The success in shale oil and gas over the last decade is based on massive multi-stage hydraulic fracturing.Applying the same well concept on conventional tight and low permeable reservoirs can bring economicallystranded projects into consideration again. However, simulating production over time for multi-stagehydraulic fractured wells using conventional full-field reservoir simulation models can be challenging.Detailed modelling of the hydraulic fractures comes with a large computational cost and typically anumber of convergence issues. Simplified methods fail to capture the full pressure loss from the reservoirinto the well. In this work, a method with effective Virtual Perforations is described, enabling bothefficient simulation and prediction of well performance. A detailed 2D mesh for each hydraulic fractureis used together with the unmodified reservoir model grid, integrating geomechanical fracture propagationsimulation results directly into the reservoir simulation workflow. The Virtual Perforations are defined by the geometrical intersections between the fractures 2D meshesand the reservoir model 3D grid. The numerical solution of the fracture-to-well inflow system provides aset of effective Virtual Perforations transmissibilities for Darcy flow which can be applied in any standardreservoir simulator. In the reservoir simulation model numerical multipliers, in-active grid blocks or gaps ingrid model layers can act as barriers for vertical flow in the fractures. Hence horizontal, fractured wells maynot capture the full flow potential in reservoir simulations. In this work, the effective Virtual Perforationsare calculated based on the vertical fracture mesh to ensure well flow from the full height of the hydraulicfractures. Using a 2D mesh for the fracture, the fracture geometry can be contained within certain grid modellayers or truncated by faults. Matrix condensation methods known from degree-of-freedom reduction instructural analysis, are applied to efficiently calculate all the effective Virtual Perforations transmissibilities.Thus, working with well completion design can be done interactively.
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