Reservoir Engineering

Reservoir
MODULE
Engineering
2

Chapter 1 – Introduction
Arron Singhe

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 OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

COURSE OVERVIEW
Topics covered in this Module

RESERVOIR ENGINEERING OVERVIEW

Definitions
Typical Tasks of Reservoir Engineers
History and Development of the Discipline

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 INTRODUCTION

About myself …

Arron A.T. Singhe

 CEO of Afro Petro & Business Solutions
E-mail: arron.singhe@afropbs.com
www.afropbs.com

About you …
 What is your expectation of the course
 What is your background

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 RECOMMENDED READING & REFERENCES

Fundamental Principles of Reservoir Engineering,

 by B.F. Towler, SPE Textbook Vol. 8, ISBN 1-55563-092-8, 2002.
The Practice of Reservoir Engineering,
 By L.P. Dake, Elsevier Science Publisher, ISBN 0-444-50670-5, 2001.
Reservoir Engineering Handbook,
 by T. Ahmed, Gulf Professional Publishing, ISBN 0-8841-5770-9, 2001.

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 COURSE OVERVIEW

Introduction

Rock Properties and Rock Mechanics

 Porosity
 Permeability
 Rock Compressibility and Compaction
Fluid Phase Behavior and Properties
 Reservoir Fluids, Composition, Density, …
 Black-Oil Properties (Bo, Rs, Bg, Z-factor, viscosity)

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 COURSE OVERVIEW

Fundamentals of Fluid Flow in Porous Media

 Capillary Pressure
 Relative Permeability
 Multi-phase Flow
Reserves and Volumetrics
 Classification of Reserves
 Volumetric Calculation of Reserves
Recovery Factors

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Material Balance Calculations
 Tarner Formulation
 Drive Indices
 Aquifer Models

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OUTLINE COURSE OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION

COURSE OVERVIEW Multi-Phase Fluid Flow in Porous Media

RESERVOIR  Darcy Law
ENGINEERING
OVERVIEW
 Fractional Flow
 Buckley-Leverett Solution
Displacement Efficiency

Well Performance
 Skin Factor, Productivity Indices
Introduction to Well Testing

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 COURSE OVERVIEW

Decline Curve Analysis

Introduction to Reservoir Simulation

 Advantages and Problems with numerical Simulation

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 RESERVOIR ENGINEERING …

Definition
 The art of developing and producing oil and gas fluids in such a
manner as to obtain a high economic recovery

Typical Tasks
 How much oil and gas is originally in place?
 What are the drive mechanisms for the reservoir?
 What will the recovery factor be by primary depletion?
 What will future production rates be?
 How can the recovery be increased economically?

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 RESERVOIR ENGINEERING …

Example
 Estimation of Hydrocarbons in Place
 Determination of Fluid Pressure Regimes
 Location of Fluid contacts
 Calculation of a Recovery Factor
 Time Scale to Recovery

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 CALCULATION OF HYDROCARBONS IN PLACE

Oil Volume in the Reservoir

 OIP = Vf(1-Swi)

where
 V ... Net bulk volume of the reservoir rock
 f ... Porosity of the reservoir
 Swi ... Connate or irreducible water saturation

 Existence of Swi is a natural phenomenon fundamental to fluid

flow in porous media. Typical range is 10-25%

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 When one fluid displaces another, the displaced fluid saturation can
never be reduced to zero
 This applies, if fluids are immiscible (i.e.: they do not mix).
 Only effect of immobile water is that it reduces the reservoir volume
that is occupied by hydrocarbons

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 CALCULATION OF HYDROCARBONS IN PLACE

Oil Volume in the Stock Tank (Surface)

 To convert the volume from reservoir volume to surface (Stock

Tank) volume, a formation volume factor, FVF, is used.

 STOIIP = N = Vf(1-Swi)/Boi

 Boi ... Oil Formation Volume Factor [ResVol/STVol]

 I.e.: a volume of 1.2 rb of oil will produce 1 stb of oil at the surface
together with the volume of gas which was originally dissolved in the
oil in the reservoir

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 f and Swi are determined from petrophysical analysis
 The net bulk volume, V, is obtained from geology and fluid pressure
analysis.

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 FLUID PRESSURE REGIMES

Well

Oil
WOC
Water

 Problem to locate phase contact

 Not possible to determine contact by inspection of logs, since

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only the oil zone has been penetrated
 Required to identify fluid pressure regimes

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 FLUID PRESSURE REGIMES

14.7 psia
 Typical pressure gradients:
Pressure  Water = 0.45 psi/ft or 0.1 bar/m
 Oil = 0.35 psi/ft or 0.08 bar/m
 Gas = 0.08 psi/ft or 0.018 bar/m
Depth
 Overburden pressure:
 Varies approx. linearly in
sedimentary basins

 = Fluid pressure + Grain pressure

Fluid pressure Grain pressure  = approx. 1 psi/ft (0.225 bar/m)
Overburden pressure

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over pressured

under pressured
Normal hydrostatic pressure

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 FLUID PRESSURE REGIMES

 Fluid pressure regimes in hydrocarbon columns are dictated by

the prevailing water pressure in the vicinity of the reservoir
 In a normal case:
 dp 
pw     z  14.7
 dz  w

 Assumes continuity of water pressure to surface and that

salinity does not vary with depth.
 In contrast to normal gradient (due to sealed off sands,
temperature change, salinity changes, geological changes),
abnormal gradients can exist:

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 dp 
pw     z  14.7  C
 dz  w

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 EXAMPLE
 Normal hydrostatic reservoir
 WOC = 5500 ft, GOC = 5200 ft,
 Top of structure = 5000 ft
 (dp/dz)w = 0.45 psi/ft
 (dp/dz)o = 0.35 psi/ft
 (dp/dz)g = 0.08 psi/ft
 What is the pressure at the top of the structure?

pw  0.45  z  15

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pTop, Hydro  0.45  z  15
 0.45  5000  15
 2265 psi Is this correct??

pw,W OC  0.45  5500  15  2490  po,W OC

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 EXAMPLE

2265 2369 Pressure

Top pg ,TOP  0.08  5000  1969  2369

5000
pg  0.08  z  C2 C2  2385  0.08  5200  1969
5200 GOC
po,GOC  0.35  z  565  0.35  5200  565  2385

po  0.35  z  C1 C1  2490  0.35  5500  565

5500 WOC pw,W OC  0.45  5500  15  2490  po,W OC

Depth 2490

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pw  0.45  z  15

 p at top of reservoir is 2369 psia. This pressure exceeds the normal

hydrostatic pressure by 104 psia (phydro=2265 psia)
 When drilling through a sealing shale on the crest, a sharp pressure kick
will occur at 5000 ft. The magnitude of the pressure kick depends on the
vertical extension and will be much greater for gas reservoirs.

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 EXAMPLE

2369 Pressure
 What if the water is overpressured by
only 20 psi?
5000
Top  Then,
pw  0.45  z  35
 And the oil pressure is given by
GOC
5200
po  0.35  z  565
 At the WOC, both must be equal. Hence
0.45  z  35  0.35  z  565

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0.1 z  530
WOC z  5300
5500
 A small difference in pressure causes
Depth 200 ft difference in phase contact! This
can make an enormous difference in
estimation of oil in place!

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 RESULT ANALYSIS

 As we have seen, small uncertainties in pressure gradients can

cause large effects
 Therefore, reservoir engineers spend a lot of effort in defining the
hydrostatic pressure regime in a new field.
 E.g.: from wireline formation tests in exploration wells prior to casing
 These test are used to measure pressure in the water bearing
sands above and below the reservoir and help defining the water
pressure line

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 NEXT STEPS …

 Having defined fluid contacts, it is possible to calculate the net

bulk volume of the reservoir to calculate the hydrocarbons in
place
 E.g digitizing the contours above the WOC
 Finally, entering the values into

STOIIP = Ahf(1-Swi)/Boi

 will result in correct value, if all parameters are truly representative

of their average throughout the reservoir

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Typically, parameters are represented by probability
distributions rather than a single value.

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 RESERVOIR ENGINEERING …

Example
 Estimation of Hydrocarbons in Place
 Determination of Fluid Pressure Regimes
 Location of Fluid contacts
 Calculation of a Recovery Factor
 Time Scale to Recovery

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 Recovery Factor

Ultimate Recovery is calculated from

Ultimate Recovery = (Ahf(1-Swc)/Boi)xRF

 where RF is the Recovery Factor

 RF ranges from 0 to 1 and represents the fraction of
recoverable oil

 Determination of the recovery factor is the most important

single task of the reservoir engineer!

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 RECOVERY FACTOR

Types:
 Economic Recovery Factor
 Governed by current economics, environmental and ecological
considerations
 Technical Recovery Factor
 Depends on the physics of the reservoir-fluid system

 This course will deal only with the technical recovery factors!

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 HYDROCARBON RECOVERY

Primary Recovery:
 Volume of hydrocarbons that can be produced by utilizing the
natural energy available in the reservoir and its adjacent
aquifer
 E.g.: Fluid expansion

Supplementary (Secondary and Tertiary) Recovery:

 Volume of hydrocarbons that can be produced by adding
supplementary energy to the reservoir-fluid system.
 E.g. Water flooding, CO2 Flooding, Steam Injection, …

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 PRIMARY RECOVERY

Mechanics of primary recovery rely on the expansion of fluids in

the reservoir.
 Isothermal compressibility
1  V 
c  
V  p T
 When used in isolation

dV  c V  p

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Goal in Reservoir Engineering is to ensure that dV is from the
most commercially valuable fluid, namely from the oil utilizing
the natural reservoir energy.

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 PRIMARY RECOVERY

 Total production is: dVtot  dVo  dVw  dVg

 This can be expressed as: dVtot  coVo p  cwVwp  cgVg p

 Typical figures for compressibilities at 2000 psi

co  15 106 / psi
cw  3 106 / psi
cg  500 106 / psi

dVtot= oil production

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Due to dP: Vw dVw Vo dVg Vg

aquifer oil gascap

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 RESULT ANALYSIS

 It is evident that the contribution supplied by the oil and

water expansion will only be significant if both, the initial
volumes of oil and water are large.

 In contrast, because of its high compressibility, even a

relatively small volume of gascap gas will contribute
significantly to the oil production.

 Therefore, the gas in the gascap, although having some

commercial value, is frequently kept in the reservoir and
allowed to play its role in contributing to the primary

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recovery through expansion drive.

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 HISTORY OF RESERVOIR ENGINEERING

1930-1940:
 Studies on fluid flow in porous media (Muskat, 1937)
 Studies on fundamental Rock and PVT properties (Schilthuis)
 Formulation of first material balance equations (1936)
1940 – 1950:
 Multiphase flow investigations (Buckley and Leverett)
 Oil and gas displacement, capillary pressure, relative permeability
concepts
 Tarner equation for solution-gas drive
 Water influx models (van Everdingen and Hurst)

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 HISTORY OF RESERVOIR ENGINEERING

1950-1960:
 Early simulation models
 Well test interpretations
 Decline curve analysis (Arps, Fetkovich)

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 HISTORY OF RESERVOIR ENGINEERING

Today:
 Most tools are available in software programs:
 Especially probabilistic and economic calculations are performed
using spreadsheet applications
 Reservoir Characterization and Simulation are part of everyday work
for Reservoir Engineers
 Volumetric
 Material Balance
 Decline Curve Analysis
 Well Test Interpretation
 Reservoir Simulation

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