SPE 152371-STU

Improved Estimation of Bubble Point Pressure of Crude Oils: Modelling by

Regression Analysis
Parag Bandyopadhyay, SPE, School of Petroleum Technology, PDPU, India

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Student Paper Contest at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, USA, 30 October–2 November 2011.

This paper was selected for presentation by merit of placement in a regional student paper contest held in the program year preceding the International Student Paper Contest. Contents of the
paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members.

Abstract
The Bubble Point Pressure of crude oil is a critically important property for the description of reservoir fluid behaviour.
Accurate estimation of such properties is required for important reservoir and production engineering calculations such as
reserve estimation, production forecasting and design of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) projects. A comprehensive literature
review was carried out to understand and analyze the limitations of currently available methods for estimation of bubble point
pressure. A large database consisting of the compositional analysis, temperature and measured bubble point pressure of more
than 140 crude oil samples of varying geographical origins was compiled. The parametric form of the model was constructed
based on the analysis of trends from collected experimental data and theoretical inputs. The model was then calibrated, using
non-linear regression techniques, to a major portion of the data set. The remaining data was used to validate the calibrated
model and verify its conformity to physical processes. The performance of the model was then compared and found to be
more accurate than existing methods such as Equations of State (EOS). The various applications of this new model to the
simulation of Liquid-Vapour phase boundary were explored. Laboratory experiments such as the swelling test were simulated
using this model and the predictive performance was found to be better than that of an EOS. These laboratory tests, especially
swelling tests, are integral for the design of miscible flooding EOR projects. Other applications and modifications of this
model were also such explored in the latter portion of this work. It is concluded that the performance of this new model is
better than other current methods when operating in a purely predictive mode and that the model could be manipulated as a
powerful tool for applications which require identification and simulation of the Liquid-Vapour phase boundary.

Introduction
Knowledge of fluid properties is one of the important requirements for the planning of oilfield development strategies.
Information regarding the variation in fluid PVT properties during reservoir depletion is needed to evaluate the reservoir
performance, so as to optimise the recovery factor and to design surface facilities. The bubble point pressure of a crude oil is
one such fluid property; the knowledge of which is critical for the description of the reservoir fluid behaviour. Bubble point
pressure is required for material balance calculations, analysis and prediction of well inflow performance, reservoir
simulation, and other important reservoir and production engineering calculations.

The bubble point pressure of a crude oil is defined as the highest pressure at a specific temperature at which the first bubble
of gas is liberated from the oil. This critically important fluid property can be measured experimentally for a crude oil system
by conducting a Constant Composition Expansion (CCE) test. The volume of fluid in the PVT cell is observed for a sudden
increase, which is indicative of the fluid reaching the two phase region on the P-V plane. Ideally, PVT properties are
experimentally measured in laboratory. However, in case of unavailability of representative samples or direct measurements,
predictive techniques are used. Furthermore, bubble point pressure is a parameter used directly or indirectly in almost every
oil property correlation. Therefore any error in estimation of bubble point pressure will cause errors in evaluation and
estimation of all oil properties. These will propagate additional errors throughout all reservoir and production engineering
calculations. Therefore, it is necessary that this important fluid property be estimated as accurately as possible.
2 SPE Student Paper

A number of techniques for estimation of bubble point pressures of reservoir oils have been proposed in the literature over
the last seven decades. Correlation of phase behaviour data began in the 1940’s with the introduction of graphical and
mathematical correlations; most notable of which is provided by Standing (1947). The correlating parameters in this study
were field producing parameters such as the gas solubility Rs, gas gravity g, oil API gravity, and the system temperature.
Since then, several correlations based on similar producing parameters have been developed eg. Lasater (1958), Glaso(1980),
Al-Marhoun(1988), Valko-McCain (2003). However, crude oils exhibit regional trends in chemical composition. Therefore,
many of these correlations do not provide satisfactory results when applied to crude oils from other regions.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, there was considerable activity in the development of Equations of State (EOS) for the prediction of
crude oil properties. Authors such as Soave (1972), Peng-Robinson (1976) proposed several important modifications to the
existing equations of state leading to the development of compositional reservoir simulators. At the same time, several
methods were proposed characterisations of reservoir fluids for EOSs, in particular for the heavier components. The major
limitations of an EOS based simulator are that:
1. The computing power required to solve these equations is quite substantial. Hence, different ‘lumping’ techniques
for characterisation of the heptanes plus (heavy) fraction for different types of crude oils need to be attempted to get
reasonably accurate results.
2. The accuracy of an EOS is often not sufficient when operating in a ‘purely predictive’ mode; hence, it becomes
necessary to conduct ‘tuning’ to experimental data (such as CCE, CVD etc) to gain required accuracy.
3. There is no particular ‘all in one’ EOS. The accuracy of a particular EOS is niether consistent across the various
classes of crude oils nor for all thermodynamic properties; as indicated by O’Reilly(2008).

Since the 1990’s, with the development of advanced computing methods and easy availability of computing power, many
advanced non-parametric techniques are being used for the development of correlations such as the Alternating Conditional
Expectation (ACE) algorithm, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) etc. Examples of such models are Elsharkawy(1998),
Mallalah et.al.(2006), Hemmati-Kharrat(2007). These techniques automatically construct the model structure through
analysis of data and calibrate the model; which requires a large amount of data. Also, minimising over-fitting while applying
such methods requires a great deal of computational effort. Comparative evaluation studies, such as McCain et.al. (1998),
indicate that ANN models give low values of error for training (regional) data, but when applied to unseen or global data,
very large values of error (approx. 25%) are reported, making such models unreliable for estimation of properties for unseen
data sets; while, Al-Shammasi (1999) indicated that the accuracy gain of ANN models compared to empirical correlations is
‘limited and of small magnitude’.

Based on these observations, a new model for the prediction of bubble point pressure is proposed in this work, which would
attempt to bridge the gaps or limitations of the currently available methods. A hybrid analytical-empirical approach would be
utilised for the design and calibration of this model. In the following section, analysis of the data and knowledge of fluid
phase behaviour would be utilised to design a parametric form for the model. This parametric form would be calibrated to
empirical data using non-linear regression techniques, whilst making sure that the model stays consistent to actual physical
phenomena. The performance of the model would be analysed and compared to the performance of Equation of State models
which are the most accurate of all currently available estimation techniques. The analysis is then concluded after exploring
the applications and possible modifications of this new model.

Model Construction
A large amount of data is required to gain the requisite analytical inputs to design the parametric form for the proposed
model. The data to be used for this analysis should ideally cover a large range of potential model input parameters such as
Composition, Temperature etc. so as to analyse the effect of change in each of these parameters on the bubble-point pressure.
To this purpose, large number discrete data sets were collected from previously published studies on this subject such as
Coats-Smart (1986), Danesh (1991, 1992) et.al, Moharam (1995), Rosenegger (1999), Elsharkawy (2003).

Each of the collected data points consists of compositional analysis of the crude oil sample, temperature and the
corresponding measured bubble-point pressure. These data sets consist of crude oils of various types reported from various
geographical locations i.e. Middle East, North Sea, North America etc. The data was examined for repetitive, redundant or
incomplete data and filtered accordingly. Finally, a total of 129 data points, each corresponding to different crude oil
samples, remained. The details of these data points are tabulated in Table 1.These data points would be used for the
construction, calibration and validation of the model.
SPE Student Paper 3

Table 1: Range of Parameters for Samples in Data Set

Component (mol%)/ Property Minimum Average Maximum
N2 0 0.36 1.67
CO2 0 1.13 9.11
H2S 0 0.16 3.68
C1 5.63 33.31 74.18
C2 0.84 7.41 12.45
C3 0.43 6.39 11.87
C4 0.95 4.58 8.40
C5 0.40 3.25 6.65
C6 0 3.19 6.65
C7+ 10.72 40.49 83.2
MW. C7+ (gm/mol) 134.0 229.90 324.0
T(⁰F) 128.0 177.86 314.0
Pb( psi) 313 2277.6 5065

Analysis of data is essential to identify the underlying functional relationships between the different parameters and the
dependent quantity i.e. the bubble point pressure. Also, the relationships between the different variables themselves, such as
molar concentrations, molecular weight of the heavy fraction, temperature etc. needs to be analysed.

On analysing the relationship of the bubble point pressure (Pb) with each of the components (C1- C7+) individually; as shown
in Figure 1, it was found that bubble point pressure was a strong function of concentration of the both the C1 and the C7+
components’ molar concentration. The dependence can be attributed to either of these parameters, since a correlation exists
between them. However, it can be observed that Pb vs. C1 provides a better linear fit as compared to Pb vs. C7+. Hence, it can
be concluded that molar concentration of the C1 fraction is a strong, possibly the strongest predictor of the bubble point
pressure of a hydrocarbon mixture. It can be seen that C1 is an almost linear or slightly non-linear function of the bubble point
pressure. Assuming that bubble point pressure is a function of the concentration of all the components, and based on the
previous observation it can be said that bubble point pressure can be expressed as a combination of both linear and non-linear
functions of each of the hydrocarbon component concentrations.

Figure 1: Plots of Pb vs. Concentrations of all Major Hydrocarbon components and the Molecular Weight of the C7+
fraction.

Secondly, the variation in Pb with variation intemperature is analysed. To this purpose, laboratory data of Isothermal Constant
Composition Expansion from Coats-Smart (1986) and Jaubert et. al. (2002) was utilised since multiple temperature
observations of a single sample are required.
4 SPE Student Paper

It is well known that the bubble point pressure is an increasing non-linear function of temperature. After thorough analysis, it
was found that this relation is logarithmic in nature i.e. log (Pb) = n log (T), where n is a constant i.e. when the data from
aforementioned laboratory test data is plotted as log Pb versus log T, a linear fit is obtained as shown in Figure 2. This implies
that bubble point pressure is a power function of temperature.

 
Figure 2: Log Plots of Pb vs. T for a) Oil 3 and b) Oil 4 from Coats-Smart (1986) and c) Fluid 9 and d) Fluid 12 from
Jaubert et. al. (2002)

To understand the variation in the bubble point curve with change in composition of the crude oil, plots of Pb versus T with
concentration as a third parameter were studied. However, discrete data cannot be used for conducting such studies and hence
the required continuous data are simulated using an equation of state model on compositional simulation software. The phase
envelopes of 3 ethane-hexane mixtures as described in Table 2, along with the liquid gas phase boundaries for both pure
ethane and pure hexane are simulated using the Peng-Robinson Equation of State (PR-EOS) and are plotted in Figure 3.

Table 2: Compositions of Ethane-Hexane Binary Mixtures.

Fluid Sample Mol % Ethane Mol % Hexane
F-1 (Pure Ethane) 100 0
F-2 80 20
F-3 50 50
F-4 20 80
F-5 (Pure Hexane) 0 100
SPE Student Paper 5

Figure 3: Simulated Phase Diagrams for Binary Mixtures of Ethane and Hexane.

As can be seen from the simulated phase envelopes, with increasing percentage of hexane, the bubble point of the mixture at
any specific temperature is always decreasing. This supports the well-known fact that with increasing percentage of heavier
components in a crude oil sample the bubble point pressure always decreases.
It can be observed from the figure that the slope of each successive bubble point curve is decreasing as the mole percentage
of Hexane decreases; ie.with increasing percentage of Hexane in the mixture, the temperature sensitivity of the bubble point
pressure decreases.
The input parameters for the proposed model are the percentage molar concentration of the components the crude oil and the
temperature at which the bubble point is to be estimated. As observed from the analysis of trends from experimental data and
simulated phenomena, it was found that, for adequate description of the bubble point phenomena, the following behaviour of
the bubble point pressure has to be modelled:
1. The Bubble point pressure is a combination of linear and non-linear functions of percentage molar concentrations of
the individual components in the crude oil.
2. Bubble point pressure is a non-linear power function of temperature.
3. Sensitivity of Bubble point pressure varies with temperature as well as the composition of the crude oil.

Generally, for an Equation of State based approach, the description of phase behaviour is achieved by characterising the
crude oil differently for different kinds of crude oil. However, in a generalised approach the first 6 Single Carbon Numbers
(SCN) (C1-C6) are described separately and the remaining components are grouped together in a single lumped C7+ fraction to
represent the heavier fraction of the crude oil. A similar approach would be followed for the proposed model.

In the data set compiled for this work, the average percentage mol concentration of H2S and N2 is less than 1% and does not
display significant variation as can be seen in Table 1. Hence, to ensure that the model stays consistent to actual physical
phenomenon and for simplifying the regression process from available data, the concentrations of these components are not
included as input parameters for the model. However, the percentage concentration of CO2 is sufficiently large and displays
sufficient variation, and hence is included in the design of the parametric form of this model.

Finally, 8 composition parameters are characterised, the molar concentration of the CO2 component, molar concentrations of
C1 to C6 as Single Carbon Numbers (SCN) and a single lumped heavy fraction which is defined as the product of the C7+
fraction and its molecular weight. The lumping technique and calculation for the concentration and molecular weight for the
C7+ fraction is as follows:

∑ ………………………..…………………………………(1)

∑ · / ……………………………………………….(2)

Varying compositions cause corresponding variations in the temperature sensitivity of bubble point pressure. Therefore,
bubble point pressure as a function of temperature cannot be described by a single term. This indicates the requirement of
6 SPE Student Paper

concentration-temperature interaction terms in the proposed model. Another observation was that not only the slope, but also
the degree of curvature of the bubble point curve changes with composition of the crude. Hence, both the scale and the
exponent of temperature term in the model need to be defined in terms of concentration.

Based on the observations enumerated previously, the parametric form for the model is proposed which includes exponential
temperature-concentration interaction terms where the exponent itself is a function of the composition of the crude. The
parametric form of the model was finalised as shown:

∑ ……………………………………………………(3)

∑ ……………………………………………………………(4)

Here, i=0 corresponds to the CO2 component terms and i=7 corresponds to the C7+ lumped fraction terms and

· ……………………………………………………….(5)

It can be observed from Equation 3 that the concentration term is present in both the linear and the nonlinear term. This
satisfies the previous observation that the bubble point as a function of the concentration of its components has both, a linear
and a non linear component. This model will henceforth be referred to as the Exponential Interaction (EI) model.

Model Calibration
The model calibration exercise is carried out in order to calculate the values of the coefficients in the parametric form of the
model, such that it can accurately predict the bubble point for a given set of input parameters. The optimisation problem in
such a case requires the use of the Non-Linear Regression (Least Squares), which aims to minimise the sum of the squares of
the residuals by changing the parameter coefficients. The objective function for minimisation is as follows:

∑ , ……………………………………..…………(6)

Non-linear optimisation has certain limitations; the most significant of which is that it is practically impossible to reach a
unique solution or global minimum. A linear regression problem is generally concave and so non-convergence is not an issue.
However, a non-linear problem has multiple minima. Hence, a solution is converged upon by an iterative process. The
iterative process is terminated when a certain convergence criterion is satisfied. A grid search non-linear optimisation
problem requires the setting of starting values, upper and lower bounds which defines the domain for each of the model
coefficients. The larger the domain, the more the requirement of computing power and time. Also, selection of the starting
values plays a crucial role since it is most likely that the algorithm would converge to the nearest local minimum. There are
several algorithms for pursuing the solution of non-linear optimisation problems, such as the Gradient Descent method, the
Gauss Newton method or the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm.

For the current optimisation problem, a program utilising the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm was used. The upper and lower
bounds for Ai and Bi were set at 1000 and -1000 respectively. The upper and lower bounds for ni were set at 1 and -1
respectively. The starting value in the optimisation program for all the coefficients was set to zero.

The algorithm for minimisation of least squares assumes a Gaussian distribution for all the deviations (errors) from the actual
bubble point pressure. The data collected for this study is collected from various sources having various levels of accuracy.
The data had been screened for irregularities, yet, it is safe to assume that the distribution of errors would not be Gaussian
and that there could be a certain number of outliers in the data. Hence, a robust solution should be pursued, so that the model
is more consistent to actual physical phenomenon. In such cases, minimisation of the sum of absolute deviations is an
optimisation technique that is often preferred over least squares minimisation since it is more robust to the presence of
outliers in the data.

Therefore, a minimisation of the sum of absolute deviations is attempted, to adjust the solution so as to make the model more
robust, once an appropriate minima is converged upon by the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The objective function for
minimisation of the sum of the absolute deviations is given as:

∑ | , | ……..…………………………………………(7)
SPE Student Paper 7

To avoid the risk of over-fitting the model to the data and to make sure that the model stays consistent to physical
phenomena, the 129 data points were randomly divided into a 100-29 split. The data set consisting of 100 data points,
henceforth to be referred to as the training data set, was used to calculate the values of the model coefficients through non-
linear regression techniques described in the previous section. The remaining 29 data points comprise the validation data set,
which would be used to verify that the model remains free from over-fitting to the training data and hence remains physically
consistent.

After the completion of the regression procedures, the Average Absolute Error (AAE) calculated for the training set is
compared to that calculated for the validation data set. If the values of AAE for the validation data set are similar or
marginally greater than that of the training data set, that indicates that the model has not over fit to the training data and is
acceptable for the estimation of bubble point pressure for samples other than that in the training data set. The results of the
validation exercise are discussed in the next section. The final set of values for the coefficients that was obtained on
completion of all these processes and tests is as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Values of Model Coefficients.

Concentration Value Interaction Value Exponential Value
Coefficient Coefficient Coefficient
A0 40.6616 B0 -873.151 n0 -0.01105
A1 60.5344 B1 -1835.54 n1 -0.02329
A2 181.058 B2 3506.63 n2 0.05948
A3 -75.9392 B3 -713.608 n3 -0.01311
A4 -25.6167 B4 456.728 n4 -0.02531
A5 82.9487 B5 -206.346 n5 0.009031
A6 -54.5148 B6 -1193.74 n6 -0.03017
A7+ 0.021576 B7 17.9815 n7 -0.00405

As mentioned previously, 100 of the 129 data points were used to ‘train’ the model, while the remaining 29 were used to
validate the accuracy of the model. The accuracy of the model for both the data sets is indicated in Table 4 and Figure 4.
These results prove that the model is free from over fitting to the training data and is suitable for the estimation of bubble
point pressure for samples other than those in the training data set. It can be seen from Table 4 and Figure 4 that for both the
data sets the Exponential Interaction model is more accurate than the SRK and PR Equations of State.

Table 4: Comparison of Error in Training and Validation Data sets

AARE AAE
Training Set Validation Training Set Validation
Exponential Interaction Model 6.9 % 7.33 % 142.80 psi 141.76 psi
SRK-EOS 9.32 % 12.99 % 195.76 psi 255.72 psi
PR-EOS 10.17 % 11.97 % 216.34 psi 261.89 psi

Figure 4: Comparison of a) Average Absolute Relative Error (AARE) and b) Average Absolute Error (AAE) in the
Training and Validation Data sets.
8 SPE Student Paper

Comparison of Model Accuracy

In this section, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the model performance for both seen and unseen data is carried out in
order to establish the validity of the model. The bubble point pressure for the data was estimated using the Soave-Redlich-
Kwong (SRK) and the Peng-Robinson (PR) equations of State, and their accuracy measured in terms of ARE, AARE in scale
independent terms and scale dependently as AE and AAE. The accuracy of these equations of state was then compared with
that of the Exponential Interaction (EI) model, as shown in Table 5. It is seen that the Exponential Interaction model is far
more accurate than both the equations of state in terms of both percentage relative error (AARE) and absolute error (AAE) by
a factor of more than 3% and 65-85 psi respectively.

Table 5: Comparison of Error of EI model with Equation of State models

ARE AARE AE AAE
Exponential Interaction (EI) Model 0.84 % 7.00 % -2.21 psi 142.56 psi
Soave-Redlich-Kwong EOS 2.44 % 10.15 % -12.34 psi 209.24 psi
Peng Robinson EOS -7.02 % 10.58 % -182.45 psi 226.58 psi

It is also essential that the model be as free of bias as possible. To ensure that, an analysis is made from the results indicated
in Table 5. A visual analysis can also be made in the form of a residuals distribution plot as indicated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Residuals distribution for the Exponential Interaction (EI) model and the SRK and PR Equations of State.

The observations from Table 5 and Figure 5 are:

1. The Average Relative Error (ARE) and the Average Error (AE) of the EI model are 0.84% and -2.21 psi
respectively. They are very close to the ideal values i.e. zero. The ARE and AE for the EI model are the least when
compared to those for the SRK and PR Equations of State. This means that the model is the most unbiased in
comparison to both the equation of state models. This is also indicated in the graphical representation in Figure 5.
The residuals distribution for the EI model is perfectly balanced around the X-axis and intersects the X-axis at
approximately the 65th observation out of a total of 129 observations, which proves that the residuals distribution is
perfectly centred and that the model is unbiased.
2. It is observed that the residuals distribution for the EI Model has the maximum number of observations close to the
X-axis compared to either the SRK or PR Equation of State, which indicates the superior accuracy of the Model.
SPE Student Paper 9

Simulation of Swelling Tests

The swelling test is the most common multi-contact PVT test. During a swelling test, a proposed injection gas is added to the
original reservoir oil in varying proportions in a series of steps. After each addition of a certain measured volume of gas, the
overall mixture is quantified in terms of the molar percentage of the injection gas. The PVT cell is then pressured to the
bubble point pressure of the new mixture. The gas addition starts at the bubble point pressure of the reservoir fluid and the
addition of the gas continues to a limited mole percentage injected gas in the fluid sample.
When gas is injected into a reservoir containing under-saturated oil at a sufficient pressure, the gas can go into solution. This
has the effect of swelling the oil i.e. the volume of the oil increases and it becomes lighter. This makes the oil more mobile
and aids the recovery of oil from the reservoir. If a reservoir is to be depleted under such miscible gas injection, the swelling
test and the slim-tube test are conducted to gain an approximate idea of the dynamic displacement process that occurs in the
reservoir.

Hence, for ‘x’ mole fraction of injected gas in a crude oil, the composition of the resulting mixture is given as:

1 …………………………………………………(8)

Solving for the Concentration and Interaction Indices for the mixture, we get;

1 ………………………………………………...(9)
1 ……………………………………………….(10)
1 ……………………………………………….(11)

Hence, the bubble point pressure for the mixture with ‘x’ mole percentage of injection gas can be given as:

……………………………………………...(12)

Equations 9-12 were used for simulating the increase of bubble point pressure of a crude oil swelled with different amounts
of various injected gases. The results were then compared to experimentally measured values and values estimated using an
equation of state based approach. The data used in this part of the study is taken from the PVT data bank published by Jaubert
et.al. (2002). This ‘unseen’ data would be used to verify whether the proposed model can predict actual laboratory tests
within acceptable ranges of accuracy. This data could also be used to evaluate the performance of the model in case of data
that was previously unseen during the development and calibration stage of the model. The compositional data for the
different fluids used for comparison in this section is given in Table 6.

Table 6: Compositional data for Fluids used to simulate laboratory experiments.

Fluid CO2 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7+ MW. C7+
Fluid 1 2.07 26.57 7.89 6.73 5.38 4.44 3.35 40.49 253.00
Fluid 2 2.80 45.29 9.11 5.50 4.13 3.06 2.38 25.92 222.69
Fluid 3 3.60 47.64 6.49 4.50 4.03 3.29 2.73 25.12 212.74
Gas 1 0 88.00 7.00 3.00 1.00 1.00 0 0 0
Gas 2 4.38 55.76 15.03 10.87 6.37 3.21 1.32 0.91 102.30
10 SPE Student Paper

Case 1: Fluid 1 injected with Gas 1. Fluid-1, as identified in Table 6, when injected with Gas-1 at a constant
temperature of 250⁰F, undergoes swelling and the bubble point of the resultant mixture increases. The predictions of the
various models are compared to the measured laboratory values of increase in Pb with increasing mole percentage of injected
gas in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Simulation Performance Comparison of Swelling of Fluid 1 with Gas 1.

Case 2: Fluid 1 injected with Gas 2. Fluid-1 when injected with Gas-3 at a constant temperature of 250⁰F undergoes
swelling; however, the resulting increase in Pb for same amount of injected gas is lesser in comparison to Case 1. This occurs
since Gas -2 is heavier in comparison to Gas-1. The predictions of the various models are compared to the measured
laboratory values of increase in Pb with increasing mole percentage of injected gas in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Simulation Performance Comparison of Swelling of Fluid 1 with Gas 2.

It can be seen that, for both cases the EI model gives a more accurate prediction of the bubble point pressure as compared to
both the PR and SRK Equation of State models. Thus it can be concluded that the Exponential Interaction model is highly
applicable for the simulation of swelling tube tests. This could make the model useful for screening of prospective injection
gases for miscible floods, before actually carrying out extended experimental analysis to determine essential information such
as the minimum miscibility pressure, swelling volumes etc.
SPE Student Paper 11

Simulation of Bubble Point Curve

It is essential that the model must be able to accurately estimate the temperature behaviour of bubble point pressure for the
same sample (composition). Hence, the estimates obtained from the EI model are compared to those estimated by using the
PR and SRK equations of state and the experimentally measured data. This comparison is made for Fluids 2 and 3 as
indicated in Figure 8 and 9 respectively.

Case 1: Simulation of Bubble Point Curve for Fluid 2.

Figure 8: Comparison of bubble point prediction with varying temperature for Fluid 2.

Case 2: Simulation of Bubble Point Curve for Fluid 3.

Figure 9: Comparison of Bubble Point prediction with varying temperature for Fluid 2.

It can be concluded that the model correctly captures the trend for both the cases within acceptable ranges of error. The
estimation of the bubble point curve in both cases is more accurate than that by an equation of state. This indicates that this
model is sufficiently capable to accurately simulate the bubble point curve determination as well as miscible gas injection
(swelling) tests.

Adjustment for Local Crude Oils

It is claimed in the subject literature that since crude oils exhibit regional effects in their composition, empirical PVT
correlations derived from regional crude oil data are not applicable to global crude oil samples. This is one of the reasons
empirical correlations are classified according to region. In this section of the study, it was attempted to induce this ‘regional
effect’ into the EI model for greater accuracy towards regional crudes.
12 SPE Student Paper

Out of the database of 129 data points compiled for this study, 55 data points were from the Middle East. Unconstrained
regression is applied on the EI model coefficients for improved accuracy towards these regional samples. The procedure is
carried out by utilising the sum of squares of errors as the minimisation/objective function as described in Equation 6. Instead
of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, the faster Gradient Descent algorithm is used. Robust objective functions may also be
used in case of the requirement of robust solutions. The results of the adjustment procedure are indicated in Table 7.

Table 7: Reported accuracy of adjusted model and its comparison to Equations of State.
ARE AARE AE AAE
Adjusted EI Model 0.10% 2.54 % 0.99 psi 46.62 psi
Soave-Redlich-Kwong EOS 7.53% 10.50 % 124.32 psi 199.81 psi
Peng Robinson EOS -7.36% 8.86 % -146.27 psi 173.90 psi

It can be seen that after the adjustment procedure, values of AARE and AE for the localised data set are 2.54% and 46.62 psi
respectively. This indicates that the error values for the adjusted EI model have come in the range of nominal measurement or
observation errors. Indeed, the experimental measurement of bubble point pressure by a CCE procedure is subject to more
uncertainty. This indicates that it is possible to achieve a very high degree of accuracy (for localised samples) by ‘adjusting’
the EI model to a certain localised data set. The choice of coefficients depends on the desired level of accuracy to external
data versus the level of adjustment desired. Special care has to be taken to avoid excessive over-fitting during such
adjustments to the EI model for any specific type of crude oil or for regional samples.

EOS Augmentation
The EI model shows higher accuracy as compared to other empirical or computational learning based methods. This leads
directly or indirectly to better predictions for common reservoir and production engineering calculations such as the material
balance. Such models can also facilitate the fast and easy generation of black oil PVT tables for reservoir simulation.
However, EOS based compositional models are favoured for their accuracy in comparison to black oil models. In this
section, a potential technique is presented which may be used to lend the accuracy of the EI model to EOS-based
compositional models.
The bubble point pressure estimated by the EI model was fed into the Peng Robinson Equation of State (PR-EOS) to adjust
the molecular weight of the C7+ fraction in stages up to a maximum of 10% net adjustment. A CCE experiment on Fluid 1
was simulated with this ‘Augmented’ PR-EOS model at the various stages of adjustment and matched with experimental data
form Jaubert et.al. (2002). The decrease in error for volumetric and under-saturated oil phase density predictions with
adjustments in the molecular weight of the C7+ fraction upto 10%, leading to corresponding changes in bubble point
prediction and its extrapolation is as indicated in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Reduction in Error of PR EOS Simulations of Volume and Density with improvement in prediction of Pb

Figure 10 indicates that substantial gain in accuracy may be achieved by using the EI model to augment an EOS through
regression on the molecular weight of the C7+ fraction. The remarkable achievement of this ‘Augmentation’ technique is that
it achieves significant improvement for both volumetric and density predictions without any corresponding experimental data
to fit to. Here, a numerical solution of the augmentation process was conducted, but an analytical option is also available.
Further analysis and development of such techniques could lead to earlier deployment of compositional fluid models by
possibly eliminating the time lag associated with laboratory experimentation, fluid characterisation and tuning.
SPE Student Paper 13

Conclusion
In this work, a new model for the estimation of bubble point pressure was developed. The findings can be summarised as
follows:
1. The development of the model parametric form was based on analytical inputs from the analysis of data and
knowledge of fluid phase behaviour. The model calibration was carried out through non linear regression techniques
using data collected from worldwide literature.
2. The performance of the model was found to be far more accurate than that of currently popular techniques such as
Equation of State based simulations. Furthermore, model performance was consistent for regional samples as well as
for a global data set. Hence, the model is suitable for applications to global crude oil samples.
3. The model was modified for the simulation of swelling tests, which are essential for the design of miscible flooding
EOR projects. It was found that the model simulations for these swelling tests and bubble point curve determination
tests were more accurate when compared to that of the Equations of State.
4. The model can be applied as a tool for preliminary screening of prospective injection gases for miscible flood EOR
projects.
5. The model can be adjusted to improve performance for specific regional crudes. The degree of accuracy possible for
such an ‘adjusted’ model is very high and unprecedented.
6. The model can also be used as a tool to check the validity of compositional analyses in case of erroneous or
incomplete data.
7. The model can be used to improve Bo and Rs predctions to populate black oil PVT tables for applications in reservoir
simulation.
8. It is possible to introduce significant improvement in EOS predictions for compositional simulation without tuning
to experimental data by using the proposed ‘Augmentation’ technique.

Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge the guidance of Prof. Abhay Sharma (IIT-Hyderabad) throughout the development of this model. I
wish to thank Mr. Pashupati Sah (Calsep A/S) and Prof. Uttam Bhui (School of Petroleum Technology, PDPU) for reviewing
the paper and providing critical comments which led to the refinement of this work. Special thanks to Mr. Dileep Divakaran
(Schlumberger) and Mr. Arun Kumar (Shell) for their guidance and encouragement.

Nomenclature
Pb Bubble Point Pressure, psia
Ci Mole percent concentration of ith hydrocarbon component
T Temperature, ⁰F
Ai Concentration Coefficient of the corresponding ith component
Bi Interaction Coefficient of the corresponding ith component
ni Exponential Coefficient of the corresponding ith component
A Concentration Index = ∑
B Interaction Index ∑
n Temperature Exponent ∑
Pb(x) Bubble point pressure as a function of x mole percentage injection gas
A(x) Concentration Index for crude oil with x mole percentage injection gas
B(x) Interaction Index for crude oil with x mole percentage injection gas
n(x) Temperature Exponent for crude oil with x mole percentage injection gas
Ag Concentration Index of the Injection Gas
Bg Interaction Index of the Injection Gas
Ao Concentration Index of the Crude Oil
Bo Interaction Index of the Injection Gas
SLS Sum of squares of errors
SLD Sum of absolute deviations
α Random set of coefficients
m Total number of data points
f (xi, α) Bubble point pressure as a function of xi dependent variables and α
Residual = , ,
AE Average of Residuals= ∑ , ,

AAE Average of Absolute Residuals = ∑ , ,

, ,
ARE Average of Relative (Percentage) Errors as = ∑
,
, ,
AARE Average of Absolute Relative Errors as = ∑
,
14 SPE Student Paper

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