Research status and progress of artificial lifting of shale gas wells abroad

Rapid production decline after fracturing is a prominent characteristic of shale gas wells and it is hard to deliver beneficial recovery without appropriate intervention. One of the critical tasks of high-efficiency recovery of shale gas is to optimize the artificial lifting of shale gas wells so as to drain wellbore liquid loading, stabilize gas production, and increase recoverable reserves per well. It analyzed the application performance of various artificial lifting techniques in North America and pointed out the constraints of applications and present technical disadvantages. With the fracturing fluid flowback, slug flows, early and late wellbore conditions of production wells and production characteristics through the lifecycle of shale gas wells taken into consideration, the optimization plan of artificial lifting was developed and the factors, to which extra attention shall be paid, during the optimization process were clarified. Finally, two novel technical mechanisms to boost shale gas production via pressurization and their application performance were introduced. This research provides references for the high-efficiency cost-effective development of shale gas in China.