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Introduction To Petroleum Reservoirs
Introduction To Petroleum Reservoirs
Reservoirs are petroleum accumulations within porous and permeable rocks. Petroleum (oil and gas) reservoirs exist predominately in sedimentary rock systems
although occasionally reservoirs have been found in igneous and metamorphic rocks. For a new reservoir development project, most critical facilities, early completion
planning, and reservoir exploitation decisions must be made when there is a minimum amount of data available for making those decisions. Reservoir engineering and
well testing operations disciplines significantly influence and guide production operations. In this article, you will learn more about the role of reservoir engineers,
petroleum reservoir formation and occurrence, and distribution of hydrocarbon fluids in traps. Additionally, you will discover the most common sedimentary rock types
associated with petroleum reservoirs and examine reservoir pressure and temperature.
in which they are trapped. Reservoir engineers conduct studies, tests, sampling runs, modeling exercises, and other activities in an effort to provide a clear
understanding of the properties of the reservoir fluids. These properties change over time, and reservoir engineers must understand to what degree they change. This
includes as the fluids move from within the reservoir, into the bottom of a producing well, into the tubing string and up the well, through the tree and choke, into
gathering lines, and finally to the entrance of the first-stage separator. In addition, the reservoir’s unique and operative drive mechanism is changing as reservoir
pressure decreases over time, at constant reservoir temperature. Reservoir engineers spend considerable time planning and gathering data early in the producing life
of a hydrocarbon accumulation, with the express purpose of defining exactly what is occurring in the reservoir. Having such information in hand makes the medium-
and longer-term planning of a well completion’s life more readily manageable, technically accurate, and doable. Especially when later decisions concerning workover
has a broad and varied meaning, but the goal of ultimate hydrocarbon recovery and maximum revenue generation are closely linked. Before establishing a plan to
produce a reservoir, the development engineers must understand key parameters about the subject reservoir:
Only with a good understanding of these variables can the engineering team plan and execute an efficient job of drilling, completing, and producing wells, to efficiently
Source Rock: The primary theory accepted for the generation of hydrocarbon is that it is formed by organic evolution. This is a result of the decomposition of
vegetable and animal organisms that lived during previous geologic ages. The accepted scenario is that organic material was deposited at the bottom of seas and
lakes, and was later subject to the deposition of fine sediments over a period of time. At depths where anaerobic bacteria can prosper and thrive in the absence of
oxygen, deposits are rich in carbon and hydrogen. Many oil and gas fields in various parts of the world are found at the depths of current the continental shelves of
Reservoir Rock: The term reservoir implies storage. Reservoir rock is therefore "that rock in which the hydrocarbon can be stored and from which it can be
produced." This reservoir rock may or may not be the rock in which the hydrocarbon was generated (its source rock). For a rock to be a potential reservoir rock, two
properties, porosity and permeability, must exist with sufficient magnitudes to justify economic development of the hydrocarbon reservoir.These beds are primarily
sand, sandstone, limestone, and dolomite. The fluids present are found in the intergranular spaces between grains called pores.
Fig 2. – Example of a reservoir rock including petroleum migration and entrapment.
Hydrocarbon Trap: Traps must also exist to trap the hydrocarbon in place forming a hydrocarbon reservoir. The fluids of the subsurface migrate according to density.
As previously discussed, the dominant fluids present or potentially present are hydrocarbon gas, hydrocarbon liquid, and salt water. Since the hydrocarbons are less
dense than the salt water, they will tend to migrate upward to the surface, displacing the heavier water down elevation. These fluids will continue to migrate until they
encounter impermeable rock, which will serve as a reservoir seal or trap. If impermeable rock does not exist, the hydrocarbons will migrate to the surface and be
dissipated into the environment in geologic time. See Figure 2 for an example of a trap.
A reservoir is that portion of a trap that contains oil and/or gas as a single hydraulically connected system. And, many hydrocarbon reservoirs are hydraulically
connected to various volumes of water-bearing rock, called aquifers. A typical reservoir rock is porous and permeable, which means that the pores interconnect so
that fluids can migrate through the rock. When “reservoir fluids” is used, the meaning of the term “fluids” is defined as reservoir oil, gas, condensate, and water.
petroleum accumulations. As oil and gas are lighter than water, the upward movement of petroleum must be restricted in order for hydrocarbon to accumulate at
depth. That is, a natural barrier or trap must exist for petroleum accumulation to form. The reservoir rock must be overlain by impermeable beds so that oil and gas
accumulation cannot seep from the trap and migrate to higher beds in the stratigraphic sequence.
Gravitational forces cause the lighter fluids to rise to higher positions in the trap. Capillary forces, on the other hand, cause a wetting fluid to rise into pore space
containing a non-wetting fluid. Water is a wetting fluid with respect to oil and gas, and oil is a wetting fluid with respect to gas. Even though capillary forces counteract
the force of gravity in segregating the fluids, an equilibrium exists between these two forces before any disturbance occurs, such as a drill bit penetrating a trap. A
The following are the three possible modes for gas occurrence in reservoirs:
1. In some reservoirs, only oil and water are present at the reservoir’s pressure and temperature conditions. Between a reservoir’s oil and water zones, there is a
section of the vertical column referred to as an oil-water transitional zone. Natural formation water, or connate water, is present in the pore spaces of the rock in the oil
zone with increasing depth. In the water zone, these pore spaces are fully saturated with water. In this type of reservoir, natural gas occurs as solution gas, and is
evident or present only when reservoir pressure sufficiently decreases, and gas breaks out of the oil.
Fig. 4 – Example of Solution Gas
2. In other reservoirs, the associated free gas is found at the structural top of the trap, forming a gas cap. Beneath the gas cap is the oil accumulation and beneath the
oil is water (again, refer to Figure 2-1). Such a reservoir could produce both the associated free gas and solution gas dissolved in the oil with well completions
3. In still other natural gas reservoirs, the gas zone structurally is above a gas-water transition zone. The gas zone often contains connate water saturation, which
increases with depth, to eventually become a completely water saturated zone. The gas in this type of hydrocarbon accumulation is referred to as non-associated gas,
Rock Types
The most common sedimentary rocks associated with petroleum reservoirs are:
Figure 7 shows the lithologic relationship of these common rock materials, indicating the transition from one type of rock to another, and the composition and
formation fluids during major tectonic events. Abnormal pressures caused by closure of rock structures may lead to very high gradients (0.8 to 0.9 psi/ft), and may
Reservoir temperatures conform to the regional geothermal gradient. A normal value is often approximately 1.6°F/100 ft of depth. The geothermal gradient varies from
one location to another, and also varies with depth, according to the rock type. The flowing temperature gradient varies from the static geothermal gradient and can be
Because of the large thermal capacity of the rock matrix, conditions within the reservoir at any single depth across the reservoir may be considered isothermal in most
cases.
To learn more about petroleum reservoirs and other related concepts, we recommend enrolling in our online Basic Reservoir Engineering or Applied Reservoir
Engineering courses!