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Model ID: 666

Open-Hole Multilateral Well

Multilateral wells—those with multiple legs that branch off from a single conduit—can produce oil efficiently because the legs can tap multiple productive zones and navigate around impermeable ones. Unfortunately, drilling engineers must often mechanically stabilize multilateral wells with a liner or casing, which can cost millions of dollars. Leaving the wellbore uncased reduces construction costs, but it runs a relatively high risk of catastrophic failure both during installation and after pumping begins.

The poroelastic simulations estimate 3D compaction related to pumping by taking subsurface fluid flow with Darcy’s law and coupling it to structural displacements with a stress-strain analysis. This model focuses on elastic displacements brought on by changing fluid pressures when pumping begins.

OIL AND GAS: An increasingly common technique to maximize oil production from deep wellbores is to emplace "open" multilateral wells, with multiple legs that branch off of a single conduit. Pressure gradient and total displacement due to pumping near a branch in a multilateral well.

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