SPE 134761 Diagnosis and Analysis of Nonlinear Transient Pressure From Permanent Down hole Gauges (PDG)

Shiyi Zheng, SPE, Heriot-Watt University

Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Florence, Italy, 1922 September 2010. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract Long term transient pressure from a permanent down-hole gauge (PDG) is a combined response of the reservoir and many other sources. These include interference from other wells nearby, multi-phase flow and skin changing along with the production process, which generated a non-linear pressure signal, making well test analysis a challenging task for engineers. If the transient pressure is non-linear, the traditional well testing principles, based on linear reservoir system, such as superposition and deconvolution are no longer valid for the analysis. In this case, engineer has three options in solving such well test problem: (1) Linearising the nonlinear problem, for example, using so called pseudo-pressure approach (2) Choosing a specially designed approach for this problem such as numerical well testing (3) Identifying or diagnosis for the cause given the nonlinearity of the reservoir response, then decompose the response to separate the linear and nonlinear components. Thereafter each of these can be analysed using the corresponding methods respectively. This paper presents primary study results on the last option (3) mentioned above. Two cases causing the non-linear reservoir response were investigated. One is the changing skin problem. Another is the PDG pressure influenced by interference. The study has demonstrated that before proceeding for any analysis, the diagnosis of the nonlinearity is essential to ensure the correct selection of the analysis method, particularly for handling long term transient data from a PDG. Examples include the changing skin case, if the resulting data are analysed using deconvolution algorithm with predefined constraints; the nonlinear response of the reservoir system can be smoothed out completely, leading to the wrong interpretation. While transient pressure combined with interference, deconvolution algorithm cant be applied at all. This nonlinearity diagnostic key step should be included in well testing best practice of the industry. Introduction In the last 50 years or so, advances in well testing largely can be summarized in four key time periods. These are classic well testing period from 1950s to 1980s; modern well testing period from 1980s to 1990s; numerical well testing periods from 1990s to 2000; real time reservoir monitoring and testing, i.e. well testing for reservoir management period from 2000 to present. In each of these time periods, well testing technique itself has not changed much in respect to the transient theory and analysis approaches. The drivers to these changes were other techniques such as computer science, high resolution gauges, mathematical algorithms as well as reliable permanent down hole gauges (PDG), which is the focal discussion point in this paper. Transient data analysis approaches have been very much built on the principles that work for a homogeneous reservoir or linear reservoir system governed by the diffusivity equation. These include superposition; desuperposition, convolution and deconvolution principles. Of course, as a result of these approaches, heterogeneous reservoir model and properties after well