A prediction model for water breakthrough time in high-sulfur gas reservoir with edge water

Abstract The water coning phenomenon leads to decrease the wellhead pressure with moving of water into gas production zone, which is regarded as one of most serious problems during gas production. It has been shown that water breakthrough time plays an important role in analyzing the water coning phenomenon and production of water. However, the existing prediction models of water breakthrough time are very scarce and need to be discussed. In this work, a novel model for water breakthrough time in high-sulfur gas reservoir with edge water is developed based on flow law and sulfur precipitation model in porous media. The effect of irreducible water saturation, residual gas saturation, and the distance between gas well and edge water, sulfur saturation and gas non-Darcy flow on water breakthrough time was involved in this model. The validity of the proposed model is verified by comparing the existing models available. A good trend is found between them. In addition, the influence of the distance between gas well and edge water, sulfur saturation and gas non-Darcy flow on water breakthrough time was detail discussed further.