Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437

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Petroleum
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Optimization of huff-n-puff gas injection in shale oil reservoirs

James J. Sheng a, b
a
Texas Tech University, P.O. Box 43111, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA
b
Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Earlier studies show that huff-n-puff injection is preferred to continuous gas flooding to improve
Received 16 December 2016 liquid oil production in shale oil reservoirs. Compared to gas flooding, huff-n-puff has more
Accepted 28 March 2017 operational parameters to optimize so that liquid oil production can be maximized. This paper is to
discuss the optimum huff-n-puff times, number of cycles and soaking time under practical oper-
ational and reservoir conditions. The operational and reservoir conditions dictate the maximum
injection and production rates, and the maximum injection pressure and minimum production
pressure.
The numerical simulation results and discussions show that the optimum huff time is so long
that the pressure near the wellbore reaches the set maximum injection pressure during the huff
period; and the optimum puff time is the time required for the pressure near the wellbore to reach
the set minimum production pressure during the puff period. The benefits of soaking may not
compensate the loss in injection and production due to the time lost in the soaking period.
Therefore, soaking may not be necessary during the huff-n-puff gas injection in shale oil reservoirs.
The number of huff-n-puff cycles is determined when an economic rate cut-off is reached.
Copyright © 2017, Southwest Petroleum University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on
behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
It is well known that primary depletion using horizontal wells
with multistage fracturing can only produce a few percent of the
oil in shale reservoirs. The question how to produce the
remaining oil needs to be answered sooner or later. Probably
answering this question becomes more important in the current
low oil price, as high-cost drilling, fracturing and completion
have to be minimized. Thus using existing wellbores to improve
remaining oil production becomes more important. Considering
different enhanced oil recovery methods, gas injection is prob-
ably most feasible method [1,2]. Since Wan et al. [3] first pro-
posed cyclic gas injection (huff-n-puff) to improve oil recovery in
shale oil reservoirs, many papers have been published on the
subject, as reviewed by Sheng [1]. Sheng and Chen [4] used
E-mail address: James.sheng@ttu.edu.
Peer review under responsibility of Southwest Petroleum University.
Production and Hosting by Elsevier on behalf of KeAi
simulation approach to show that cyclic gas injection has the
highest potential to enhance oil recovery (EOR) in shale oil res-
ervoirs. Chen et al. [5] used compositional fluid models of a
Bakken formation to simulate CO2 huff-n-puff. Their results
show that the final recovery factor in the huff-n-puff process is
lower than that in the primary recovery, because the incremental
recovery in the production stage is unable to compensate the loss
in the injection and shut-in stages. In their models, the huff-n-
puff process are from 300 days to 1000 days; the bottom-hole
injection pressure is 4000 psi and the producing pressure is
3000 psi. Using his model, Sheng [1] was able to repeat Chen
et al. [5] results (the huff-n-puff recovery is lower than the pri-
mary recovery). However, his model shows that all the oil re-
covery factors at the end of 30, 50 and 70 years from the huff-n-
puff process are higher than those from the primary depletion,
when the injection pressure of 7000 psi is used. Therefore, Chen
et al.'s results are caused by the low injection pressure of
4000 psi which is lower than the initial reservoir pressure of
6840 psi. The injection pressure in the high-pressure reservoir
should be raised. From this example, we can see that optimiza-
tion of huff-n-puff is very important because sometimes a wrong
conclusion could be made without optimization. This paper is to
discuss the optimization of huff-n-puff gas injection, focusing on

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petlm.2017.03.004
2405-6561/Copyright © 2017, Southwest Petroleum University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
432 J.J. Sheng / Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437

shale oil reservoirs. The parameters to be investigated are huff One block is used in the K direction with its size 50 feet.
time, puff time and soaking time. Simulation approach is used We tried to use the data of the Middle Bakken formation
combined with some laboratory results. presented by Kurtoglu [6]. Table 1 summarizes the input matrix
and fracture properties in the Non-SRV and SRV regions in the
Middle Bakken shale. The dual permeability model was used to
2. Setup of a base simulation model
simulate the naturally and hydraulically fractured shale reser-
voirs. The shale matrix permeability is 0.0003 mD. The natural
Several authors [6,7] built models using the Middle Bakken
fracture effective permeability in the SRV is 0.0313 mD. The
data. But their detailed models are not publically available. And
natural fracture permeability in the un-stimulated reservoir re-
no data which are more completed than the Bakken data are seen
gion is 0.00216 mD that is much lower than the stimulated
in the literature. Thus we will use the Bakken data to build a
region.
validated base model.
The reservoir fluid composition and the Peng-Robinson EOS
In this study, the compositional simulator, GEM, developed by
parameters are from Yu et al. [7] as re-presented in Table 2, and
Computer Modeling Group [8], is used. Because of flow sym-
the binary interaction coefficients are shown in Table 3. In
metry, a half-fracture connected through a vertical well is
Table 2, Pc, Tc and Vc are critical pressure, critical temperature
simulated. In the Middle Bakken case, a horizontal well is frac-
and critical volume, respectively, and MW is molecular weight.
tured with 15 fracturing stages. It is assumed that only one
The reservoir temperature is 245  F, and the initial reservoir
fracture is generated at one stage. So the production data from
pressure is 7800 psi. The initial water saturation is 0.4. The
this model represents the 30th of the actual production.
history-matched relative permeabilities are presented in Figs. 2
The simulation model (reservoir volume) includes two re-
and 3.
gions: the stimulated reservoir volume and un-stimulated
The above model is actually the history-matched model.
reservoir volume. The schematic is shown in Fig. 1. The model
During history matching (1.2 years production history), the
area is 296.25 ft wide in the I direction, 4724 ft in the J direction
stock-tank oil rate is imposed, and effort is made to match gas
with 724 ft in the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) area, and
rate and well bottom-hole pressure by adjusting model param-
50 ft in the K direction (not shown in the figure). In this model,
eters. Fig. 4 compares the simulated well bottom-hole pressure
the half-fracture spacing is 296.25 ft in the I direction, the frac-
(line) with the actual data (dotted points). They are reasonably
ture length is 724 ft in the J direction, and the fracture height is
matched. The oil rate is exactly matched because it is input to the
50 ft in the K direction. The half-hydraulic fracture width is 0.5 ft.
The detailed block sizes of this base model are as follows.
The block sizes in feet in the I direction from I ¼ 1 to I ¼ 11
are: Table 1
Matrix and Fracture properties.

0.5 0.257312051 0.522150017 1.059571985 2.150134547 Non-SRV SRV

4.363156667 8.85392783 17.96681715 36.45913142 Thickness, ft 50 50
73.98462696 150.1331714 Matrix Permeability, mD 3.0E-04 3.0E-04
The block sizes in feet in the J direction with total 31 blocks Matrix Porosity, fraction 0.056 0.056
Fracture Porosity, fraction 0.0022 0.0056
are:
Fracture Permeability, mD 2.16E-03 3.13E-02
5*200 187.1636568 90.39505341 43.65839939 Fracture Spacing, ft 2.27 0.77
21.08584226 10.18389932 4.918551703 2.375529264 Hydraulic fracture porosity, fraction 0.9
1.147317264 0.554123632 0.267626932 0.5 0.267626932 Hydraulic fracture permeability, mD 100
0.554123632 1.147317264 2.375529264 4.918551703
10.18389932 21.08584226 43.65839939 90.39505341
187.1636568 5*200 Table 2
Peng-Robinson EOS fluid description of the Bakken oil.

Comp. Initial Pc Tc (K) Vc, Acentric MW Parachor

mole (atm.) (L/mol) Factor g/mole coeff.
fraction

CO2 0.0001 72.80 304.2 0.0940 0.013 44.01 78.0

N2-C1 0.2203 45.24 189.7 0.0989 0.04 16.21 76.5
C2-C4 0.2063 43.49 412.5 0.2039 0.0986 44.79 150.5
C5-C7 0.1170 37.69 556.9 0.3324 0.1524 83.46 248.5
C8-C12 0.2815 31.04 667.5 0.4559 0.225 120.52 344.9
C13-C19 0.0940 19.29 673.8 0.7649 0.1848 220.34 570.1
Cþ
20 0.0808 15.38 792.4 1.2521 0.7527 321.52 905.7

Table 3
Binary interaction coefficients for Bakken oil.

CO2 N2-C1 C2-C4 C5-C7 C8-C12 C13-C19 Cþ

20

CO2 0
N2-C1 0.1013 0
C2-C4 0.1317 0.013 0
C5-C7 0.1421 0.0358 0.0059 0
C8-C12 0.1501 0.0561 0.016 0.0025 0
C13-C19 0.1502 0.0976 0.0424 0.0172 0.0067 0
Cþ
20 0.1503 0.1449 0.0779 0.0427 0.0251 0.0061 0
Fig. 1. Schematic of the base model.
 J.J. Sheng / Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437
Fig. 2. Water and oil relative permeabilities.
Fig. 3. Gas and oil relative permeabilities.
Fig. 4. Well bottom-hole pressure (dot points are actual data, and line is simulated
data).
model. The gas rate from the model is lower than the actual data,
but follows the same trend of actual data. We believe it is caused
by the imperfect representation of PVT data by the EOS model
used. Therefore, the model is reasonably calibrated.
The effect of grid sensitivity is also checked. The number of
grid blocks in each direction are doubled and reduced by half.
The oil rate, gas rate and their cumulative values are closely
overlapped, except that the bottom hole pressure data are
slightly deviated from each other at later times (10%), as shown
in Fig. 5. Such difference is acceptable in engineering.
3. Optimization principles
To optimize a process, we need to first define what is the
objective function or parameter. Probably, net present value is a
good parameter. To calculate this parameter, many parameters
are needed such as equipment cost, operational cost, royalty tax,
and interest rate. These parameters are very case-dependent. It
will be very difficult to use this parameter to work out general
433
Fig. 5. Effect of grid block sizes on well bottom-hole pressure.
criteria for optimization that is the objective of this paper.
Considering investment and operational costs are similar, we
choose to use oil recovery factor as the objective function.
Improving oil recovery is the main motivation to employ the
huff-n-puff process.
Compared with gas flooding, three important times are huff
time, puff time and soaking time. These parameters are related to
injection and production pressures, and injection and production
rates. Therefore, these pressures and rates need to be first
addressed. These parameters are governed by the facility con-
straints, e.g., compressor, safety and operational constraint, and a
maximum-profit parameters like net present value. They are
case-specific. But we need to use typical values to build a base
model. In this study, the maximum injection pressure is set to be
the initial reservoir pressure that is 7800 psi. This is a typical
practice for pressure maintenance. The maximum injection rate
for the whole fractured horizontal well is set to be 9 MMSCF/D.
For this model, we only simulate a half-fracture for a 15-stage
well. So the maximum rate in the model is 300 MSCF/D. Sheng
and Chen [4] showed that a higher oil recovery is obtained if a
lower bottom-hole flowing pressure (BHFP) is used, even though
the flowing pressure is lower than the bubble point pressure.
Thus the minimum bottom-hole flowing pressure is set at
500 psi. The maximum producing oil rate is 1500 STB/D or 50
STB/D in the model. The maximum producing gas rate is 9
MMSCF/D or 300 MSCF/D in the model. Before gas injection, the
primary depletion is extended from 1.2 years to about 3 years
(1000 days) under the constraint of the minimum flowing
pressure of 500 psi. The injection is continued until 10,950 days
(total about 30 years). The injected gas is methane.
4. Optimization results
Based on the above principles, optimum huff time, puff time
and soaking time are determined, and the number of cycles is
discussed.
4.1. Optimum huff-n-puff times
First the literature information is reviewed. Kurtoglu [6] used
60 days of injection, 10 days of soaking and 120 days of pro-
duction in her simulation work. Shoaib and Hoffman [9] used
three months in each of injection, soak and production periods.
Wang et al. [10] simulated the EOR potential in the tight
(0.04e2.5 mD) Bakken formation in Saskatchewan. In their
models, one cyclic process includes 10 years of CO2 injection, 5
years of soaking time, and 5 years of production time. The
literature information here shows that the huff-n-puff times are
very different. What should the huff-n-puff times be? Table 4
shows the effect of huff-n-puff times on oil recovery factor.
434 J.J. Sheng / Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437

Table 4 Two cases are compared. One case is H300P300 in which both
Effect of huff-n-puff times. huff-n-puff times are 300 days. In the other case, the huff time is
Case Huff, days Puff, days Oil RF, % kept at 300 days, but the puff time is changed to 100 days (Case
Primary 0 10,950 11.42
H300P100). The oil recovery factors decrease from 21.2% to
H100P100 100 100 15.12 15.38%. The well-bottom pressure in H300P100 is shown in Fig. 7.
H100P300 100 300 15.05 It reveals that the pressure is not depleted to the set minimum
H300P300 300 300 21.20 production pressure of 500 psi at the end of 100 days of puff. By
H300P100 300 100 15.38
this time, the well is switched to the huff mode. Then the
H300P200 300 200 19.49
H300P350 300 350 20.95 effective production is lost. To further confirm this result,
H300P450 300 450 20.57 another case with the huff time 300 days and puff time 200 days,
H300P600 300 600 20.12 H300P200, is simulated. The oil recovery factor is 19.49%, lower
H100P100qx3 100 100 23.33
than that from H300P300 but higher than that from H300P100.
Primarytrans0.33 0 10,950 9.46
H100P100trans0.33 100 100 15.53
Will the oil recovery increase when the puff time is further
increased? Three more cases with the same huff time of 300 but
the puff times extended to 350, 450 and 600 days, H300P350,
When the huff time is increased from 100 days (Case H100P300) H300P450 and H300P600, are simulated. The oil recovery factors
to 300 days (Case H300P300), the oil recovery factor increases by are 20.95%, 20.57% and 20.12%, respectively (see Table 4), all
6.15% from 15.05% to 21.2%, with the same puff time of 300 days. lower than that from H300P300. The near-wellbore block pres-
This comparison indicates that the huff time is important. Why? sures during the huff-n-puff are slightly lower than those in
Fig. 6 compares the block pressures near the injection well for H300P300 (data not shown here to shorten the paper). Also, the
100 days of huff time (the left figure) with the pressure for 300 oil rate after 300 days are very small so that extended production
days of huff time (in the right figure). It shows that the pressure may not be effective.
for 100 day huff time is less than 4000 psi, while the pressure for From the above discussion, it may be concluded that the
300 day huff time reaches around 7800 psi. Then the drawdown optimum huff time is when the block pressure near-wellbore
pressure used to produce oil from the former case is almost half reaches to the set maximum injection pressure, and the opti-
of that for the latter case. It can be understood that the huff time mum puff time is when the block pressure near-wellbore reaches
of 100 days is not long enough. to the set minimum production pressure.
However, when the production time is increased from 100 To support the above conclusion, additional cases are simu-
days (Case H100P100) to 300 days (Case H100P300) with the lated. Based on Case H100P100, another case H100P100qx3 is
same huff time of 100 days, the oil recovery factor decreases by simulated. In this case, the maximum injection rate and
0.07% from 15.12% to 15.05%. It indicates that the puff time is not maximum production rate are increased by three times. What is
important. Why? When the huff time is 100 days, the pressure expected from this case is that the near-wellbore block pressure
near the well is not high. Then the drawdown during the puff will reach the maximum set injection pressure during the huff
period will be low and the oil rate will be low as well. In such period and the set minimum production pressure during the puff
case, the rate at later puff period will be low (not productive). period. Fig. 8 shows the expected result. According to the
Thus the longer puff time cannot produce significantly more oil conclusion, the expected oil recovery factor from this case should
in the single cycle. It is even worse that more productive time is be close to that from Case H300P300 (21.2%). The actual oil re-
lost when the longer puff time is used. covery factor from this case is 23.3%, which supports the
From the above two sets of cases, it can be seen that the conclusion.
pressure buildup near the well during the huff period is impor- Furthermore, additional models are used to support the
tant. Is the pressure drawdown during the puff period conclusion. If the transmissibility is reduced, the near-wellbore
important? block pressure will more easily reach the set maximum

Fig. 6. Near-wellbore block pressures when the huff time is 100 days (left) and 300 days (right), all puff time 300 days.
 J.J. Sheng / Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437 435

Fig. 7. Near-well block pressure when the huff time is 300 days but the puff time Fig. 9. Near-wellbore block pressure when the huff-n-puff time are 100 days with
is100 days (Case H300P100). transmissibility reduced by three times (Case H100P100trans0.33).

showed soaking time improved recovery of waterflood residual

oil in the cores. But the improved oil recovery was mainly from
the subsequent waterflooding period. And the total elapse time
combining injection and production times was longer with
soaking time than the total time without soaking time for those
experiments. Gamadi et al. [12] studied the effects of soaking
pressure and soaking time in the laboratory. The oil recovery
increased with soaking pressure and soaking time. Their results
showed that the oil recovery was dependent more on soaking-
pressure than soaking-time. Yu and Sheng's [13] experimental
data also showed higher oil recovery with the longer soaking
time. But the total experimental time with longer soaking time
becomes longer.
To find out the effect of soaking time using a simulation
approach, the simulation results should be consistent with the
experimental observations. We start with the case H300P300 in
which the huff-n-puff times are the same, 300 days, but no
soaking time. A new case H300S100P300 is created. In this case,
100 days of soaking time is added, and the total number of huff-
Fig. 8. Near-wellbore block pressure when the huff-n-puff time are 100 days but n-puff cycles remains the same as H300P300. The total number
high rate (Case H100P100qx3).
of cycles for 10,950 days is about 17. Thus the total elapse time is
increased to 12,650 days (¼10,950 þ 1700) in the new case. The
injection pressure (7800 psi) during the huff period and the set oil recovery factor is 21.39%, higher than 21.2% from H300P300,
minimum production pressure (500 psi) during the puff period. as presented in Table 5. This result is consistent with the
Even the huff time and puff time are short like 100 days, then the experimental observations mentioned above.
oil recovery factor will be high or optimized. To prove that, the Another case H200S100P300 is created in which the huff time
transmissibilities in the primary case (Primary) and the huff-n- of 300 days is split into 200 days of huff time and 100 days of
puff case (H100P100) are decreased by three times, and the cor- soaking time. In this case the total elapse time is 10,950 days
responding new cases, Primarytrans0.33 and H100P100trans0.33, which is the same as the case H300P300. The oil recovery factor
are created. The near-wellbore block pressure in the huff-n-puff is 17.7% that is lower than 21.2% in H300P300 (see Table 5). This
case H100P100trans0.33 is shown in Fig. 9. It shows that the
pressure reaches the set maximum injection pressure during the
huff period and the set minimum production pressure during the Table 5
puff period. The oil recovery factors for the primary and huff-n- Effect of soaking time.
puff cases are 9.46% and 15.53%, respectively (see Table 4), Case Huff, days Soak, days Puff, days Oil RF, %
resulting in the incremental oil recovery factor 6.07%.
Primary 0 0 10,950 11.42
H300P300 300 0 300 21.20
H300S100P300ext 300 100 300 21.39
4.2. Optimum soaking time
H200S100P300 200 100 300 17.70
H300S5P300 300 5 300 21.01
As reviewed earlier, the soaking times in the literature are H300S50P300 300 50 300 20.71
quite different. Monger and Coma [11] reported the field tests H300S100P300 300 100 300 20.33
using the soaking time of 18e52 days, and the results showed the H300P300Diff 300 0 300 23.40
H300S100P300Diff 300 100 300 22.71
sensitivity of soaking time is not very clear. Their laboratory tests
436 J.J. Sheng / Petroleum 3 (2017) 431e437

result is consistent with that from another earlier study by the

author [14]. The soaking time was not included when evaluating
the EOR potential in gas condensate reservoirs for most of the
cases simulated. But the effect of soaking time was checked for
several simulation cases. The results show that splitting a part of
huff time into soaking time did not improve oil recovery.
By keeping the total elapse time (10,950 days) and the huff
time (300 days) unchanged, soaking times of 5, 50 and 100 days
are added in the cases H300S5P300, H300S50P300 and
H300S100P300. The oil recovery factors for these cases are
20.01%, 20.71% and 20.33%, respectively in Table 5. All of these
recovery factors are lower than 21.2% in the case H300P300
without soaking time. Therefore, soaking time may not be added
in field projects. In our earlier work, we actually did not include
Fig. 11. Oil rate versus time in H300P300ext.
soaking time in our models [3,4,15e19] did not add soak time in
their experiments, when they evaluated the oil recovery potential
in shale gas condensate reservoirs by huff-n-puff gas injection. In this study, the case H300P300 is extended from 10,950 to
In the above simulation models, diffusion is not included 32,850 days (about 90 years) to create the case H300P300ext.
because of very long simulation time required and sometimes a Interestingly, the cumulative oil recovery factor keeps increasing
convergent solution could not be obtained as Kurtoglu [6] expe- as shown in Fig. 10, although the oil rate decreases with time as
rienced. To study the soaking time, diffusion may be important shown in Fig. 11. These results indicate that the huff-n-puff pro-
and should be included. Therefore, the diffusion in several models cess can be continued until an economic rate cut-off is reached.
are included to check the effect of diffusion. For example, the oil
recovery factor from H300P300Diff becomes 23.4% by including
5. Conclusions
diffusion in H300P300 (see Table 5). This recovery factor is higher
than 21.2% without including diffusion in H300P300. When the
Based on this study, the following conclusions may be drawn.
diffusion is included in H300S100P300Diff with soaking time of
100 days, the oil recovery factor is 22.71%. This recovery factor is
(1) The optimum huff time should be set so long that the
lower than that in H300P300Diff without soaking time (See
pressure near the wellbore reaches the set maximum in-
Table 5). These results shows that including diffusion does not
jection pressure during the huff period; and the optimum
change the conclusion about the soaking time effect.
puff time is the time required for the pressure near the
wellbore to reach the set minimum production pressure.
4.3. Number of cycles (2) The benefits of soaking may not compensate the loss in
injection and production due to the time lost in the
Another important parameter about cyclic gas injection is the soaking period. Therefore, soaking may not be necessary
number of cycles. Artun et al. [20] did a parametric simulation during the huff-n-puff gas injection in shale oil reservoirs.
study of a naturally fractured reservoir (a conventional reservoir), (3) The number of huff-n-puff cycles is determined when an
and they found an optimum number of cycles was 2e3 based on economic rate cut-off is reached.
net present value. However, Yu and Sheng's [13] did 10 cycles of (4) Including the diffusion effect does not seem to signifi-
huff-n-puff experiments and the cumulative oil recovered con- cantly improve oil recovery.
tinues to increase with the cycle. Wan et al. [21] history matched
the Yu and Sheng's experiments and the models also predicts the
Acknowledgment
continuous increase with the cycle. Simulation data shows that
the cumulative oil recovered increased with the cycle almost
The work presented in this paper is supported by the
linearly when the diffusion was not included in the model.
Department of Energy under Award Number DE-FE0024311.

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