SPE-196871-MS

Numerical Modeling of Non-Equilibrium Phase Transitions in the Isothermal

Compositional Hydrocarbon Flow Simulations

Kirill Bogachev, Sergey Zemtsov, and Sergey Milyutin, Rock Flow Dynamics; Ilya Indrupskiy and Olga Lobanova,
OGRI RAS

Copyright 2019, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Russian Petroleum Technology Conference held in Moscow, Russia, 22 – 24 October 2019.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
The paper deals with the problem of numerical simulation of multiphase flow with non-equilibrium phase
transitions in the development of hydrocarbon deposits. For the isothermal compositional flow model, a
new method is proposed that takes into account the rate of thermodynamic equilibration.
A process is called non-equilibrium if its characteristic duration is equal to or greater than the
characteristic time of external conditions changing. In the classical formulation of multiphase flow
problems, it is believed that flow processes take place under thermodynamic equilibrium, that is, phase
transitions can be considered instantaneous compared to the rate of change of the pressure and composition
of the hydrocarbon mixture. In real oil and gas-condensate systems phase transitions proceed in forward and
reverse directions with different rates. For example, the dissolution of gas is much slower than the liberation
of gas from oil, and so non-equilibrium behavior can strongly influence the simulation results. The role of
non-equilibrium behavior increases with the increase of the elementary volume of averaging, that is, with
the growth of the mesh size of the dynamic flow model.
For black-oil models, there are extensions to the mathematical formulation that are often used in practice
to describe non-equilibrium phase transitions. In most realizations of compositional models, the rate of
establishing thermodynamic equilibrium is not taken into account. In some typical cases it may call into
question the reliability of the simulation results.
Previously, an approach was proposed to extend the traditional compositional model to account for
non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes occurring in the reservoir (Indrupskiy et al., 2017). In the non-
equilibrium case, the condition of equality of chemical potentials of the components in the phases was
replaced by the condition of relaxation of the difference of chemical potentials to zero as the system
tends to the equilibrium state after changing the external parameters (pressure and bulk composition of the
mixture). In this paper, an alternative approach is formulated in which it is proposed to limit the rate of
change of the distribution ratios (K-values) of the components, so as to take into account the relaxation.
The new method has a number of advantages: higher numerical efficiency and stability, the possibility of
natural generalization to the thermal compositional model. At the same time, as for the method proposed
in (Indrupskiy et al., 2017), it is necessary to change only the algorithms for calculating the vapor-liquid
2 SPE-196871-MS

"equilibrium" ("flash"), while the flow equations do not change. It makes possible a relatively simple
implementation in existing reservoir simulators.
The proposed method, as well as the method of (Indrupskiy et al., 2017), are implemented in the
framework of a fully implicit three-phase three-dimensional compositional flow simulator. The results of
real reservoir simulations are presented to demonstrate the need to take into account the non-equilibrium
phase transitions. The implementation demonstrates high numerical efficiency.

Introduction
Compositional numerical models of multiphase flow are used to simulate the processes of hydrocarbon
reservoirs development accompanied by strong changes in the composition of reservoir fluids in space and
time and intense phase transitions (Aziz and Wong, 1989). The most frequent applications are gas injection
for oil recovery, as well as the development of gas-condensate and oil-gas-condensate deposits and volatile
oil deposits. In comparison with the black-oil models, the compositional representation of the reservoir
hydrocarbon mixture in such cases allows to significantly improve the accuracy of the phase properties
calculation in the reservoir during the flow, as well as the composition of the produced fluids.
In most of the processes that occur during the development of deposits, one or two hydrocarbon phases
can be formed in the reservoir: vapor (gas) and liquid (oil or condensate). When the pressure or the bulk
composition of the hydrocarbon mixture changes in an elementary volume of the formation (a cell of the
numerical model), its phase state can change, that is, the number, fractions and compositions of the phases
it forms. From the point of view of thermodynamics, the corresponding processes are phase transitions. In
oil and gas terminology, they are associated with the release (liberation) or dissolution of gas in oil, as well
as condensation or evaporation of condensate in the gas-condensate system.
Phase transitions are associated with the processes of interphase mass transfer – diffusion of
components through the interfacial boundary. For different directions of the phase transition, this process
is fundamentally different, which leads to a strong difference in the diffusion rate and, accordingly, the
characteristic time for establishing equilibrium between the phases when the external conditions (pressure
and composition of the hydrocarbon mixture) change. For example, the release of dissolved gas from oil
into the free phase occurs almost instantly in comparison with the characteristic rate of pressure change
during the development of deposits, so this process can be considered equilibrium. The reverse process,
i.e., the dissolution of gas in the liquid hydrocarbon phase, is much slower, and its non-equilibrium (non-
instantaneous) nature needs to be taken into account. Similar laws are valid, respectively, for the processes
of condensation and evaporation of the liquid phase in gas-condensate mixtures. Depending on the scale
of the system description, the characteristic time of establishing equilibrium at the dissolution of gas or the
evaporation of condensate has been estimated at magnitudes from tens of hours to tens of years (Buleyko
and Vovchuk, 2010; Lobanova et al., 2016), and for typical sizes of grid cells of numerical models – from
tens of days to many months. Therefore, failure to take into account the non-equilibrium phase transitions
can lead to big errors in the results of numerical simulations.
These specifics are well known from the practice of oil field development after gas liberation (Usenko,
1967; Brilliant et al., 2014). To account for them, many black-oil simulators provide extensions that allow
to limit the rate of gas dissolution in oil, or condensate evaporation, and in recent realizations – taking into
account the relaxation character of the process (Zubov et al., 2015). The wide acceptance of such solution
is due to the simplicity of its implementation, since the dependency of phase properties on pressure in the
black-oil model is determined by user-defined tables and is not controlled by strict thermodynamic relations.
In compositional models of multiphase flow, hydrocarbon fluids are considered a multicomponent
mixture whose phase behavior is described by thermodynamic equations. The classical formulation of the
isothermal compositional problem, implemented in all widely used simulators, involves determination of
the phase state of the mixture, fractions and compositions of hydrocarbon phases from the conditions of
SPE-196871-MS 3

phase equilibrium. These correspond to the Gibbs energy minimum at current pressure, temperature and
bulk composition of the mixture in a given cell at a certain time. This is equivalent to the condition of
equality of chemical potentials of each component in the liquid and vapor phases (Whitson and Brule, 2000;
Brusilovsky, 2002), which are calculated on the basis of solution of the equation of state (EoS) for each phase
(the so-called "flash" problem). This approach guarantees the thermodynamic consistency of the obtained
solution, but is obviously based on the equilibrium formulation of the problem.
The most investigated problem associated with the use of non-equilibrium compositional models is a
strong loss of accuracy in calculating the displacement of oil by injected gas after upscaling to the coarse
computational grid. To preserve the possibility to describe early gas breakthrough after upscaling, a number
of approaches has been proposed. Some of them are based on using only part of the mixture during the
calculation of phase equilibrium (Coats et al., 2007), while others – on the adjustment of the components
flow between cells after the calculation of phase equilibrium (Barker and Fayers, 1994; Bourgeois et al.,
2012). In both the cases, the required deviation from equilibrium behavior occurs, but thermodynamic
consistency of the solution is not guaranteed, and additional parameters of the model need to be tuned.
Thermodynamically consistent approaches have been proposed in the papers (Salehi et al., 2013; Salehi
et al., 2019), but the authors also limit discussion to the problem of upscaling the originally equilibrium
compositional model.
Compositional flow models in thermodynamically consistent non-equilibrium formulation have been
considered in some studies (Nghiem and Sammon, 1997; Rosenberg and Kundin, 1976), but have not
reached practical application. Accounting for non-equilibrium interphase mass transfer led to a change in
the formulation of continuity equations for the components of the mixture and doubling the dimension of
the system, as well as the need to specify a number of additional parameters, practical definition of which
is problematic (Lobanova et al., 2014).
A unified approach to accounting for non-equilibrium phase transitions in compositional simulation was
presented in the papers (Zubov et al., 2016; Indrupskiy et al., 2017). The proposed method is based on the
classical flow equations (continuity equations) for components of the mixture in the same form as in the
equilibrium case. Changes are made to the form of equations and algorithm for calculation of phase fractions
and compositions. Instead of the equilibrium flash problem, it is required to solve the non-equilibrium
flash problem, where the condition of equality of chemical potentials of the components in the phases is
replaced by the condition of relaxation of their difference after changing the external parameters of the
system. The method also introduces the criteria for determining whether the considered phase transition is
non-equilibrium (Indrupskiy et al., 2017).
The following section discusses the traditional formulation of the phase transitions model in a
compositional simulator. Then ideas of the method of (Indrupskiy et al., 2017) and the features of its
implementation in the compositional simulator taking into account non-equilibrium phase transitions are
described. After that, the criteria for the use of non-equilibrium or equilibrium calculations are discussed.
Then the proposed new method based on the relaxation of K-values of components is described. Finally,
the results of test calculations demonstrating the impact of non-equilibrium effects and the specifics of their
modeling using the two methods are presented, and conclusions are formulated.

The equilibrium compositional model

The system of flow equations (continuity equations) for the components of a hydrocarbon mixture for the
isothermal compositional simulation can be represented as follows:
(1)
Equations (1) are complemented by the continuity equation for the water component and the closing
(constitutive) relations. Here:
4 SPE-196871-MS

• m – is the number of hydrocarbon components in the system;

• Φ – is the porosity;

• Ni – is the total (bulk) molar density of component i;

• ξα – is the phase molar density, α=o,g,w for oil, gas and water respectively;

• – is the phase superficial (Darcy) velocity vector, α=o,g,w; the relationship between
the phase superficial velocity and the pressure gradient (taking into account the influence of
gravity) is determined by the given law of multiphase flow in a porous medium, for example, the
generalized Darcy's law;
• xi – is the molar concentration of the ith component in the liquid hydrocarbon phase;

• yi – is the molar concentration of the ith component in the vapor hydrocarbon phase;

• qi – is the molar intensity of the sources/sinks of the components associated with the operation
of wells;
• pα – is the pressure in the phase α; the relationship between the pressures in the phases is given
through the capillary pressure, depending on the saturations;
• Saturations of phases sα, α=o,g,w, are expressed in terms of phase molar fractions and phase molar
densities, and the normalization condition holds: so + sg + sw = 1 .
These equations and closing relations are supplemented by conditions for calculation of hydrocarbon
phase compositions (molar concentrations xi and yi), which are the subject of further discussion. The
resulting system of nonlinear algebraic equations and partial differential equations is solved with respect
to the primary variables (oil pressure and total molar densities of components). Implicit approximation in
time and finite volume method for approximation of differential operators in space are used for the solution
within the framework of the simulator considered in this article. The system of nonlinear algebraic equations
obtained with the described scheme is solved at each timestep by the Newton's method, and the equations
for each cell of the computational grid have the form:

(1a)

where F is the sum of the component flows across the cell boundaries and sources/sinks; the superscripts n
+1 and n are the numbers of the next and current time layers, Δt = tn+1 - tn is the size of the time step; and
the vector signs above the values in the right hand side indicate the dependence on the main variables of
not only the current cell, but also the cells connected with it.
Let us consider in more detail the calculation of phase compositions xi and yi and their molar fractions in
the hydrocarbon part of the system L and V. The change in these parameters corresponds to the processes
of phase transitions in a hydrocarbon mixture such as gas dissolution in oil and reverse liberation, liquid
condensation from gas and reverse evaporation of condensate. In industrial composition simulators, the
description of phase transitions in a multicomponent system is based on the classical conditions of phase
equilibrium — minimum of the Gibbs energy, or equality of the Gibbs chemical potentials (Whitson and
Brule, 2000; Brusilovsky, 2002). Expressing chemical potentials of the components with the fugacity
coefficients determined by solving equation of state for each phase, and taking into account normalization,
we obtain the following system of algebraic equations for finding the fractions and compositions of the
vapor and liquid phases:
SPE-196871-MS 5

(2)

where

•
zi – is the molar fraction of the ith component, ;

• – is the K-value of the ith component (distribution ratio), in the equilibrium state, also called
the phase equilibrium constant;
• p – is the pressure, usually assumed equal to the pressure in oil for both hydrocarbon phases;

• φi,L (xi,p) – is the fugacity coefficient of the ith component in the liquid phase;

• φi,V (yi,p) – is the fugacity coefficient of the ith component in the vapor phase;

• V – is the vapor molar fraction;

• L – is the liquid molar fraction;

In the case where the hydrocarbon system is in a single-phase state at the current temperature, pressure
and bulk composition of the mixture, there is no need to solve the system (2) to determine the fractions and
compositions of the phases. Therefore, the so-called stability test is run first (Michelsen, 1982; Whitson and
Brule, 2000). If according to its results the mixture is stable, that is, remains in a single-phase state, then
the type of the phase (vapor or liquid) is identified. Correspondingly, either xi or yi are set equal to zi, and
L and V are set equal to 1 and 0, or 0 and 1, respectively.
The set of equations (2) is called the flash system. In an effective fully implicit implementation, the
derivatives with respect to the primary variables of the system (1a) are determined together with the values
of fractions and compositions of the phases. The methods of successive substitution, bisection, the Newton's
method, or a combination of these methods can be used to find the solution.

The method based on the relaxation of the chemical potentials difference

In the non-equilibrium case, the condition of the Gibbs energy minimum and, accordingly, the equality
of chemical potentials of the components in the phases do not hold. However, in the absence of external
influences (changes in pressure and bulk composition of the mixture) the system will relax to the equilibrium
state due to the interphase (diffusion) flow of the components.
As part of the isothermal composition simulator, this feature can be taken into account as follows
(Indrupskiy et al, 2017). Two nested processes are considered at each time step in a grid cell. The first
(external) process corresponds to the change in the external parameters of the thermodynamic system
(pressure and bulk composition of the mixture) from the previous to the new values. The second (internal)
process is determined by the relaxation of the system in the direction of equilibrium (with changes in
fractions and compositions of the phases) during the time step. Relaxation parameters are considered to be
the differences of the chemical potentials of each component between phases.
Rewrite the equilibrium system (2) with the designation of time layers. Since the scheme is fully implicit,
all values in the equilibrium case have the superscript n+1:
6 SPE-196871-MS

(2a)

Since the equilibrium value for the difference between the chemical potentials is 0, one can write the
relaxation equation for the difference between the chemical potentials in the following form:

(3)

with the initial condition specified by the value of at the "new" values of pressure and bulk
composition of the mixture , but "old" K-values . Integrating (3) over the time step and taking
into account that the expression is up to normalization equal
to the difference of chemical potentials , we obtain the form of the flash system for the non-
equilibrium case:

(4)

Here and are determined by the "old" and "new" .

The algorithm for solving the resulting non-equilibrium system (4) remains close to the solution of the
system (2) for the equilibrium case.

Non-equilibrium phase transition criterion

In the analysis of laboratory and field data on the phase behavior of hydrocarbons, a fundamental difference
was noted by different authors (Usenko, 1967; Buleyko and Vovchuk, 2010; Brilliant et al., 2014; Lobanova
et al., 2016) between the two cases: the transition from a single-phase to the two-phase state (gas liberation
from oil, liquid condensation from the gas phase) and the reverse transition towards a single-phase state
(gas dissolution, condensate evaporation). From a thermodynamic point of view, these differences can be
described as follows. In the former case, a new phase is formed within the volume of the existing one
in the form of bubbles or drops, and the characteristic time of interfacial diffusion of the components is
small compared to the rate of change of external parameters (pressure, mixture composition) during the
development of the reservoir. In the latter case, the phase transition occurs in the conditions of an already
formed interfacial boundary, so it is associated with slow diffusion of components through the boundary,
and its characteristic time depends on the scale of the system (separation of phases) and can reach significant
values. Thus, the non-equilibrium nature of the phase transition needs to be taken into account in the latter
case.
If the process is isothermal and the bulk composition of the mixture does not change, the character of
the phase transition is determined by the type of the mixture (oil type, if the temperature is lower than
SPE-196871-MS 7

critical, or gas-condensate type, if higher) and the direction of pressure change (Indrupskiy et al, 2017). In
compositional flow simulation, the situation becomes much more complicated, as the character of phase
transition in each cell of the computational grid at each time step must be determined, under conditions of
permanent changes in the mixture composition due to the flows between the cells.
To resolve the problem, authors of the papers (Zubov et al., 2016; Indrupskiy et al, 2017) proposed to use
the well-known stability test algorithm (Michelsen, 1982), but applied separately to each of the phases. If
the pressure change at the current step renders both phases unstable, the phase transition occurs within the
volume of each of them and will be of equilibrium type, that is, the system (2) should be used to calculate
the phase fractions and compositions. If both the phases are stable, the phase transition is only possible
through the interfacial boundary and will be non-equilibrium, so the system (4) is to be used.
A specific interesting situation takes place when one of the phases is stable and the other is not. A special
kind of the three-phase state with two equilibrium phases and a non-equilibrium one is formed. However,
further discussion of this case is beyond the scope of this paper.
The described criterion of non-equilibrium phase transition is suitable both for the method described
above based on the relaxation of the chemical potentials difference, and for the new method considered
further.

The method based on limiting the rate of change of component K-values

As an alternative approach to modeling the non-equilibrium phase behavior in compositional simulations,
we consider a method that controls the dynamics of the phase fractions and compositions in the non-
equilibrium state by limiting the rate of change of the distribution ratios of the components. As an example,
consider the process of gas dissolution in the liquid hydrocarbon phase. When the light components
prevailing in the vapor phase are dissolved in oil, the fraction of such a component in the vapor phase
yi decreases, and its fraction in the liquid phase xi increases, which leads to a decrease in Ki for such
components. It is proposed to control the non-equilibrium dynamics of the process (the rate of decrease of
the vapor phase fraction and changes in the phase compositions) by limiting the rate of change of Ki's. In a
simplified formulation, the implementation of the proposed method consists of the three consecutive steps:

• Calculate the new equilibrium phase state, i.e. determine the equilibrium Ki's.

• If the criterion of the non-equilibrium state is satisfied, update Ki's.

• Calculate the phase fractions and compositions using the updated Ki's.

The main difficulty of the described method lies within the first step. The equilibrium phase state can be
single-phase. As a result, we cannot determine the equilibrium Ki's. For successful implementation of the
proposed approach to non-equilibrium simulations, an algorithm for extension to single-phase domains is
required. We will use the negative flash procedure (Whitson and Michelsen, 1989) for this purpose. The
equilibrium model (2) can be rewritten in the equivalent form:

(5)

The system (5) is a system of nonlinear algebraic equations with respect to the unknowns Ki and V.
The physically acceptable solution of the system (2) is V ∈ [0,1]. But in fact, a solution of (5) exists in a
broader area. Consider the function F(Ki,V). This function decreases monotonically in V and has asymptotes
at values . The solution of the equation F(Ki,V)= 0 exists for V≠Vi. In the paper (Whitson and
8 SPE-196871-MS

Michelsen, 1989) it is shown that for the molar fractions of the components in the
liquid and vapor phases remain physically correct: xi, yi∈[0,1], which allows to find the fugacity coefficients
for such compositions by means of the equation of state. Thus, the negative flash allows to determine the
K-values of components in single-phase regions where the solution of the system (5) satisfies the condition
. Summing up, the implementation of the proposed method is as follows:

• Using the negative flash, calculate new (at the time layer n+1) equilibrium component distribution
ratios .
• If the criterion of the non-equilibrium state is satisfied, consider the relaxation equations for Ki-
s to their equilibrium values:

with initial conditions equal to the values from the previous step. Here, the time derivative is written as
partial in the sense that the external parameters of the system (pressure and bulk composition) are fixed and
equal to their values at the new time layer. Discretize this differential equation over time.
If λΔt ≥ 1, the time step is sufficient for relaxation to the equilibrium state, and then . Otherwise
correct as follows:

• Calculate the new phase fractions and compositions using .

The most computationally intensive step in the presented algorithm is the first one, while the software
implementation of the negative flash is only slightly different from the classical equilibrium flash. Also, as
the flash and negative flash procedures are identical in the two-phase region, one can use the Michelsen
stability test (Michelsen, 1982) in the negative flash to improve stability and convergence rate. These
features make the implementation of the proposed method in existing flow- and PVT-simulators relatively
simple.

Numerical experiment
As an illustration of the practical use of the proposed approaches, we present the results of calculations on a
model of a real reservoir (a gas-oil deposit). The compositional fluid model used consists of 9 hydrocarbon
components (N2C1, CO2, H2S, C2, C3C4, C5C9, C10C19, C20C39, C40+) and one water component. The
temperature in the reservoir is 215°F (101.67°C). Flow simulation grid contains 900000 cells with 180000
active ones. OWC and GOC are within the thickness of the reservoir thickness. The reservoir energy is
maintained by injecting (starting from 01.01.2009) water in the OWC area, as well as by reinjecting gas
into the gas cap. Producing wells are completed within the oil rim.
Figure 1 shows the phase envelope (boundaries of the two-phase-region – boiling-point and dew-point
lines) for the mixture composition in the oil rim. The dashed line in Figure 1 marks the upper boundary
of the pressure region, up to which the negative flash allows to determine the K-values of the components
(the convergence region of the negative flash). At higher pressures, the method based on limiting the rate
of change of K-values is undefined. Therefore, in the case of very small values of λ leading to a very large
phase transition hysteresis, only the method based on the relaxation of the chemical potentials difference
may be applicable.
SPE-196871-MS 9

Figure 1—The phase envelope for the initial composition of oil in the oil rim. Also shown is the graph
of maximum pressure (dashed line), up to which the negative flash allows to define the K-values

Figure 2 shows a graph of the oil (liquid phase) fraction L in time for the method based on the limiting rate
of change of K-values for the same composition as in Figure 1. Relaxation of the system to the equilibrium
single-phase oil state with increasing pressure to a value exceeding the saturation pressure is considered
for λ = 0.001 day-1. One can see that the relaxation of the system to the equilibrium state may be non-
monotonous, and the non-monotonic behavior is the stronger, the farther is the equilibrium state from the
saturation pressure, and the closer it is to the convergence boundary of the negative flash. Thus, the method
based on limiting the rate of change of K-values should be used with caution for problems with a very large
phase transition hysteresis.
10 SPE-196871-MS

Figure 2—The oil molar fraction during the relaxation of the system to an
equilibrium single-phase oil state at different pressures for λ = 0.001 day-1

Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the dynamics of average reservoir pressure, cumulative oil production and
free gas volume in the reservoir. The results of 5 calculations are presented: without taking into account
non-equilibrium effects ([EQ]); taking into account non-equilibrium effects based on the relaxation of the
chemical potentials difference with λ = 0.001 day-1 and λ = 0.01day-1 ([0.001] and [0.01], respectively);
and taking into account non-equilibrium effects based on limiting the rate of change of K-values with the
same values of λ ([DKDT 0.001] and [DKDT 0.01], respectively). In all 5 cases, the cumulated volumes of
water and gas injection are identical. The graphs show that with the equilibrium model, oil production is
significantly overestimated compared to the non-equilibrium calculations. This is due to the instantaneous
dissolution of gas in oil when the pressure exceeds the saturation pressure, which results in the decrease
of oil viscosity and increase of its mobility. It is also seen that the simulation results are sensitive to the
value of the non-equilibrium parameter λ, the correct setting of which is extremely important for reliability
of the simulation results.
SPE-196871-MS 11

Figure 3—Dynamics of average pressure on the model (Psi)

Figure 4—Dynamics of cumulative oil production (stb)

12 SPE-196871-MS

Figure 5—Free gas in the reservoir (Mscf)

Conclusions
Theoretical and experimental studies, as well as actual reservoir development data show that phase
transitions in hydrocarbon mixtures proceed in forward and reverse directions with a significant hysteresis.
According to the results of laboratory studies, simulation of phase transitions from two-phase to single-
phase state requires the use of non-equilibrium models. Such processes occur in a number of typical cases in
the development of hydrocarbon deposits. The examples are the pressure increase in the oil reservoir after
gas liberation with the purpose of dissolving the released gas, or the gas injection into an oil deposit/oil rim
to increase oil recovery by reducing the oil viscosity due to increasing GOR, as well as reducing the residual
oil saturation. In both the cases, the dissolution of gas in oil is slow. This means that the characteristic phase
transition time is significantly high in comparison with the rate of change in the pressure and composition
of the hydrocarbon mixture due to gas injection and fluid flow.
Two additional classes of processes that require the use of non-equilibrium models are associated with
the development of gas-condensate fields. These are the cycling-process (gas reinjection) and the late stage
of reservoir depletion, when the pressure decreases below the maximum condensation pressure. In both the
cases, the process of retrograde condensation is replaced by an essentially non-equilibrium process of direct
evaporation of condensate.
The use of equilibrium models in the described situations leads to unreliable field development forecasts
and unjustified overestimation of oil and condensate recovery.
This paper has presented an efficient method to account for non-equilibrium phase transitions in
isothermal compositional flow models based on limiting the rate of change of component K-values. The
method has theoretical limitations for the cases of very large phase transition hysteresis, but it is quite simple
to implement, has good efficiency and may be generalized to non-isothermal models. Also, it showed a
high correspondence of the results to the previously proposed method based on relaxation of the component
chemical potentials differences. Both methods have been implemented in a commercial simulator, which
made it possible to directly compare them on the example of a real gas-oil reservoir model with gas injection
into the oil rim.
In both methods, an additional parameter, which is equal to the inverse value of the characteristic
relaxation time, is used to adjust the non-equilibrium effects for all components of the mixture. The
SPE-196871-MS 13

presented example demonstrates a significant impact of its value on the production dynamics, which
indicates the importance of its reliable adjustment according to laboratory and field studies, as well as during
the process of model history matching to the production data.

Acknowledgement
Contribution to the paper by I. Indrupskiy and O. Lobanova is a part of the studies within the State Research
Contract of OGRI RAS (topic AAAA-A19-119022090096-5).
Authors are grateful to the Rock Flow Dynamics, which implemented the methods proposed in the paper
in the industrial hydrodynamic simulator tNavigator.

Units
1 Mscf = 28.32 m3
1 stb = 0.159 m3
1 Psi = 0.069 bar = 0.0069 Mpa

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