Gas Reservoir Pe~ormance

flow, the effect of changes in well rates or well pressures corresponding constant rate distributions. Psydgsteady-
at the well will be governed by unsteady-state flow equa- state flow is a spialized case -of unsteady-state -how
tions until the changes have been in effect for a sufficient and
a-
is sometimes referred to-.&$$+o+~a~
-5-i--
as stabilized flow:Most of
%.
* *

length of time to affect the entire reservoir and have the .theelife of a -reseho&%ill exlst in pseud~st6idy~s'tate
reservoir again reach a steady-state condition.
To+
-: .--%*-.-
&-*'..
Pseudo-Steady-State Flow. Figure 3-3 illustrates the
pressure and rate distribution for the same unsteady-state Flow Equations
system except that in this case the rate at the well, q,,
is held constant. This might be comparable to a prorated From the previous description of the various flow re-
well orane that is pumping at a constant rate. Again at gimes it is obvious that a particular well will be oper-
time f = 0 the pressure throughout the reservoir is uni- ating in each of these regimes at some time in the life
form at p,. Then after some short producing time t , at a of the well. The applicable equations for each flow re-
constant rate, only a small portion of the reservoir will gime will be derived or presented in this section.
have experienced a significant pressure drop, and con-
sequently the reservoir will be flowing only out to a ra- Steady-State Flow
dius r,. As production continues at the constant rate, the Darcy's Law for flow in a porous medium is
entire reservoir will eventually experience a significant
pressure drop as shown at t,. Shortly after the entire res- k dp
v = --- or,
ervoir pressure has been affected, the change in the pres- P h
sure with time at all radii in the reservoir becomes uni-
form so that the pressure distributions at subsequent times
are parallel as illustrated by the pressure distributions at
times t,, t,, and f,. This situation will continue with con- where
stant changes in pressure with time at all radii and with v = fluid velocity,
subsequent parallel pressure distributions until the res-
ervoir is no longer able to sustain a constant flow rate q = volumetric flow rate,
at the wellbore. This will occur when the pressure at the k = effective permeability,
well, p , , has reached its physical lower limit.
Pseudo-steady-state flow occurs in the reservoir after CL = fluid viscosity, and
it has been produced at a constant rate for a long enough
period of time to cause a constant change in pressure at dp -
- - pressure gradient in the direction of flow.
all radii, resulting in parallel pressure distributions and dx
For radial flow in which the distance is defined as pos-
itive moving away from the well, the equation becomes
patt = 0
k ( 2 ~ r - hdp
)
4=--
P dr
where
r = radial distance, and
P .h = reservoir thickness.
E
3 Darcy's Law describes the pressure loss due to viscous
in
in
2 shear occurring in the flowing fluid. If the formation is
P
not horizontal, the hydrostatic or potential energy term
must be included. This is usually negligible for gas flow
in reservoirs. Equation 3-2 is a differential equation and
must be integrated for application. Before integration the
'1 Radius, r re
flow equation must be combined with an equation of state
and the continuity equation. The continuity equation is
Fig. 3-3. Unsteady-state radial flow with constant produc-
plql = p2q2= constant (3-3)
ing rate pseudo-steady-state t2 to t,. From Slider, Practical
Reservoir Engineering Methods, copyright 1976, Penn Well From Chapter 2, the equation of state for a real gas
Books. is

qy, Mscfd
The data are plotted in Figure 3-19.
Transient Testing
Methods have been presented for determining the sta-
bilized deliverability or inflow performance of a gas well
for use in planning equipment purchases and other field
development procedures.
Much useful reservoir information can be obtained from
various types of unsteady-state or transient gas well tests.
Information that can be obtained from transient tests in-
cludes permeability k, skin factor S, turbulence coeffi-
cient D , and average reservoir pressure, IT,. If a test is
continued into the pseudo-steady-state flow regime, an
estimate of reservoir size can be made. This is usually
called a reservoir limit test.
The most common transient tests are drawdown tests
and buildup tests. ,Essentially the same information can
be obtained from each. The choice of which type of test
to run depends on well and field conditions.
Any test that involves a change in flow rate is ana-
lyzed based on the principle of superposition. This prin-
ciple, as it applies to well testing, is briefly described.
Principle of Superposition
The superposition principle in effect states that if a
pressure disturbance is created in a reservoir, the dis-
turbance continues to travel through the reservoir even
though the source of the disturbance may change or cease.
This means that in order to determine the pressure at a
location as a function of time, all of the pressure dis-
turbance effects must be added.
Superposition in Time. When the flow rate is changed
in a well, the pressure disturbance caused by the pre-
vious flow rate continues to affect the reservoir. As an
analogy, when the source of a noise is stopped, the sound
waves already emitted do not stop. Consider the case in
which a well is produced at some rate q , for a time t,.
The rate is then changed to 9 , and flow is continued. If
the pressure is desired at some time t,, the effects of both
rates must be considered. The flow rate and pressure be-
havior are illustrated in Figure 3-20.
Adding the effect of the two rates flowing for their
respective times gives:
Gas Production Operations
where
ApDl is based on total flowing time, t, + t2, ApD2 is
based on flowing time t - t , .
Superposition in Space. When more than one well is
producing in a reservoir, the effects of both pressure dis-
turbances must be added to calculate the total pressure
effect at any point in the reservoir. This of course re-
quires evaluation of pressure at points other than the well.
This is the basis for interference testing involving two
or more wells. Superposition in time and space can be
applied simultaneously.
Pressure Drawdown Testing
Several important reservoir parameters can be deter-
mined by flowing a we11 at a constant rate and measuring
flowing wellbore pressure as a function of time. This is
called drawdown testing and it can utilize information
obtained in both the transient and pseudo-steady-state
flow regimes. If the flow extends to pseudo-steady-state,
the test is referred to as a Reservoir Limit Test and can
be used to estimate the reservoir pore volume. Both sin-
gle rate and two rate tests are utilized, depending on the
information required. Some of the reservoir parameters
which may be obtained from drawdown testing are flow
capacity kh, skin factor S, and turbulence coefficient D .
A drawdown test begins from a shut-in condition and
a constant flow rate is maintained while pressure is mea-
sured constantly. The early time pressure data will be
affected by wellbore storage and is usually used only to
determine the beginning of the transient flow period. This
can be identified as the beginning of the straight line
segment of the plot of (Ap2)versus time.
The equation for transient flow, Equation 3-20, may
be written including formation damage and turbulence
effects as
where
S' = S 3- Dq,
S = actual well damage or improvement, such as
clay swelling, or fractures, and may be positive
or negative,
D = turbulence coefficient, which will always be
positive.
In terms of real variabies and common logs. Equation
3-48 becomes

Pressure, psia
Fig. 8-7.Gas-oil ratios, retrograde liquid volumes, and re-
coveries for the depletion performance of a retrograde gas-
condensate reservoir. B. C. Craft/M. F. Hawkins, Applied
Petroleum Reservoir Engineering, copyright 1959, pp. 64,
66, 74, 76, 78. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall,
Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Then the total liquid recovered from the 240.1 Mscf de-
termined in part (1) is
(1.681)(32.04) + (2.281)(36.32) + (2.881)(41.03) +
(8.163)(47.74)= 644.6 gal = 15.3 bbl.
The residue gas recovered from the 240.1 Mscf deter-
mined in part (1) is
Column 5 is the summation of Column 4, and Column
7 is the summation of Column 6.
(3) Calculate the gas-oil ratio for each increment of gross
production in units of residue gas per barrel of liq-
uid. Enter in Column 8. For instance,
(4) Calculate the cumulative percent recoveries of gross
gas, residue gas, and liquid. Enter in Columns 9,
10, 11. The initial gross gas-in-place is
The liquid mole fraction is 0.088, and the total liq-
uid recovery is 3.808 gal/Mscf of gross gas, which
are calculated from the initial composition in the
same manner as shown in part (2). Then,
= 1441 Mscf residue gas/acre-ft
Gas-Condensate Reservoirs
At 2500 psia, then
(100)(240.1)
Gross gas recovery = = 15.2%.
1580
(100)(225.1)
Residue gas recovery = = 15.6%.
1441
(I 00)(15.3)
Liquid recovery = = 10.7%.
143.2
Reference to Figure 8-7 will show that the producing
gas-oil ratio increases and then declines below 1500 psia
due to revaporization of liquids. However, as a practical
matter, field experience suggests that essentially all liq-
uids are held to rock surfaces by capillary forces and
virtually none is revaporized. Thus, the field producing
gas-oil ratio does not normally decline.
Reference to Columns 10 and 11 of Table 8-4 will
show that 83.3% of the residue gas is calculated as re-
covered to an abandonment pressure of 500 psia. How-
ever, only 50% of the liquids are recovered due to re-
trograde condensation. Gas cycling projects are justified
on the recovery of the liquids that would be otherwise
lost if production operations only permitted pressure de-
pletion of the reservoir involved.
Flash Calculations
In the absence of direct laboratory data on a specific
gas-condensate system, estimates of pressure-depletion
behavior can be obtained by using vapor-liquid equilib-
rium ratios to compute the phase behavior when com-
position of the total gas-condensate system is known.
Correlations for estimating phase volumes must also be
available.
When multicomponent hydrocarbon gases and liquids
exist together under pressure, part of the lighter hydro-
carbons are dissolved in the liquid phase, and part of the
heavier hydrocarbons are vaporized in the gas phase. A
convenient concept for describing quantitatively the be-
havior of specific components is the equilibrium ratio.
The ratios vary considerably with the pressure, temper-
ature, and composition of the system involved.
The use of equilibrium ratios for flash calculations is
illustrated in Chapter 2. Determining the proper conver-
gence pressure for selecting a set of equilibrium ratios
is a problem because of the changing composition of the
fluids as pressure decreases. This problem is discussed
extensively by tan ding.^ A step-by-step procedure for
calculating performance using equilibrium ratios fol-
lows.
198 Gas Production Operations 1F

Fig. 9-4. Gas well performance curwe.

Fig. 9-5. Well status map.