Concept of Reservoir Engineering

Introduction

Reservoir Engineering is an applications of scientific principles to the drainage

problem arising during the development and production of oil and gas reservoirs.
OR
This can also be defined as the art of development and production of oil and gas
fields is known as reservoir engineering.
The working tools of reservoir engineering are surface Geology, Applied
Mathematics, Basic Laws of physics and Chemistry governing the behavior of the
Liquid and Vapor phase of crude oil, natural gas and water in the reservoir rocks.
The properties of rocks and its correlations with the fluid it contains during static and
dynamic conditions is called the petro-physical properties of the rocks.
Some properties are : Porosity, Permeability, Fluid saturation & distributions,
Electrical conductivity of rock and fluids, Pore structures and radioactivity are some
more properties of reservoir rock.
 Natural Reservoirs of Oil and Gas:

Rock forming earth crust are traditionally divided into three groups according to their origin:
- Igneous Rock
- Sedimentary rock
- Metamorphic rock

Igneous Rock:
Formed by cooling and solidifying the Magma erupted from the interior earth crust. They are
generally hard crystalline in structure and devoid of pore space or void. Such as Granite, Basalt,
Syenite, Andesite, Serpentines, Dia-bases, Gabro-Diabasis etc.

Sedimentary rock:
These rocks formed from the deposition of organic and inorganic matters. Fine pieces of igneous
rock along with plant and animal fossils were deposited by wind and water and gradually settled in
layers and strata. Sedimentary rock are grouped in three categories.
1. Classtic Sediments: Were formed by breakdown, transport & deposition of rock . These are:
conglomerates, Brescia, Sands, Sandstone, Silts, Siltstone, Clay, Clay stone and shale
 Chemical Sediments:

These sediments are formed by precipitations during the course of sedimentation and
chemical process. These rocks are not transported by water or wind & deposited at a place in
the form of beddings. Chemical sediments are mineral salts (Chloride, Sulfates and others,
Carbonates (Limestone, Dolomites) and Siliceous rock. These structure are having crystalline
structure.

Organic Sediments:

These kind of rocks are formed by life process either animal or vegetable (Limestone, jasper,
Phosporites, Coals etc. They possess slim structure where organic fragments are predominant.
Most sediments rocks are sandstone, Sands, Lime stone and clay stone.
 Metamorphic rock
The tectonic changes that occurs at very high temperature and pressure conditions changes the
structures and compositions of original igneous and sedimentary rock resulting the formation
of Metamorphic rock. These types of rock includes Quartzite, Slates, Gneisses, Marble and
Amphiboles.
Metamorphic rocks do not containing fossils. They resemble with Ignecious rock in their
crystalline structure. And sedimentary rocks in their parallel – linear distribution of mineral
grains.
The main distinctions of metamorphic rocks is their Schistosity (Foliated Structure) that is the
properties of rocks to cleaved into flat thin plate.
The commercial oil and gas are present in the earth crust in Sedimentary rock are called oil
and gas pools.
The characteristics and the properties that describes the rock making up the productivity strata (
Payout beds, or producing formation ) are the followings:
 --Cont--
Porosity, Granulometric composition, Permeability, Specific surface, Elasticity,
Resistance to ruptures, compressions and other kinds of deformations, oil, gas and water
saturations, interaction with the fluids (Molecular surface properties). These
characteristics and properties determine the conditions of oil field developments.
- Porosity:
Porosity of the rocks is the ability of rock to hold the oil , gas and water into it under
in-situ conditions of the reservoir .
Vog ( pore volume allow to flow the fluid and gas)
That is porosity= -------
Vo ( Total pore volume of the pore)

Rocks & Sediments Porosity Factors

Clay shale 0.0054 to 0.014

Clay 0.06 to 0.50
Sand 0.06 to 0.52
Sandstone 0.035 to 0.29
Limestone & Dolomites 0.005 to 0.33
Granulometric Compositions:
It is define as quantitative distribution of grains differing in size, that make-up the given rock. The
rock properties depends on the grain size are:
Porosity, Permeability, Specific surface of the porous media and capillary properties of the rock
matrix. The rock formed by non-uniform gain sizes have lower porosity and poor permeability.
Thus grain size compositions determine the total surface of the porous media that makes contact
with oil. It is also responsible for the quantity of leftover oil in the form of thin film in the pore of
the bed after abandoning the field.

Determination of Granulometric Grain size compositions:

In this case 50 gram of rock samples is crushed initially at 80 -100 mesh. Then it is to be
filtered through different sieve sizes (3.36mm to 0.053mm) for 15 minutes. Then plot a
graph between the % weight mass of grains of each sizes corresponding to the each sieve
dia in a semi log graph (% wt mass along with Y-axis and Log of diameter along the X-
axis). The safe of the curve will be as under:
 Granulometric Analysis of the rock matrix
100
90
80
70
60
% by mass

50
40
30
20
10
0
0.001 0.01 0.1 1
Log (D)
 Permeability of reservoir rock matrix

SI unit of permeability is m2 and describes as rate of flow of the fluid (1m3/second) having a
viscosity of 1Pa-s passes through 1 m2 area of the reservoir will experience a pressure of 1 pa
is known an permeability. The permeability of natural oil reservoir varies from 0.1 to 2 μm2.
Clays or clay rock is having zero permeability. The permeability along the bedding plane is high
as compare to the normal to the bedding plane because the bedding are more compact in the
transversal direction of the strata.

Specific Surface:
Specific surface area of the rock is the total surface area of the particle per unit volume of rock specimen.
Because the individual size of the grains are small and compactness of the grain arrangement is high, the
pore space of the rock can have a huge surface area. Thus surface area of regular spherical shape grains
o.20mm in size contains in 1 m3 of homogeneous sand amounts to 20276m2.
The specific area of oil bearing rock determine their permeability, interstitial water contents,
adsorptive and other properties. If porous medium shows larger specific surface area the number
of surface molecules of liquid becomes high as compare to the numbers of the molecules in the
bulk medium. That is why the molecular surface phenomena can exert much stronger effect in low
permeability rock on liquid filtration than is the case of high permeability rocks. This can be
defines as :

Ssp ( m2/m3)= 7000 ϕ √ϕ / √ k

Whereas

Ssp is the specific area of filtration surface of oil bearing rocks.

The value of specific surface area of commercial oil bearing rocks varies from 40,000 to
230,000m2/m3. Higher the value of sp. Surface area, lower will be the permeability of the rocks
i.e. Clay Sands, Clay shale, and other low permeable materials.
-Cont---
Reservoir properties of Fissured Rocks:

The reservoir properties of the rocks depends not only on intergranular porosity but also depends on
the natural deep or moderate fractures presents in the reservoirs. The oil accumulation in fractures
most commonly found in carbonate rock. However, the terrigenous deposits can easily transmit the
fluid if they lack fractures.
The quantity of fissured rocks as an oil and gas reservoir is defined by opening number and density
of fractures.
The density of fractures rocks at any side of the bed is described by volume density of fractions
(ρ):
ρ = ΔS/ ΔV where as ΔS is the half of the surface area of all the fractures/ unit volume of rocks
( ΔV ). Hence the fracture porosity ϕf , is defined as :

ϕf = h ΔS/ ΔV = hρ where h= Height of the fracture opening, mm

‘Hence the permeability coefficient Kf for a fissured rock is given by:

Kf = 85000 h2 ϕf -----------------------------------------1
The fracture permeability if h= 0.1 μm, ϕf = 0.01 we have Kf = 8.5 μm2

The porosity and the permeability of fissured rock is determined from the analysis of thin rock
section. Fracture volume is determined by rock saturation method.
Mechanical Properties of Reservoir Rock
Many process occurs in the reservoir during course of field exploration and exploitation which
depends on many mechanical properties such as Elasticity, strength in compression, resistance to
rupture and plasticity. Also a reduction of the formation pressure reduces the pore space also.
This is due to elastic extensions of minerals grain and rock Skelton compaction under the action of
overlying mass as a results the fluid starts flowing out of the pores.
The Elastic properties of the rocks mean, their ability to vary in pore volume with the pressure,
and also have an affect on pressure distributions in the reservoir during the process of oil
production.
The elastic properties of the rocks is judged by the formation compressibility factor (C f) . The

elastic change in the pore volume of most of the rocks follows by Hooke’s Law:
∆V/Vo = β ∆p and β = ∆V / (V ∆p )--------------------2
∆V is the variation in Pore Volume (m3) with the pressure variation of ∆p (Pa) and β is the
elastic ratio of the rock (1/Pa).
The Eqn (2) describes the β i.e. relative change in pore volume with the pressure changes by 1
Pa.
As per the Lab studies indicates that the Cubic Elastic ratio of the oil bearing rock varies from

0.3x10 -4 to 2x10-4 1/Mega Pascal

Rock Strength is the resistance of mechanical destruction of the rock. Since rock offers
resistance to the compressions, but the strength of rocks in tension, bending and shear comes
very-very low as less as 10th to 100th of the strength of compressions.
The strength of the Limestone decreases with the increasing the clay contents.
Sandstone cemented with the lime (Calcareous sandstone) shows the lowest strength of
compression.
Compression strength of the rocks grow with their density. The strength of limestone
and sandstone deceases by 20-45% after water saturation.
The Plastic properties of rocks i.e their ability to deform under high pressure without
development of cracks or noticeable disturbance observes in deep well drilling. Folding
in the earth crust which leads to the smooth bends, flexures, concavities & bulges is
also depends on the plastic properties of the rocks.
Problem:1
In a fissures reservoir rock find the permeability of rock If specific surface area of unit volume of
the reservoir rock is 362m3/m2 & fracture porosity of the rock sample= 0.24.
Problem:2
Find the fracture height (mm) of fissures reservoir if the fracture porosity and
permeability coefficient ratio of the reservoir is 100: 300.
Problem:3
Find the elastic ratio of the rock, if the ratio of initial to final volume of the rock
experiences under goes elastic extension under a pressure of 10000 psi is 0.25.
Thanks