Introduction to Reservoir Engineering

Vasif Kurbanov
Reservoir Engineering Consultant
in/vasifkurbanov/

Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University

28.11.2022
Content
▪ Introduction to Reservoir Engineering
▪ Reserves
▪ Rock Properties
▪ PVT
▪ Material Balance
▪ Welltest
▪ Decline Curve Analysis
▪ Nodal Analysis
▪ Drive Mechanisms
▪ Field study examples

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Introduction to Reservoir Engineering

Objectives:
▪ Determination of Hydrocarbon in place
▪ Reserves Estimation (recovery factor) and production profiles (attach a time
scale to the recovery) under alternative exploitation schemes
▪ Establish well potential and their evolution (well performance)
▪ Optimal field development planing & execution
▪ Reservoir management (update & optimization)
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Introduction to Reservoir Engineering
Reservoir Engineering

Green fields (appraisal

Brown fields (mature/late field
stage/early field
development)
development)

▪ Development Strategy ▪ Development Strategy Adjustments

▪ Number of wells (production, injection) ▪ Production optimization
▪ Vertical or horizontal wells (length) ▪ Infill wells or Sidetracks
▪ Hydraulic fractures? ▪ Additional perfs of minor reservoirs
▪ Injection Ratio ▪ Switching prod wells to injection
▪ Bottomhole Pressure ▪ Interventions / EOR
▪ Type of artificial Lift ▪ Economic evaluation of field
▪ Interventions / EOR abandonment

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Green field example
▪ Project in Indonesia.
▪ Two gas condensate fields, separated by fault.
▪ Productive sands: SL - Gabus, KL - Terumbu
▪ 4 appraisal wells drilled. DSTs:
- SL-2 Gabus Z-5 Qgas-300 km3/day, Qcond-400 m3/day
- KL-2 Terumbu Z-6B Qgas-300 km3/day, Qcond-400 m3/day
- KL-2 Terumbu Z-6D Qoil-589 m3/day GOR-298 m3/m3
▪ Reserves:
- Gas – 10 bcm3
- Condensate – 2 mln m3
- Oil – 15 mln.m3

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Brown field example
▪ Project in Russia
▪ >200 wells drilled
▪ Formed development strategy of
production and injection wells
▪ Production at the decline phase
Parameter Units PK
Depth, TVDSS m 1120
OWC m 1152 - 1162
GOC m 1147
GWC m -
Net Pay (Oil) m 4,6
Porosity % 31
Oil sat/Gas sat % 64/64
perm mD 184/117
NTG % 61
Res. Pressure MPa 11,7
Res.Temp degC 26
Res. Oil viscosity cP 68
Sep.Oil density g/cm3 0,928
Sat.Pressure MPa 11,3
Rs m3/m3 37

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Phases of Development

▪ Build up phase – active drilling and commissioning

▪ Plateau phase – limited due to production and processing facilities
▪ Decline phase – reservoir no longer able to deliver to max capacity
▪ Plateau phase can be delayed by ‘lifting’ techniques or interventions
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Uncertainty

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Reserves

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 Darcy’s Law
Darcy's law is an equation that describes the flow of a
fluid through a porous medium

▪ 1856, Henry Darcy, french

hydrologist, studied the flow of
water through the porous medium
for drinking fountains in the city of
Dijon.
▪ Water flow is directly proportional
to the area and pressure gradient,
but inversely proportional to the
length of the section
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Dupuis Equation

Parameter Description
𝑄𝑜 Oil rate
k Permeability (effective)
S Skin
h Thickness
𝑃𝑟 Reservoir pressure
𝑃𝑤𝑓 Well flowing pressure
𝑢𝑜 Oil viscosity
𝐵𝑜 Formation volume factor
𝑟𝑒 Drainage radius
𝑟𝑤 Well radius
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Rock properties

mainly 5-30%

Permeability
mainly 1-1000mD

saturation
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PVT

Vapor-Pressure Line: it is separate the P-T diagram conditions for which the substance is a liquid from the conditions for which the substance
is a gas.
Melting Line: it is separate the P-T diagram conditions for which the substance is a solid from the conditions for which the substance is a
liquid.
Triple Pont (T): Represent the P & T at which the solid, liquid & gas
are coexist under equilibrium conditions. Critical Point (C)): The upper limit for vapor pressure line.
Tc: Temp. above which the gas can’t be liquified regardless of P. Pc: Press. Above which liquid & gas can’t coexists. 13
Water Phase Diagram

water
Pressure, bar-5

Vapor
Ice

Temperature K

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Volumes in surface vs. downhole

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Reservoir Energy Sources

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Drive Mechanisms

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 Flow regimes
▪ The flow regime is identified as a steady-state flow if the pressure at every location in the reservoir
remains constant, i.e., does not change with time.
▪ Unsteady-state flow (frequently called transient flow) is defined as the fluid flowing condition at
which the rate of change of pressure with respect to time at any position in the reservoir is not zero
or constant.
▪ When the pressure at different locations in the reservoir is declining linearly as a function of time,
i.e., at a constant declining rate, the flowing condition is characterized as pseudosteady-state flow.

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Fluid flow experiment

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Well test

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Skin
Skin – additional pressure drop due to change in permeability near wellbore

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Material Balance

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Nodal Analysis
IPR
Pwf

PI

TPR where q is the flow rate and PI the Productivity Index,

i.e. the well inflow rate per unit of well drawdown.
IPR – Inflow Performance Relationship (inflow node)
TPR – Tubing Performance Relationship (outflow node)

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Decline Curve Analysis (DCA)

Arps Equation

Cumulative production

Careful with this tool. Limited

period of production data can lead
to forecast mistakes.

oil date m3/day production data

t = 400 days
forecast after 200 days
forecast after 400 days
b = 1.1

t = 200 days δ ~ 90%

b = 0.5

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Reservoir Simulation

Always check your model results

with common sense!!!

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Reservoir Management

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Skills of modern Reservoir Engineer
Skill Description Software
Rock and fluid properties, fluid flow in porous
Basic Reservoir Engineering medium. Field development analysis, -
interventions selection, EOR
Ability to build simulation models, history Eclipse, Tempest,
Simulation Modeling
matching, forecasting, optimization tNavigator
Reserves calculation, reservoir pressure and
Material Balance IPM MBal
production forecast
Decline Curve Analysis (DCA) Production forecast Excel ☺
Nodal Analysis Ability to make VFP tables IPM Prosper
Well Test Ability to interpret welltest data Ecrin (Saphir)

PVT Ability to build PVT models PVTsim, PVTi

Basic knowledge of CAPEX, OPEX, NPV, IRR, PI.

Petroleum Economics Excel ☺
Ability to build simple economic models

Excel VBA, Python Data analysis -

- must know - good to know 27

Thank you!

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