Integrative Understanding of Shale Gas Reservoirs

This timely book begins with an overview of shale gas reservoir features such as natural fracture systems, multi-fractured horizontal wells, adsorption/desorption of methane, and non-linear flow within the reservoir. Geomechanical modelling, an aspect of importance in ultra-low permeability reservoirs, is also presented in detail.

Taking these complex features of shale reservoirs into account, the authors develop a numerical model, which is verified with field data using the history matching technique. Based on this model, the pressure transient and production characteristics of a fractured horizontal well in a shale gas reservoir are analysed with respect to reservoir and fracture properties. Methods for the estimation of shale properties are also detailed. Minifrac tests, rate transient tests (RTA), and type curve matching are used to estimate the initial pressure, permeability, and fracture half-length. Lastly, future technologies such as the technique of injecting CO2 into shale reservoirs are presented.

The book will be of interest to industrial practitioners, as well as to academics and graduate students in the field of reservoir engineering.

From 1991 to 1995, Dr. Lee worked on the analysis of geopressured-geothermal aquifer and long-time behaviour of closed gas reservoirs as a research assistant at Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. Obtaining a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995, he worked as a research specialist at Kumho & Co. and a lecturer at Seoul National University. Since 1998, he has worked on various aspects reservoir engineering as a professor of Environmental and Energy Systems Engineering at Kyonggi University. Since 2011, he has been a professor at Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea.