Pressure Maintenance Needed Here
PAUL B. CRAWFORD TEXAS A I M U.
MEMBER AlME
Abstract
Detailed studies were made of the effect of injecting gas
into reservoirs of differing volatilities. Pressure mainten-
ance m a y consist of reinjecting all or part of the gas pro-
duced, and this may be initiated at any stage of reservoir
depletion. Reservoir oils with high formation volume fac-
tors respond t o gas injection, and recoveries may be in-
creased substantially depending upon rock properties and
composition of the oil. Initiating a full-,rcale gas return at
some intermediate stage in the depletion may show greater
recoveries than partial pressure maintenance initiated at
a higher pressure. Several studies are presented t o deter-
mine the role o f nitrogen o n depletion performance o f
volatile reservoir fluids, and t o determine the possibility
of recovering additional oil b y starting a pressure main-
tenance program early in the life of the reservoir.
Introduction
Reservoir oils with substantial quantities of light hydro-
carbons have very high shrinkage. Even a small reduction
in pressure below the bubble point may result in a 5 to
20 percent shrinkage, which is sufficient to permit a high
GOR and rapidly deplete reservoir energy. If a program
of pressure maintenance can be initiated at an early stage
in the reservoir life, much higher oil recoveries can be
expected.
Cook, Spencer and Bobrowski' provided a method of
estimating performance of highly volatile reservoirs using
special laboratory analyses of reservoir oil samples. The
method included calculating the volume and composition
of hydrocarbon liquids recovered by processing produced
gas in a natural gasoline plant.
Jacoby and Berry' showed that properties of volatile
reservoir fluid were such that conventional depletion cal-
culations may no longer be valuable. Laboratory differ-
ential vaporization test procedures do not adequately rep-
resent the reservoir depletion process; in such cases the
recovery of stock-tank oil per unit of pressure decline
can be predicted only from reservoir compositional ma-
terial balance and separator recovery calculations. Cal-
culations by Jacoby and Berry indicated that for a vola-
Original manuscript received in Society of Petroleum Engineers office
March 13, 1967. Revised manuscript received Sept. 5 , 1967. Paper ( S P E
1784) was presented a t Sixth Permian Basin Oil Recovery Conference
held in Midland, Tex., May 8-9, 1 9 6 i . 0Copyright 1967 American In-
stitute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.
'References given a t end of paper.
NOVEMBER, 1967
COLLEGE STATION, E X .
tile crude oil the compositional material balance method
may indicate a tank oil recovery by primary depletion
to be more than twice that predicted for ordinary black
crude oils by conventional methods. Their paper em-
phasized the difference between equilibrium flash vapor-
ization when all gas remains in contact with the oil phase,
and differential vaporization when all gas is withdrawn
as soon as it evolves. They pointed out that the actual
vaporization sequence occurring in each reservoir is de-
termined by the production process itself. They outlined a
method for calculating fluid compositions for volatile-type
reservoirs.
In 1956 Reudelhuber and Hinds3 described depletion of
volatile oil reservoirs using compositional material balance
techniques. They based their recovery calculations on
laboratory depletion data. For pressure maintenance Ja-
coby and Berry' presented a calculation method to ac-
count for vaporization of the reservoir liquid phase dur-
ing gas injection operations and for the additional stock-
tank oil production resulting from this factor. Recovery
performance calculations were presented for reservoirs
containing highly volatile oil. Calculated tank oil recov-
ery was about twice that predicted by using the con-
ventional frontal drive equations. Most of the reservoir
liquid phase contacted during gas injection is evaporated
by the dry injection gas. The GOR during this period is
dependent upon reservoir pressure. The higher the oper-
ating pressure the lower the GOR. Predicted behavior
was in accordance with laboratory PVT tests simulating
vaporization behavior.
Jacoby and Berry pointed out that gas injection into
crude oil reservoirs displaces oil to the producing well
and at the same time partially or fully maintains reser-
voir pressure. Oil shrinkage that would occur upon pres-
sure reduction is thereby minimized or eliminated. They
showed that volatile oil vaporizes when repeatedly con-
tacted with dry gas, and it may be adequately predicted
with multicomponent flash calculations that consider in-
dividual vaporization behavior of the normal hydrocar-
bons. They also indicated that conventional frontal drive
methods are inadequate to predict recovery performance
of volatile oil reservoirs being subjected to gas injection
and that conventional frontal drive methods will under-
estimate total oil recovered by gas injection. Efficiency
of oil recovery by gas injection into volatile oil reser-
voirs falls off with increasing rapidity with a decrease in
operating pressure.
Jacoby, Koeller and Berry' described the role of com-
position and temperature on depletion performance of rich
gas condensate systems. They pointed out that for highly TABLE 1 - COMPOSITION OF THREE RESERVOIR
volatile oils and rich gas condensate, i.e., 2,000 to 30,000 FLUID SYSTEMS
scf/bbl, the total tank oil and separator gas in place at Mol Fraction
the saturation pressure can be approximately correlated Fluid A B C
with initial GOR. Depletion from the saturation pressure Nitrogen 0.005 0.06 0.12
~ a r b hdioxide 0.005 0.005 0.005
to 500 psi will recover an average of 92 percent of total HS 0.005 0.005 0.005
separator gas in place, and ultimate oil recovery from the Methane 0.40 0.3777 0.3533
saturation pressure to abandonment pressure of 500 psi Ethane 0.15 0.1416 0.1325
may be correlated with initial GOR and initial tank oil Propane
i-C4
gravity and reservoir temperature. Gas injection has been n-C4
conducted in the Pickton field, and the field was thoroughly
reviewed in a paper by McGraw and Lohec.9ecovery in n-c, 0.02 0.01832 0.0165
the Pickton field may possibly be 73.5 percent of the stock- Hexane 0.03 0.02832 0.0265
tank oil originally in place. Clearly, gas injection may be Heptane + 0.195 0.1814 0.1772
more efficient than waterflooding. Matthews compared oil Bubble point, psia 3,183 3,039 2,664
recoveries resulting from various types of drives for the Reservoir
South Burbank unit.' Cook, Johnson, Spencer and Bayazeed" temperature 190F - -
pointed out the role of vaporization in oil recovery by
pressure maintenance, showing the separation of oil pro- The rest of the method used was similar to that de-
duced by displacement from that produced by vaporiza- scribed by Jacoby and Berry except that other fluid den-
tion. Cook et al. pointed out that recovery by vaporiza- sities were used and the effective k , , / k , relation was de-
tion may range from 15 to 70 percent depending upon fined by the average gas saturation.
reservoir fluids and stock-tank conditions.
The greavshrinbage of light oil in high pressure-high Discussion
temperature reservoirs is well known, yet a systematic Table 1 shows composition of the three reservoir fluids
study of the effect and need for pressure maintenance has used for this study. Note that there was a trace of N?,
not been shown. CO, and H,S in the first sample. The second and third
fluids contained 6 and 12 percent nitrogen, respectively.
Procedure The remainder of the hydrocarbon series in all three sam-
In initiating this study, a guess was made at a con- ples had almost the same ratios. This study shows both
vergence pressure, and appropriate K values were found the need for pressure maintenance in volatile oil reser-
from the NGAA charts and then checked to see if the voirs in general and the specific effect of nitrogen on
values gave the correct fluid bubble point. If they did not, volatile oil performance. Bubble points of the three sam-
a new guess was made until agreement was obtained. ples were 3,183, 3,039 and 2,664 psi for 0.005, 0.06 and
0.12 mol fraction nitrogen, respectively.
Fig. 1 shows the oil saturation during primary deple-
tion for three volatile crudes. These crudes contain 0.5,
6 and 12 percent nitrogen, respectively. The figure shows
the prominent role of nitrogen on oil saturation shrink-
age. Note that a 500-psi drop could be realized on the
0.5 percent nitrogen sample, yet result in an oil shrink-

PM-09
/3100 PSIA

500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

PRESSURE (PSIA)

Fig. l-Reservoir oil saturation for three volatile crudes. Fig. 2-Oil production.

1450 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

age of only 20 percent. By contrast, a 100-psi reduction was initiated at 2,700 or 3,000 psi and whether 0.5 or
could produce a 30 percent shrinkage if as much as 12 0.9 of produced gas is injected.
percent nitrogen is present. At pressures below 2,000 psi Fig. 5 shows oil production as a function of gas pro-
most nitrogen and a large part of the methane has been duction. Processing the same amount of total gas, but
removed and the curves decrease in a regular manner. reinjecting from 0.5 to 0.9 of total gas produced, the re-
Fig. 2 shows oil production as a function of reservoir covery might be increased from 15 to 30 percent merely
pressure for the reservoir fluids containing 0.5 percent by starting the reservoir pressure maintenance program
nitrogen and having a bubble-point pressure of 3,183 early. For large gas reinjection, oil recovery may easily
psia. The lower curve shows that when reservoir pressure be more than three times as great as primary depletion
falls to nearly 700 psi, oil recovery might be about 1 STB/ recovery.
100 cu ft of original in-place hydrocarbon. The figure Fig. 6 shows oil production as a function of reservoir
also shows estimated performance for pressure mainte- pressure when the reservoir fluid contains 12 percent ni-
nance programs initiated at 2,600 and 3,100 psia. The
two lower curves show anticipated recovery for a pres-
sure maintenance program in which 50 percent of pro-
duced gas is reinjected at pressures of 2,600 or 3,100
psi. As indicated on the curve (Fig. 2), oil recovery
would be increased about 50 percent over primary by re- PM. ~ 0 . 9
/ 3 0 0 0 PSIA
injecting 0.5 of produced gas. A small increase in recov-
ery results from starting the pressure maintenance pro-
gram at 3,100 psia instead of at 2,600 psia. By contrast,
should the pressure maintenance program be initiated so
that 0.9 of produced gas had been reinjected, recovery
would have been almost three times as great as by primary
depletion.
Fig. 3 shows oil production as a function of gas pro-
duction; note that the oil production increases in a regu-
lar manner. Gas production also reflects the quantity of P.M = 0 5

gas that must be reinjected; the figure shows that recovery

increased slightly from 1 to 3 STB as the pressure
maintenance program was increased from 0.5 to 0.9 of PRIMARY DEPLETION
gas produced-recovery increased as injection was in-
creased.
Fig. 4 shows oil production as a function of reservoir
pressure for the reservoir containing 6 percent nitrogen 3039 PSIA B .
and having a bubble-point pressure of 3,039 psia. This
figure shows that 1 STB of oil might be produced by ~ ~ ~ ~ I I I I ~ I J 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I I I l I
3000 2000 1000 500
primary depletion, whereas, by initiating a pressure main-
tenance program at 2,700 to 3,000 psi, recovery may PRESSURE (PSIA)

be from 40 percent greater to over three times as great Fig. &Oil production.
as primary. This will depend on whether the program - -

PM=09
3WOPSIA

/ PM ~ 0 . 9
3100 PSIA
PM.09
2 7 0 0 PSIA
-

z -
-
0
k 2 0 -

0 -
0 -

PRIMARY DEPLETION
0 5 % NZ
3 1 8 3 PSIA aP
6 '10 NL
30 39 PSIA B P

1 -
-
0 ' i ' I I I I I 1 i l l l ' I ( I ' I ' 1 ' I ' I 1 I
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 10 2C 30 40 50 60 70
GAS PRODUCTION (MSCF) GAS PRODUCTION (MSCF)

Fig. 3-Oil production. Fig. 5-Oil production.

 PM=09
2000 PSIA
3320 2000 1000
PRESSURE (PSIA)
Fig. 6-Oil production.
trogen and has a bubble point of 2,665 psia. Primary de-
pletion in this reservoir could be more than doubled by
reinjecting approximately 0.9 of the injected gas even
though it be initiated very late in the life of the reser-
voir, i.e., at 665 psi below bubble-point pressure. Fig. 7
shows oil production as a function of gas production.
These curves show the sustained benefit from reinjecting
90 percent of the produced gas, even when the pressure
maintenance program is started late.
Conclusions
An increase in nitrogen content from a trace to 12
percent reduces the bubble point about 500 psi, and oil
recovery by primary decreases about one fourth. The
presence of nitrogen in amounts up to 12 percent im-
parts great volatility to the oil. For this case a drop
in reservoir pressure of 100 psi may result in a gas satur-
ation of 20 to 30 percent and create high k , l k , values.
Subsequent depletion results in low oil production.
This study shows the beneficial effects of initiating a
I 1 1 I 1 I I I
5 KI d 20 23 M 35 LC 45
@A$F W W X K I O I IMSCFI
Fig. 7-Oil production.
pressure maintenance program early in the life of the
reservoir. Even though the reservoir may be a few hun-
dred psi below bubble point, substantial beneficial effects
still can be anticipated. Benefits from reinjecting almost all
the produced gas are clearly indicated; however, a de-
tailed study should be made early in the life of the reser-
voir to estimate performance accurately.
References
1. Cook, Alton B., Spencer, G. B. and Bobrowski, F. P.: "Special
0 Considerations in Predicting R e s e ~ ~ o iPerformance
r of Highly
JTolatile Type Oil Resenoirs", Trans., AIME (1951) 192, 37-46.
2. Tacobv. R. H. and Berrv. V. T.. Tr.: "A Method for Predictine
Depletion Performance of a ~ e s e i v o i rProducing Volatile crude
Oil", Trans., AIRIE (1957) 210, 27-33.
3. Reudelhuber, F. 0. and I-Iinds, R. F.: "A Compositional Ma-
terial Balance Method for Prediction of Recovery from Yolatile
Oil Depletion Drive Re~ervoirc", Trans., AIME (1957) 210,
19-26.
4. .Tacobv. R. H , and Berm, V. J., Sr.: "A Method for Predicting
~ r e s & e hlaintenance ~ e r f o i m a n c e for Reservoirs producing
Volatile Crude Oil", Trans., AIRlE (1958) 213, 59-64.
5. Jacoby, R. H., Koeller, R. C. and Berry: V. J., Jr.: "Effect of
Com~osition and Tenmerature on Phase Behavior and D e ~ l e -
tion 'Performance of k i c h Gas-Condensate Systems", ~ r i t s . ,
-4lRIE (1959) 216, 406-411.
6. McGraw, J. H. and Lohec, R. E.: "The Pickton Field - A Re-
view of a Successful Gas Injection Project". J . Pet. Tech. (April,
1964) 399-405.
7. hlatthews, T. A.: "The South Burbank Unit - A Comparison
of Oil Recoveries by Various Type Drives", J. Pet. Tech. (Nov.,
1963) 1180-1182.
8. Cook, Alton B., Johnson, F. Sam, Spencer, George B. and Bay-
azeed, Abdo F.: "The Role of Vaporization in High Percentage
Oil Recovery by Pressure hlaintenance", J. Pet. Tech. (Feb.,
1967) 245-250. fi*
JOURNAL O F PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY