Productivity of Vertically Fractured Wells Prior to Stabilized Flow

%vera! ZN.Ithors’ -’ !IWe nrewm!ix! rmmwx on the e-ff.cK ~----~-r --. . . . . .. ---of hydraulic fracturing on well productivity. Most of this work has been concerned with the effects of fracturing on “stabilized” or “semistead~ state” productivity. Prats eI al.’ investigated analytically the effects of vertical fractures of infinite flow capacity on well productivity as a function of time. Their results shQwed a SignifiC~n[variation in mrn~ll~t;u;~~~ nw~r tk~ y.-.. ”-....., “.W, ...” range of dimensionless times (r~) from 0.01 to 0.5. Productivity for one set of reservoir conditions showed a variation of about eightfold over this range of dimensionless time. Morse and HolditchG indicated fractured well productivities varying by factors in excess of 10 over a real-time range of a few weeks or months under some resemoir conditions. The objective of this work was to make a systematic study of both constant rate and constant pressure well productivities for a range of reservoir rock and fluid properties and for vertical fractures of various lengths.