Hybridising Human Judgment, AHP, Grey Theory, and Fuzzy Expert Systems for Candidate Well Selection in Fractured Reservoirs

The selection of appropriate wells for hydraulic fracturing is one of the most important decisions faced by oilfield engineers. It has significant implications for the future development of an oilfield in terms of its productivity and economics. In this study, we developed a fuzzy model for well selection that combines the major objective criteria with the subjective judgments of decision makers. This was done by fusing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, grey theory and an advanced version of fuzzy logic theory (FLT). The AHP component was used to identify the relevant criteria involved in selecting wells for hydraulic fracturing. Grey theory was used to determine the relative importance of those criteria. Then a fuzzy expert system was applied to fuzzily process the aggregated inputs using a Type-2 fuzzy logic system. This undertakes approximate reasoning and generates recommendations for candidate wells. These techniques and technologies were hybridized by using an intercommunication job-sharing method that integrates human judgment. The proposed method was tested on data from an oilfield in Western China and finally the most appropriate candidate wells for hydraulic fracturing were ranked in order of their projected output after fracturing.