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Water Influx-1
Water Influx-1
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
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
……………(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)
……………….(9)
………..(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)
(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)