Petroleum Production
Engineering-II
UNIT3: PROBLEM WELL ANALYSIS:
WELL PERFORMANCE PREDICTION
Prepared by: Mr. Ali Abbas
Petroleum Production Engineering-2 Mr. Ali Abbas 2
Reservoir deliverability
Reservoir deliverability is defined as the oil or gas
production rate achievable from reservoir at a given
bottom-hole pressure.
Reservoir deliverability determines types of completion
and artificial lift methods to be used. A thorough knowledge
of reservoir productivity is essential for production
engineers.
Petroleum Production Engineering-2 Mr. Ali Abbas 3
Reservoir deliverability depends on several factors
including
the following:
• . Reservoir pressure
• . Pay zone thickness
• . Reservoir boundary distance
• . Wellbore radius
• . Reservoir fluid properties
• . Near-wellbore condition
• . Reservoir permeability
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Reservoir deliverability can be mathematically modeled on
the basis of flow regimes such as transient flow, steady
state flow, and pseudo–steady state flow.
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Flow Regimes
Transient Flow
„„Transient flow‟‟ is defined as a flow regime where/when
the radius of pressure wave propagation from wellbore has
not reached any boundaries of the reservoir.
Steady-State Flow
„„Steady-state flow‟‟ is defined as a flow regime where the
pressure at any point in the reservoir remains constant
over time.
Pseudo–Steady-State Flow
„„Pseudo–steady-state‟‟ flow is defined as a flow regime
where the pressure at any point in the reservoir declines
at the same constant rate over time
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An analytical relation between bottom-hole pressure and
production rate can be formulated for a given flow regime.
The relation is called „„inflow performance relationship‟‟
(IPR).
For a single-phase flow it usually straight-line
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Inflow Performance Relationship
VIDEO 1
Well test _ DST Operation
Nodal analysis
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Oil well performance
• When considering the performance of oil wells, it is often
assumed that a well‟s performance can be estimated by
the productivity index.
• However, Evinger and Muskat pointed out that :
a productivity index straight-line curved relationship
existed between flow rate and pressure did not apply to
multiphase flow.
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Oil well performance
• For reservoir pressures less than the bubble-point
pressure,(multiphase reservoir) the reservoir fluid exists
as two phases, vapor and liquid, and techniques other
than the productivity index must be applied to predict oil
well performance.
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Inflow performance
Vogel’s IPR
• Vogel was the first to present an easy-to-use method for
predicting the performance of oil wells.
• His empirical inflow performance relationship (IPR) is
based on computer simulation results and is given by:
(Equ.1)
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Vogel’s IPR
• To use this relationship, the engineer needs to
determine the oil production rate and flowing bottomhole pressure
from a production test
and obtain an estimate of the average reservoir pressure at the
time of the test.
• With this information, the maximum oil production rate
can be estimated and used to estimate the production
rates for other flowing bottomhole pressures at the current
average reservoir pressure.
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Fetkovich Method
• Multipoint backpressure testing of gas wells is a common
procedure to establish the performance curve of gas wells
or deliverability.
• Fetkovich applied these tests on oil wells with reservoir
pressures above and below the bubble-point pressure.
• The general conclusion from these backpressure tests is
that as in gas wells, the rate pressure relationship in oil
wells (or the oil well IPR) is of the form :
(Equ.2)
This equation is also referred to as the oil and gas
deliverability equation
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Fetkovich Method
• The exponent “n” was found to be between 0.5 and 1.000
for both oil and gas wells.
• The coefficient “C” represents the Productivity Index of the
reservoir.
• Consequently, this coefficient increases as k and h
increase and decreases as the skin increases.
• The Fetkovich IPR is a customized IPR for the well, and is
obtained by multipoint backpressure testing, for example,
flow after flow or isochronal testing.
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Fetkovich Method
• After the deliverability test is conducted, the best fit
straight line is drawn through them. This line called the
deliverability curve.
• The inverse of the slope yields an estimate of n, the flow
exponent.
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Fetkovich Method
• According to Fetkovich the flow coefficient C equal :
C =qmax/p2n.
• An IPR can be developed by rearranging Fetkovich’s
deliverability equation to obtain Eq. 3.
(Equ.3)
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Multirate tests incorporating non-Darcy flow
• Jones, Blount, and Glaze also proposed a multirate test
method in which they attempted to incorporate non-Darcy flow
effects.
• The basic equation to describe the flow of oil is
(Equ.4)
• where a represents the laminar flow coefficient and b is the
turbulence coefficient.
• To use the method, one must obtain multiple rate test
information similar to Fetkovich’s method.
• A plot of the ratio of the pressure difference to flow rate vs. the
flow rate on coordinate paper is expected to yield a straight
line.
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Multirate tests incorporating non-Darcy flow
• The laminar flow coefficient a is the intercept of the plot,
while the slope of the curve yields the turbulence
coefficient b.
• Once a and b have been determined, the flow rate at any
other flowing wellbore pressure can be obtained by
solving:
(Equ.5)
• The maximum flow rate can be estimated from Eq. 5 by
allowing the flowing bottomhole pressure to equal zero.
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Single- and two-phase flow
• In certain circumstances, both single-phase and two-
phase flow may be occurring in the reservoir.
• This results when the average reservoir pressure is above
the bubblepoint pressure of the oil reservoir while the
flowing bottomhole pressure is less than the bubblepoint
pressure.
• To handle this situation, Neely developed a composite
IPR.
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Single- and two-phase flow
• The composite IPR couples Vogel‟s IPR for two-phase
flow with the single-phase productivity index.
• The relationship that yields the maximum oil production
rate is
(Equ.6)
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Single- and two-phase flow
• The relationships to determine the oil production rate at various
flowing bottomhole pressures are
(Equ.7)
when the flowing bottomhole pressure is greater than the
bubblepoint pressure.
(Equ.8)
when the flowing bottomhole pressure is less than the
bubblepoint pressure.
The flow rate at the bubblepoint pressure, qb, used in Eq. 8 is
determined with Eq. 7 where Pwf equals Pb.
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Single- and two-phase flow
• The appropriate J to use in Eqs. 6 and 7 depends on the
flowing bottomhole pressure of the test point.
• If the flowing bottomhole pressure is greater than the
bubblepoint pressure, then the well is experiencing
single-phase flow conditions and J is determined by
(Equ.9)
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Single- and two-phase flow
• When the flowing bottomhole pressure is less than the
bubblepoint pressure, J is determined from
(Equ.10)
• Once J is determined for the test conditions, it is used to
calculate the complete inflow performance curve both above
and below the bubblepoint pressure with Eqs. 7 and 8.
• The composite IPR is only applicable when the average
reservoir pressure is greater than the bubblepoint
pressure.
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Three-phase flow
• Wiggins presented an easy-to-use IPR for three-phase
flow, which is similar in form to Vogel‟s IPR.
• It was based on a series of simulation studies.
• It yields results similar to two other three-phase flow
models and is easier to implement.
• Eqs. 11 and 12 give the generalized three-phase IPRs for
oil and water, respectively.
(Equ.11)
(Equ.12)
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Example-1
• Table 1 presents data for a multipoint test on a producing
oil well used to demonstrate the two-phase IPR methods.
The average reservoir pressure for this example is 1,734
psia.
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Example-1
• To apply the IPR methods, obtain test
information, which includes:
production rates,
flowing bottomhole pressures,
and an estimate of the average reservoir
pressure.
• Vogel‟s IPR is a single-rate relationship, and
the highest test rate is used to demonstrate this
IPR.
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Example-1
• The data obtained at the largest pressure drawdown can
be used with Eq. 1 to solve for the maximum oil-
production rate.
• The estimated maximum oil production is 2,065 STB/D.
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Example-1
• This value is then used to estimate the production rate at other
values of flowing bottomhole pressures to develop a complete
inflow performance curve.
• Once again, Eq. 1 will be rearranged to calculate the
production rate for a flowing bottomhole pressure of 800 psia.
.
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Example-1
• Fetkovich‟s IPR requires multiple test points to determine the
deliverability exponent n.
• Table 2 shows the test data prepared for plotting.
• The data are plotted on a logarithmic graph, which is used to
estimate the slope of the best-fit straight line through the data.
• .
• Table 2: Plotting data for Fetkovich’s IPR
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Fig. 1—Fetkovich analysis of multirate oilwell data.
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Example-1
• Once n is determined, Eq. 3 can be used to estimate the
maximum oil production rate.
• Fig. 1 is the plot of the data that shows the best-fit straight
line has a slope of 1.347 yielding an n value of 0.743.
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Example-1
• The estimated maximum oil production rate is 1,497
STB/D, as shown below:
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Example-1
• Once the maximum rate is estimated, it is used with Eq.
3 to estimate production rates at other flowing bottomhole
pressures to develop the inflow performance curve in a
manner similar to that demonstrated with Vogel‟s IPR.
• For Fetkovich‟s method, the production rate is estimated
to be 1,253 STB/D at a flowing bottomhole pressure of
800 psia
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Example-1
• To apply the method of Jones, Blount, and Glaze to this
data set, Table 3 was prepared and the data plotted on a
coordinate graph as shown in Fig. 2.
Table 3: the Plotting data for Jones, Blount, and Glaze IPR
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Fig. 2—Jones, Blount, and Glaze analysis of multirate oilwell test data.
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Example-1
• The equation best-fit straight line is:
= 0.23 +0.0004 q0
• From this equation a and be values can be determined:
• The intercept a is the laminar flow coefficient and is
determined to be 0.23 psia/STB/D.
• The slope b of 0.0004 psia/(STB/D)2, which is the
turbulence coefficient.
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Example-1
• These values are used in Eq. 5 to determine the
maximum oil production rate of 1,814 STB/D when the
flowing bottomhole pressure is 0 psig.
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Example-1
• This same relationship is used to estimate the production
rate at other flowing bottomhole pressures to generate the
inflow performance curve.
• For a flowing bottomhole pressure of 800 psia, the
production rate is estimated to be 1,267 STB/D.
• From this example, each of the three methods yielded
different values for the maximum oil production rate as
well as the production rate at a flowing bottomhole
pressure of 800 psia.
