Water Influx

Dr.Mostafa Mahmoud
Kinawy
• Nearly all hydrocarbon reservoirs are surrounded by
water-bearing rocks called aquifers. These aquifers may
be substantially larger than the oil or gas reservoirs they
adjoin as to appear infinite in size, or they may be so
small in size as to be negligible in their effect on reservoir
performance.
• As reservoir fluids are produced and reservoir pressure
declines, a pressure differential develops from the
surrounding aquifer into the reservoir. Following the basic
law of fluid flow in porous media, the aquifer reacts by
encroaching across the original hydrocarbon-water
contact. In some cases, water encroachment occurs due
to hydrodynamic conditions and recharge of the formation
by surface waters at an outcrop.
• In many cases, the pore volume of the aquifer is not
significantly larger than the pore volume of the reservoir
itself. Thus, the expansion of the water in the aquifer is
negligible relative to the overall energy system, and the
reservoir behaves volumetrically.
• In this case, the effects of water influx can be ignored. In
other cases, the aquifer permeability may be sufficiently
low such that a very large pressure differential is required
before an appreciable amount of water can encroach into
the reservoir. In this instance, the effects of water influx
can be ignored as well.
• This chapter focuses on those reservoir-aquifer systems in
which the size of the aquifer is large enough and the
permeability of the rock is high enough that water influx
occurs as the reservoir is depleted.
• This chapter also provides various water influx calculation
models and a detailed description of the computational
steps involved in applying these models.
CLASSIFICATION OF AQUIFERS
• Many gas and oil reservoirs produced by a mechanism
termed water drive. Often this is called natural water drive
to distinguish it from artificial water drive that involves the
injection of water into the formation. Hydrocarbon
production from the reservoir and the subsequent pressure
drop prompt a response from the aquifer to offset the
pressure decline. This response comes in a form of water
influx, commonly called water encroachment, which is
attributed to:
• Expansion of the water in the aquifer
• Compressibility of the aquifer rock
• Artesian flow where the water-bearing formation outcrop is
located structurally higher than the pay zone
Reservoir-aquifer systems are commonly classified on
the basis of:
Degree of pressure maintenance
• Flow regimes
Outer boundary conditions
• Flow geometries
Degree of Pressure Maintenance
• Based on the degree of the reservoir pressure
maintenance provided by the aquifer, the natural
water drive is often qualitatively described as:
• Active water drive
• Partial water drive
• Limited water drive
The term active water drive refers to the water
encroachment mechanism in which the rate of water
influx equals the reservoir total production rate.
Active water-drive reservoirs are typically
characterized by a gradual and slow reservoir
pressure decline.
Outer Boundary Conditions
•The aquifer can be classified as infinite or finite (bounded).
Geologically all formations are finite, but may act as infinite
if the changes in the pressure at the oil-water contact are
not “felt” at the aquifer boundary. In general, the outer
boundary governs the behavior of the aquifer and,
therefore:
• a. Infinite system indicates that the effect of the pressure
changes at the oil/aquifer boundary can never be felt at the
outer boundary. This boundary is for all intents and
purposes at a constant pressure equal to initial reservoir
pressure.
• b. Finite system indicates that the aquifer outer limit is
affected by the influx into the oil zone and that the pressure
at this outer limit changes with time.
Flow Regimes
• There are basically three flow regimes that influence
the rate of water influx into the reservoir. Those flow
regimes are:

• a. Steady-state
• b. Semi-steady (pseudo-steady)-state
• c. Unsteady-state
Flow Geometries

Reservoir-aquifer systems can be classified on the

basis of flow geometry as:
a. Edge-water drive
b. Bottom-water drive
c. Linear-water drive
Recognition of Natural Water Influx
• Normally very little information is obtained during the
exploration-development period of a reservoir concerning
the presence or characteristics of an aquifer that could
provide a source of water influx during the depletion
period.
• Natural water drive may be assumed by analogy with
nearby producing reservoirs, but early reservoir
performance trends can provide clues. A comparatively
low, and decreasing, rate of reservoir pressure decline
with increasing cumulative withdrawals is indicative of
fluid influx.
Figure 1. Flow geometries

Linear-water Drive
Indications of fluid influx.
• Early water production from edge wells is indicative of
water encroachment. Such observations must be
tempered by the possibility that the early water production
is due to formation fractures; thin, high permeability
streaks; or to coning in connection with a limited aquifer.
The water production may be due to casing leaks.
• If the reservoir pressure is below the oil saturation
pressure, a low rate of increase in produced gas-oil ratio
is also indicative of fluid influx.
• Calculation of increasing original oil-in-place from
successive reservoir pressure surveys by using the
material balance assuming no water influx is also
indicative of fluid influx.
WATER INFLUX MODELS
• Several models have been developed for estimating water
influx that are based on assumptions that describe the
characteristics of the aquifer.
• The mathematical water influx models that are commonly used
in the petroleum industry include:
• Pot aquifer
• Schilthuis’ steady-state
• Hurst’s modified steady-state
• The Van Everdingen-Hurst unsteady-state
- Edge-water drive
- Bottom-water drive
• The Carter-Tracy unsteady-state
• Fetkovich’s method
- Radial aquifer
- Linear aquifer
The Pot Aquifer Model
The simplest model that can be used to estimate the water
influx into a gas or oil reservoir is based on the basic
definition of compressibility. A drop in the reservoir pressure,
due to the production of fluids, causes the aquifer water to
expand and flow into the reservoir. The compressibility is
defined mathematically as:
V = c V  p …….. (1)
Applying the above basic compressibility definition to the
aquifer gives:
Water influx = (aquifer compressibility) (initial volume of
water) (pressure drop)
or
We = (cw + cf) Wi (pi - p) …………….(2)
where We = cumulative water influx, bbl
cw = aquifer water compressibility, psi-1
cf = aquifer rock compressibility, psi-1
Wi = initial volume of water in the aquifer, bbl
pi = initial reservoir pressure, psi
p = current reservoir pressure (pressure at oil-water
contact), psi
• Calculating the initial volume of water in the aquifer
requires the knowledge of aquifer dimension and
properties. These, however, are seldom measured since
wells are not deliberately drilled into the aquifer to obtain
such information. For instance, if the aquifer shape is
radial, then:

……………(3(
• Equation (2) suggests that water is encroaching in a
radial form from all directions. Quite often, water
does not encroach on all sides of the reservoir, or
the reservoir is not circular in nature.
• To account for these cases, a modification to
Equation (1) must be made in order to properly
describe the flow mechanism. One of the simplest
modifications is to include the fractional
encroachment angle f in the equation, to give:
• We = (cw + cf) Wi f (pi - p) …….(4)

……..(5)
• The above model is only applicable to a small aquifer,
i.e., pot aquifer, whose dimensions are of the same order
of magnitude as the reservoir itself. Dake (1978) points
out that because the aquifer is considered relatively
small, a pressure drop in the reservoir is instantaneously
transmitted throughout the entire reservoir-aquifer
system. Dake suggests that for large aquifers, a
mathematical model is required which includes time
dependence to account for the fact that it takes a finite
time for the aquifer to respond to a pressure change in
the reservoir.
Schilthuis’ Steady-State Model

• Schilthuis (1936) proposed that for an aquifer that is

flowing under the steady-state flow regime, the flow
behavior could be described by Darcy’s equation.
The rate of water influx ew can then be determined
by applying Darcy’s equation:

……………(6)
• The last relationship can be more conveniently
expressed as:

……….(7)
• The parameter C is called the water influx constant and
is expressed in bbl/day/psi. This water influx constant C
may be calculated from the reservoir historical
production data over a number of selected time intervals,
provided that the rate of water influx ew has been
determined independently from a different expression.
• If the steady-state approximation adequately describes
the aquifer flow regime, the calculated water influx
constant C values will be constant over the historical
period.
• Note that the pressure drops contributing to influx are the
cumulative pressure drops from the initial pressure.
• In terms of the cumulative water influx We, the
common Schilthuis expression for water influx is:

…………(8)

• Equation (8) may be written in the following form:

Hurst’s Modified Steady-State Model

……………….(9)

• One of the problems associated with the Schilthuis’

steady-state model is that as the water is drained
from the aquifer, the aquifer drainage radius ra will
increase as the time increases. Hurst (1943)
proposed that the “apparent” aquifer radius ra would
increase with time and, therefore the dimensionless
radius ra/re may be replaced with a time dependent
function, as:
ra/re = at
…………………(10)
• Substituting Equation (10)into Equation (6) gives:

………..(11)

………..(12)

………..(13)
• The Hurst modified steady-state equation contains
two unknown constants a and C, that must be
determined from the reservoir aquifer pressure and
water influx historical data. The procedure of
determining the constants a and C is based on
expressing Equation (11) as a linear relationship.

………..(14)
Figure 2 :Modified Steady State
Water Influx Model
• Equation (14) indicates that a plot of (pi - p)/ew
versus ln(t) will be a straight line with a slope of 1/C
and intercept of (1/C)ln(a), as shown schematically
in Figure (2).

Determination of C and n
Everdingen-Hurst Unsteady-State Model
• The mathematical formulations that describe the flow of
crude oil system into a wellbore are identical in form to
those equations that describe the flow of water from an
aquifer into a cylindrical reservoir, as shown in Figure (3)
• When an oil well is brought on production at a constant
flow rate after a shut-in period, the pressure behavior is
essentially controlled by the transient (unsteady-state)
flowing condition. This flowing condition is defined as
the time period during which the boundary has no effect
on the pressure behavior.
• The dimensionless form of the diffusivity equation, is
basically the general mathematical equation that is
designed to model the transient flow behavior in
reservoirs or aquifers.
Figure 3. Water influx into a cylindrical reservoir.
• In a dimensionless form, the diffusivity equation takes the
form:
……………(15)

Van Everdingen and Hurst (1949) proposed solutions to the

dimensionless diffusivity equation for the following two
reservoir aquifer boundary conditions:
• Constant terminal rate
• Constant terminal pressure
• For the constant terminal rate boundary condition, the
rate of water influx is assumed constant for a given
period; and the pressure drop at the reservoir-aquifer
boundary is calculated. For the constant terminal
pressure boundary condition, a boundary pressure
drop is assumed constant over some finite time period,
and the water influx rate is determined.
• In the description of water influx from an aquifer into a
reservoir, there is greater interest in calculating the
influx rate rather than the pressure.
• This leads to the determination of the water influx as
a function of a given pressure drop at the inner
boundary of the reservoir-aquifer system.
• Van Everdingen and Hurst solved the diffusivity
equation for the aquifer-reservoir system by applying
the Laplace transformation to the equation. The
authors’ solution can be used to determine the water
influx in the following systems:
• Edge-water-drive system (radial system)
• Bottom-water-drive system
• Linear-water-drive system
Edge-Water Drive

• Figure 4. shows an idealized radial flow system that

represents an edge-water-drive reservoir. The inner
boundary is defined as the interface between the
reservoir and the aquifer.
• The flow across this inner boundary is considered
horizontal and encroachment occurs across a
cylindrical plane encircling the reservoir. With the
interface as the inner boundary, it is possible to impose
a constant terminal pressure at the inner boundary and
determine the rate of water influx across the interface.
Figure 4. Idealized radial flow model
 Van Everdingen and Hurst proposed a solution to the
dimensionless diffusivity equation that utilizes the
constant terminal pressure condition in addition to the
following initial and outer boundary conditions:
Initial conditions:
p = pi for all values of radius r
Outer boundary conditions
• For an infinite aquifer
p = pi at r = ∞
• For a bounded aquifer
Van Everdingen and Hurst assumed that the aquifer is
characterized by:
• Uniform thickness
• Constant permeability
• Uniform porosity
• Constant rock compressibility
• Constant water compressibility
• The authors expressed their mathematical relationship for
calculating the water influx in a form of a dimensionless
parameter that is called dimensionless water influx WeD.
They also expressed the dimensionless water influx as a
function of the dimensionless time tD and dimensionless
radius rD, thus they made the solution to the diffusivity
equation generalized and applicable to any aquifer where
the flow of water into the reservoir is essentially radial.
Figure 5. Dimensionless water influx WeD for
several values of ra/re. (Van Everdingen and
Hurst WeD. Permission to publish by the SPE.)

• The authors presented their solution in tabulated and

graphical forms .
• The two dimensionless parameters tD and rD are
given by:

(16(

(17)

(18(
• The water influx is then given by:

(19)

(20)
Table 10-1
Table 10-2
• Equation (20 )assumes that the water is encroaching in a
radial form. Quite often, water does not encroach on all
sides of the reservoir, or the reservoir is not circular in
nature. In these cases, some modifications must be made
in Equation (20) to properly describe the flow mechanism.
One of the simplest modifications is to introduce the
encroachment angle to the water influx constant B as:

(21)

(22)

• Ә is the angle subtended by the reservoir circumference,

i.e., for a full circle Ә = 360° and for semicircle reservoir
against a fault Ә =180°, as shown in Figure 10-12.
Figure 6: Water Drive Reservoir