SPE Distinguished Lecturer Program

Primary funding is provided by

The SPE Foundation through member donations

and a contribution from Offshore Europe

The Society is grateful to those companies that allow their

professionals to serve as lecturers

Additional support provided by AIME

Society of Petroleum Engineers
Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl

Reservoir Fluid Properties (PVT):

Issues, Pitfalls and Modeling Aspects
Birol Dindoruk

Shell International Exp. & Prod. Inc.

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl

Outline
Purpose/Motivation
Impact (Examples)
Well Testing
Surface Oil Volume, Reservoir Depletion Performance

Sources of PVT data

Main Focus Areas

QC Considerations/Modeling Issues

Measurement errors/Sample consistency

Rules-of-thumb/Difficult Fluids
OBM
Compositional Grading/Multiple PVTs
Viscosity
EOR

Summary

Why Do We Need PVT Data?

Many petroleum engineering calculations
require PVT data:

Reserves, reservoir connectivity

Reservoir simulation/Material balance
Pressure transient testing
EOR/Injection processes
Flow-line, wellbore hydraulics calculations
Flow assurance
Production allocation and calibration
Tax implications/qualifications/quotas
Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs)
Drilling and completion fluids

Bottom Line: Most of the equations that we use

have coefficients/parameters that are functions of
fluid properties.

Example(s): Well testing equation(s), MBE

q
162.6
Bo P o
mh

From reservoir to surface

Pressure, Volume and Temperature changes

Surface

PVT
Description

GOR behavior, Boi

Oil Reservoir

Reservoir Performance/Time Dependent Behavior

2.0

1.6

Pressure (psia)

20000

4000

Oil Viscosity (cp)

GOR (SCF/STB)

1.2

0.8

0.4

GOR (SCF/STB)

15000

3000
0.0
0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Pressure (psia)

10000

2000

Pbp
5000

1000

0
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

From Craft & Hawkins

0
1600

CUMULATIVE OIL PRODUCTION (MSTB)

Sources of PVT data

PVT Experiments/Measurements
(need fluid samples)
Surface/Subsurface Samples
Correlations/Analog Data
Equation of State (EOS) P RT 
V b V
representation (i.e., cubic)
Estimation/Calculation of
PVT Properties

aD 
2

 2bV  b 2

Sutton (2005)

What Happens From Reservoir to

Separators?
Plants, etc.
3V 7V

Wellbore
Simulation

Surface
Facility
Modeling

397

Reservoir/ Process
Modeling
9

RE: Main Focus Areas

Primary and Secondary Production
Typically fluid properties/depletion
characteristics from reservoir to separators

Interaction with non-native (i.e., EOR)

fluids
Experiments/Modeling to capture EOR
processes (i.e., IFT 0)

Modeling the desired processes (EOS

work)
10

Some Aspects of QC Considerations

Fluid Type
Data Quality
Sample
Lab Data

Minimum Data Requirements

Transport Properties (Viscosity)
EOS vs Data
11

P-T Diagrams/Phase Envelope

Instantaneous GOR (MSCF/Sep BBL)

0.5

0.4

OIL

GAS

Pi

Pi

0.3

0.2

CP

0.1

Pdp

100% L

0.0
36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

TIME (hr)

90%
70%
50%

80
70

Liq % @ Tres

60

20%

50

2
1=wet gas
2=dry gas

40
30
20

10%

Liq % (Data)
Liq % (Calc)

10

Tsep&Psep

0
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000
P (psia)

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

12

Classification of Reservoir Fluids

Cut off/rule of thumb (i.e., Mc Cain)
P-T diagrams
Property

Black
Oil

Volatile
Oil

Retrograd
e Gas

Wet Gas

Dry Gas

Initial GOR
(SCF/STB)

<1750

17503200

>3200

>15000
(<66
bc/mmcf)

>100,000
(<10
bc/mmcf)

Initial Stock
Oil, oAPI

<45

>40

>40

<70

None

C7+

>20%

2012.5%

<12.5%

<4%

<0.7%

??

13

Impact of Test Separator Conditions on CGR

180

#1
#2
Extended Flow
1st Stage CGR: Psep = 389.7 psia (139.3 STB/MMSCF)
1st Stage CGR: Psep =389.7 psia (119.5 STB/MMSCF)
1st Stage CGR: Psep =550 psia (119.5 STB/MMSCF)

CGR (STB/MMSCF)

160

140

120

100

80
80

100

120

140

160

Separator Temperature (F)

180

200

220
14

10000

DATA
CRIT

9000
8000

Low-T Extrapolation

P (psia)

7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
-200

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

T (F)

P1 & T1

Pres & Tres

Pbp

CP

P1 & T1

Pres & Tres

T1

Tres

15

1400

Oil Base Mud (OBM) Contamination

Specially designed HC/Oil-Base Fluids
Pose challenges to get clean samples

Weight%

Acceptable Contamination

50.01
40.01
30.01
20.01
10.01
0.01

10%

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Carbon Number

Dry Gas

Black Oil

16

0.7
-1.0

0.1

0.20
0.10
0.00

0.40

Influence of Drilling
Mud/Treatments
[Contamination]

0.30

0.80

0.20

0.30

0.87

0.73
0.67

0.10

0.40

0.93

0.60
0.53

0.00

0.50

0.50

0.60

0.60

1.00

0.40

-0.20

0.20

-0.40

0.13
0.07

-0.50

0.00

-0.60

-0.60

5.00 inches

Mas s fraction at S andface

-0.70

2.50

0.1

N2 C 1

0.9

Reservoir
Oil+Gas

-0.80

-1.0

OBM
Reservoir

-0.70

0.00

CO2 C 3

0.8

Ma s s F ra c tio n

-0.30

-0.30

0.27

-0.40

-0.20

0.33

-0.50

-0.10

-0.10

0.47

C4C6

0.7

C 7 C 18

0.6

C 19 P

0.5

MC 14

0.4

MC 16
MC 18

0.3
0.2
0.1
0

S ample Numbe r

17

Oil Base Mud Contamination: Condensate

30
Liq %_exp (199 F) -- CONTAMINATED
Weight%

50.01
40.01
30.01

Liq %_cpk (199 F) -- CONTAMINATED

20.01
10.01
0.01

Liq %_cpk (199 F) -- UNCONTAMINATED

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Liquid Volume (%)

Carbon Number

20

10

0
0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

Pressure (psia)
18

Oil Base Mud Contamination: Oil

5500
Stock Tank Oil
Reservoir Fluid

5000

Pbp @ 200 F (psia)

4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
0

10

20

30

40

50

% Oil Base Mud (w/w)

19

Compositional Grading
Compositional Grading

r2
r1

r1

Equilibrium
Non-equilibrium
Detailed review is in SPE109284

r3
r4

No data = No problem (no

brain & no headache)
Depth
SPE116243 & 124264

Enabling Technologies:
Advances in Subsurface Sampling
Techniques
20

Anshultz Ranch SPE14412, As described by Metcalfe et al.

Compositional Grading: GOR versus Depth

GOR (SCF/STB)
0

10000

20000

30000

9000

Black Oil

Gas
4500

9500

Critical Point
4000
3500

10000

Pres

3000
P (psia)

Depth (ft)

GAS

10500

GOC

2500
2000
1500
1000

11000

500

OIL
11500

0
-200

Tres
0

200

400

600

800

1000

T (F)

21

Pressure/Saturation Pressure (psia)

7500
9000

8500

9500

10500

11500

12500

13500

9500
10000
10500
Depth (feet)

CONDENSATE/VAPOR
11000
11500
12000
12500
OIL/LIQUID
13000
13500
14000
22

Liquid Phase Viscosity

(Measurement Aspects)
Inferred quantity (transport property)
Leading Industrial Measurement Techniques
Electromagnetic Viscosity Measurement
Rolling Ball Techniques
Capillary Tube
Fann-Type Devices

23

Liquid Phase Viscosity

(Computational Aspects)
Heavy ends have the largest impact on liquid
viscosity
Better characterization of the plus fractions
can improve the results significantly:
granularity matters!
Viscosity Models

Lohrenz-Bray-Clark/Jossi et al. Model

Corresponding States models
Friction models
Black oil correlations
24

EOR Aspects

Dependence of residual oil saturation to

uP
capillary number
Stalkup

N Ca

25

Impact of Temperature: Viscosity

Farouq Ali (1982)

SPE 9897
26

EOS The Final Assembly Step:

PREDICTIVE CAPABILITY ISSUES:

Limitations inherent to two-constant cubic

EOS (Mainly Peng and Robinson EOS and
Soave modified Redlich and Kwong EOS)

Semi-empirical nature of the EOS

Volume prediction
Mixing rules
Having a fixed critical Z-factor for all the
components, etc.

Inexact fluid description (Single Carbon

Number grouping rather than detailed
compositional breakdown)
27

Summary
Proper PVT data/work is needed to capture
Depletion performance of the reservoir and
Interaction of injectants and the in-situ fluids

Consistent fluid description is needed from the

reservoir to the delivery point.
Difficult fluids (near-critical systems, heavy
fluids, contaminated fluids, lean condensates,
graded systems) pose challenges

Characterization/modeling aspects
Computational aspects
Initialization aspects
Measurement aspects

28

Summary
PVT/Fluid Properties should be used to
complement the G&G information
EOS/Computational Aspects:
QC of the data is a must
Better viscosity prediction/modeling is needed
Sample characterization/representation with minimum
# of components
Multiple (PVTs) sample characterizations poses a
challenge

29

QUESTIONS ?

30