability and fluid leak-off from crack walls to the reservoir on Hydraulic Fracture characteristics, using numerical modeling by XFEM method, has been studied.