Prediction of maximum slug length considering impact of well trajectories in British Columbia shale gas fields using machine learning

In this study, the severity of slugging is assessed by predicting maximum slug lengths (MSL) quickly using the random forest (RF) algorithm based on the geometric features of well trajectories for a shale gas field. Severe slugging is one of the critical issues production engineering-wise because it causes operation shut-down. Thus it should be predicted for proactive measurements. A total of 5033 well trajectories were acquired from the northeastern area of British Columbia, Canada. The well trajectories are described using ten geometric features such as X, Y, and Z lengths in the Cartesian coordinate system, inclination, azimuth, and the other five. The 5033 well trajectories are grouped using the k-medoids clustering algorithm. The well trajectories in each group and the groups are compared visually to see if the ten features are representative enough to describe the geometric feature…