Reservoir Engineering
Leaving aside the applications on ‘thermal recovery of heavy oil’ and ‘reservoir compaction’ (subsidence), whether, the (conventionally encountered) ‘changes in temperature’ of a ‘fractured reservoir rock’ really change ‘the nature of the primary mode of production’ resulting from ‘induced thermo-elastic stresses’, which generally lead to ‘the generation of new fractures’; or, at least, leading to ‘the modification of geometry and shapes of the existing fractures’?
Do we really have such a “significant” ‘thermal stress’ associated with a petroleum reservoir?
If so, does it result from ‘the changes in temperature between injected fluids and formation reservoir fluids’; or, does it result from ‘Joule-Thompson effect’ (reservoir temperature getting modified - upon ‘the changes in reservoir pressure’; and generally, negatively affecting oil & gas production)?
Whether, ‘thermal stresses’ remain “significant enough” with reference to the ‘mechanical stresses’ - for the normally encountered ‘depth ranges’ of a petroleum reservoir?
Whether the thermal stress induced either by heating or cooling of a reservoir rock - really – ‘modify’ the ‘effective stress distribution’ ‘in the vicinity of a wellbore’?
Whether the reservoir ‘pore pressure’ gets altered “significantly” resulting from variations in the thermal expansions of the reservoir rock (solid grains) and pore fluids?
Is it not uncommon to encounter ‘fatigue failure’ associated with a ‘wellbore’ - resulting from ‘thermal effects’ (repeated circle effects)?
Whether the drilling and mud circulation ‘significantly’ influence the ‘thermal stress regime’; and thereby, ‘wrongly’ indicating ‘kick’?
Feasible to have a control over the ‘tensile thermal stress’ (produced by the mitigating temperature) and the ‘compressive heat stress’ (produced by the enhanced temperature) ‘in the vicinity of a wellbore’ towards analyzing ‘wellbore stability’?
Could we expect that the ‘total thermal deformation’ to remain to be equal to the ‘deformation caused by ‘restraining stress’ as well as ‘free deformation’ – in both sandstone and fractured reservoirs?
Considering the ‘transient heat transfer’ within a petroleum reservoir, while ignoring the transient heat transfer of the mud within the wellbore is an acceptable approach - towards analyzing the spatial and temperature distribution of temperature - in the vicinity of a wellbore during mud circulation?
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