Reservoir Management

Section 2

Colorado School of Mines

In Egypt

L Chorn, PhD, MBA

Associate Professor of
Petroleum Engineering

AGENDA
Reservoir Management requirements
Technology
Data requirements
Structure of courses attention
Management decisions for the Developed field stage
Development decisions for a Appraisal and Development stage
Investment decisions for the Exploration Stage

Brief review of fluid flow in porous media (Part 1)

2

Reservoir Management Requires Technology

As we have seen in the previous session, each phase of the
reservoir lifecycle requires different technical skills,
technology and data to achieve the investment goals.
In this session we will concentrate on the various interrogation
tools available to reservoir management professionals and
consider their applicability to each lifecycle stage.
Our over-arching focus remains on the teamwork aspect of the
process.
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Reservoir Management Requires Technology

Reservoir
Engineering

Production
Engineering

Geology

Geophysics

Core description

2-, 3-, 4-D seismic

Fluid analysis

Economics

Thin sections

Cross-hole
tomography

Decline curve
analysis

Data acquisition &

management

Image analysis

VSP

Well tests

Well stimulation

X-Ray

Shear wave logs

Core analysis

Pipeflow simulation

Depositional models

Multicomponent
seismic

Portfolio
management

Wellbore simulation

Diagenetic models

CT, NMR scanning

Nodal analysis

Maps, cross-sections

Log analysis

Remote sensing

Material balance
Geostatistics
Reservoir simulation
4

Reservoir Management Data

Exploration Stage
Geological:
depositional
environment
diagenesis
lithology
structure
faults
fractures
5

Reservoir Management Data

Exploration Stage
Seismic:
structure
stratigraphy

faults
bed thickness
heterogeneity

Reservoir Management Data

Exploration Stage
Drilling
Logging:
depth
lithology
thickness
porosity
fluid saturations

Reservoir Management Data

Exploration Stage
Fluids

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development decision stage
Drilling: logging and coring
Fluids
Well testing
Pressure
Flow

Reservoir Engineering
Volumetric production estimates
Initial simulation forecasting
Injectivity studies
9

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage

Drilling for limits and continuity
Coring:
depth
lithology
net pay
porosity
permeability
fluid saturations

10

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage
Drilling for limits
and continuity
Logging:
depth
lithology
net pay
porosity
fluid saturations
G/O, O/W,
and G/W contacts

Well control
11

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage
Fluids

12

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage
Well Testing

multi-rate tests
k-h estimation
continuity estimation
productivity index
drainage radius

13

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage
Reservoir Engineering
Volumetric estimation
(Muscat or Tarner approaches)
Rate
Phases
Residual saturations

14

Reservoir Management Data

Appraisal and Development Stage
Reservoir Engineering
Simulation
(black oil or compositional)
Production forecasting
Development scenario testing
Facilities design

15

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
4-D seismic
Drilling: logging and coring
Well testing
Pressure
Flow

Reservoir Engineering
High residual saturation regions
Depletion forecasting
Improved recovery scenario evaluation
16

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
4-D seismic to increase recovery

displacement front
locations
contact movements

17

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
Drilling to increase recovery
Coring:
Injectivity
for pressure maintenance
Residual saturations

18

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
Drilling to increase recovery
Logging:
residual saturations
G/O, O/W,
and G/W contact
movements

19

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
Reservoir Engineering
Simulation
(black oil or compositional)
Production history matching
Infill drilling opportunities

20

Reservoir Management Data

Developed field decision stage
Reservoir Engineering
Simulation
(black oil or compositional)
New technology
scenario testing
Facilities utilization
planning

21

Break

22

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)

Applications to Developed field interrogation

Ideal Reservoir model
Diffusivity equation and solutions

23

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Ideal Reservoir model
Assume radial flow towards a well in a circular reservoir with
isothermal conditions and a constant and small compressibility
oil:

gas:

1 p
c
p

2
r r 2.64 x104 k t
r

2 p

1 p p

p
(
r )
( )

4
r r z r
2.64 x10 k t z
24

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Ideal Reservoir model
If more than one phase is flowing:

ct
1
p
p
(r )
r r r
2.64 x10 4 t t
where ct is the total compressibility:

ct Soco Swcw S g cg c f
and t is the total mobility, i.e., the sum of the individual phases:
ko k w k g
t

o w g

25

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Ideal Reservoir model
This equation is known as the diffusivity equation. The term
2.64 x10 4 k is called the hydraulic diffusivity. Field units are used:

pressure in psi;
viscosity in centipoise;
permeability in darcies;

distance in feet;
porosity is a fraction;
compressibility in volume per psi;
time in hours;
diffusivity in ft2 per hour
26

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Solutions to the Diffusivity equation
Four solutions are particularly useful for field interrogation:

bounded cylindrical reservoir

infinite reservoir with well acting as a line source
pseudo steady-state solution
wellbore storage solution (special case, not considered here)

However these require the following assumptions:

homogeneous, isotropic reservoir of constant thickness; pressureindependent rock and fluid properties; small pressure gradients;
laminar radial flow; and negligible gravity forces.

27

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Bounded cylindrical reservoir solution requires 2 boundary
conditions and one initial condition to solve:
1)
2)
3)

Well produces at constant rate, qB, into the wellbore;

The wellbore, of radius rw, is centered in the reservoir of
radius re and there is no flow across the outer radius;
Before production begins, the reservoir is at a constant
pressure pi.
28

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Bounded cylindrical reservoir solution* provides the flowing
pressure in the wellbore with time and reservoir properties.
qB
pwf pi 141.2
kh

2t D

ln(
r
)

0
.
75

second
order
term
s
2

eD

reD

introducing two new dimensionless numbers:

reD
kt
reD
t D 2.64 x10 4
rw
ct rw2
* van Everdingen-Hurst constant-terminal-rate solution
29

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Infinite cylindrical reservoir with line-source well solution is
an approximate solution of the van Everdingen solution. The
boundary conditions and initial conditions for this solution
are:
1)
2)
3)
4)

constant rate;
zero radius well;
uniform initial reservoir pressure;
well drains an infinite area.
30

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Infinite cylindrical reservoir with line-source well solution
provides an estimate of the pressure, p, at a radius, r, from the
well at a given time, t.
qB 948 ct r 2
p pi 70.6
Ei

kh
kt

where

Ei( x)

e u

du
31

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
This is an accurate approximation to the van Everdingen
solution within a range of x between 0.02 and 10.9 if
3.79 x105 ct rw2 / k t 948 ct re2 / k

Ei( x) ln(1.781x)
For x values < 0.02 we can use
For x values > 10.9, Ei(-x) 0
For intermediate x values, we must use the integral or a table.
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Infinite cylindrical reservoir with line-source well solution

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
If the well shows evidence of permeability alteration (damage
or stimulation), we incorporate the Hawkins formulation to
solve for the flowing wellbore pressure:
qB
pi pwf 70.6
kh

948 c r 2

t w p
ln
s

kt

where ps, the skin factor, is:

k
rs
ps 2 1 ln
ks
rw
Infinite cylindrical reservoir with line-source well solution

33

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Skin can be either positive or negative. A negative skin
implies stimulation. A positive skin implies formation
damage. There is no definitive bound on skin values, but
rarely does a well have a skin less than 7 or 8, unless there
are evidence of highly conductive, deeply penetrating
fractures or fracture networks.

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Infinite cylindrical reservoir with line-source well solution

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
The pseudo steady-state solution to the diffusivity equation is
the most commonly applied to well testing and reservoir
interrogation. It assumes large testing times and allows us to
discard the second order terms of the van Everdingen - Hurst
constant-terminal-rate solution.
qB
pwf pi 141.2
kh

2t D

2 ln( reD ) 0.75 second order terms

reD

35

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
The pseudo steady-state solution reduces to:
qB
pwf pi 141.2
kh

5.27 x104 kt

re

ln 0.75 s
2
ct re

rw

We may wish to consider an average reservoir pressure,

rather than the initial pressure, so:
qB
p pwf 141.2
kh

re

ln 0.75 s
rw

36

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
The pseudo steady-state solution further reduces to:
qB
p pwf 141.2
kJ h

where:

re

ln 0.75
rw

r

e
ln 0.75
rw

kJ k

re

ln

0
.
75

37

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
Finally, we can extract a relationship for a wells performance
index, PI, from the pseudo steady-state solution:
PI

p pwf

kJ h
re

141.2qB ln 0.75
rw

38

Brief Review of Flow in Porous Media

(Part 1)
Applications to Developed field interrogation
If the reservoir is not a cylinder, or the well is not centered,
the pseudo steady-state solution can still provide guidance:
qB
p pwf 141.2
kh

10.06 A
0.75 s
0.5 ln
C r 2

Aw

where: A is the drainage area (ft2) and CA is a shape factor for a specific
shape and well location (dimensionless)

39