BEng (Hons) Petroleum Engineering

Course:
Petroleum Production Engineering (ENG 691)
Instructor
Dr. Tarek Darwich
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Petroleum Production Engineering

Weekly Petroleum Production News:

Petroleum Production Engineering

Course Outlines:

What is Petroleum Production Engineering?

The Inflow Performance Relationship (IPR)
The Outflow Performance
Well Deliverability & Production Forecast
Well Completion & Artificial Lift Systems
Well Stimulation
Surface Production Separation & Treatment of
produced Fluids.

Main Reference Book:

Economides, M.J., Hill, A.D., Ehlig-Economides, C. and Zhu, D.,
Petroleum Production System, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 2012
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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Production from Under-saturated Reservoirs

Under-saturated
Reservoirs:

Oil

Reservoir pressure is above

the bubble point pressure.
No free gas exists till the
reservoir
pressure
drops
below
the
bubble
point
pressure.
The reservoir drive energy
is provided by the bulk
expansion of the reservoir
rock and fluids (oil and
water).
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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Production from Under-saturated Reservoirs

Main Flow Geometries
Linear Flow.
Radial Flow
Spherical Flow

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Introduction

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

Steady-State:
means all parameters including flow rate and all pressures, are
invariant with time.
For a vertical well draining a region with radius re, this requires
that the pressure at the well boundary, pe, and the bottomhole
flowing pressure, pwf, are constant with time.
pe
can remain constant only in the presence of pressure
maintenance either by natural water influx from an aquifer or by
injection.

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

- The near-wellbore region is extremely important in well production

because that is where much of the pressure drop occurs.

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

The Skin Concept:
In many producing wells
the value of the formation
permeability close to the
wellbore is different from its
value further back in the
reservoir.
Reasons:
Invasion of the pores
by mud filtrate.
Mechanical disturbance
of the sand grains.
resistance
to
flow
created by gravel pack.
.

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

The Skin Concept:
Skin, s,
given by:

results in an additional steady-state pressure drop

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Steady-State Well Performance

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Transient Flow:

Transient Flow

If you picked a piece of rock and threw it in a calm water in a

small lake, a radial system of waves will radiate towards you from
the point of entry of the rock.
Before the waves reach the banks of the lake, pressure
distributions (pressure transients) are changing rapidly and not
constant.
The above analogy to hydrocarbon reservoirs.. If fluid
production at a constant rate q is initiated at the well bore,
pressure transients will radiate from the well and travel towards the
outer boundaries.
The rate of travel of the pressure transient is independent of the
production rate at the well but is proportional to a property of13the
reservoir termed formation diffusivity.

Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Transient Flow

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Transient Flow Equations

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Pseudosteady-State Flow
s

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Pseudo-steady State Flow Equations

Average reservoir pressure

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Transition to Pseudo-steady from Infinite

Acting Behaviour

Dimensionless Time
(depends on the drainage shape

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Wells Draining Irregular Shapes

Dietz Shape factor

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Wells Draining Irregular Shapes

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Inflow Performance Relationship (IPR)

The IPR is a relationship between the well production rate (q)
and the driving force in the reservoir
The driving force in the reservoir is the difference between the
initial outer boundary (pe) or average reservoir pressure (pr)and
the bottom hole flowing pressure (Pwf )
What a well can produce is a combination of what the reservoir
can deliver and what the imposed wellbore hydraulics allow.

Productivity Index = J = q/(Pr-Pwf)

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Effect of the presence of Water

The permeability k in all the previous equations should be
replaced by the effective permeability of the oil ko.
Effective Permeability (ko) =
Absolute
Permeability
Permeability (kr)

(k)*

relative

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Chapter 2 Production from Under-saturated Oil Reservoirs

Effect of the presence of Water

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