Contrastive study on economic evaluation of fractured vertical well and multi-lateral well for coal bed methane reservoir

Fractured vertical wells and multi-lateral wells are the main well types used in coal bed methane reservoir. Based on these two kinds of wells, the economic evaluation under different permeability and different layer thickness conditions were studied in this paper using the net present value method, and then the development technical economic potential of these two kinds of wells is compared under different conditions. The results show that: multi-lateral wells have great advantage on the productivity of individual wells. But when it comes to the economic benefit, multi-lateral wells with lower permeability and thin coal bed methane reservoir beat the fractured vertical wells. Therefore, fractured vertical wells will be the dominant well type for a long time in the development of coal bed methane, while multi-lateral wells will play an important role in the low permeability and thin coal bed methane reservoirs.