saturated oil reservoirs 1 introduction the material balance equations discussed in chapter 5 apply to volumetric and water-drive reservoirs

in which there is no initial gas cap (i.e., they are initially undersaturated). however, the equation apply to reservoirs in which an artidicial gas caps forms owing either to gravitational segregation of the iol and free gas phases below the bubble point, or to the. inyection of gas, usually in the higher structural portions of the reservoir. when there is an initial gas cap (i.e., the iol is initially saturated), there is negligible liquid expansion energy. however, the energy storedin the dissolved gas is supplemented by that in the cap, and it is not surprising that recoveries from gas cap reservoirs are generally higher than from those without caps, other things remaining equal. in gas cap drives, as production proceeds and reservoir pressure declines, the expansion of the gas displaces oil downward toward the wells. this phenomeon is observed in the increase of the gas-oil ratios in successively lower wells. at the same time, by virtue of its expansion, the gas cap retards pressure decline and therefore the liberation of solution gas within the oil zone, thus improving recovery by reducing the producing gas-oil ratios of the wells. this mechanism is most effective in those reservoirs of marked structural relief, which introduces a vertical component of fluid flow whereby gravitational segregation of the oil and free gas in the sand may occur. the recoveries from volumetric gas cap reservoirs could range from the recoveries for undersaturated reservoirs up to 70 to 80% of the initial stock tank oil in place and will be higher for large gas caps, continuos uniform formations, and good gravitational segregation characteristics. large gas caps the size of the gas cap is usually expressed relative to the size of the oil zone by the ratio m, as defined in chapter 2. continuous uniform formations continuous uniform formations reduce the channeling of the expanding gas cap ahead of the oil and the bypassing of oil in the less permeable portions. good gravitational segregation characterjsctics these characteristics include primarily (a) pronounced structure, (b) low oil viscosity, (c) high permeability, and (d) low oil velocities. water drive and hydraulic control are terms used in designating a mechanism that involves the movement of water into the reservoir as gas and oil are produced. water influx into a reservoir may be edgen water zone of sufficient thickness so that the water drive is a result of expansion of the water and the compressibility of the rock in the aquifer; however, it may result from artesian flow. the important characterjstjcs of a water-drive recovery process are the following: 1. the volume of the reservoir is constantly reduced by the water influx. this influx is a source of energy in addition to the energy of liquid expansion above the bubble point and the energy stored in the solution gas and in the free, or cap, gas. 2. the bottom-hole pressure is related to the ratio of water influx to voidage. when the voidage only slightly exceeds the influx, there is only a slight pressure decline is pronounced and approaches that for gas cap or dissolved gasdrive reservoirs, as the case may be. 3. for edge-water drives, regional migration is pronounced in the direction of the higher structural areas. 4. as the water encroaches in both edge-water and bottom-water drives, there is an increasing volume of water preduced, and eventually water is produced by all wells.

* references thoughout the text are given at the end of each chapter. 5. under favorable conditions, the oil recoveries are high and range from 60 to 80% of the oil in place.

2. material balance in saturated reservoirs the general schiltuis material balance equatin was developed in chapter 2 and is as follows: FORMULA equation (2.7) can be rearranged and solved for N, the initial oil in place: FORMULA if the expansion term due to the compressibilities of the formation and connate water can be neglected, as they usually are in a saturated reservoir, then eq. (6.1) becomes FORMULA example 6.1 shows the application of eq. (6.2) to the calculation of initial oil in place for a water-drive reservoir with an initial gas cap. the calculations are done once by converting all barrel units to cubic feet units and then converting all cubic feet units to barrel units. it does not matter which set of units is used, only that each term in the equation is consistent. problems sometimes arise because gas formation volume factors are either reported in cu ft/SCF or in reservoir, gas formation volume factors are reported in bbl/SCF. use care in making sure that the units are correct. example 6.1 to calculate the stock tank barreis of oil initially in place in a combination drive reservoir. given: volume of bulk oil zone = 112,000 ac-ft volume of bulk gas zone = 19,600 ac-ft initial reservoir pressure 2710 psia initial FVF = 1.340 bbl/STB initial gas volume factor = 0,006266 cu ft/STB oil produced during the interval = 20 MM STB reservoir pressure at the end if the interval = 2000 psia average produced GOR = 700 SCF/STB two-phase FVF at 2000 psia = 1,4954 bbl/STB volume of water encroached = 11.58 MM bbl volume of water produced = 1,05 MM STB FVF of the water = 1,028 bbl/STB gas volume factor at 2000 psia = 0m008479 cu ft/SCF

solution: in the use of eq.(6.2): B= B= W= W= res cu ft cu ft/STB

assuming the same porosity and connate water for the oil and gas zones: FORMULA substituting in eq. (6.2): FORMULA if B is in barrels per stock tank barrel, then Bg must be in barrels per standard cubic foot and We and Wp in barrles, and the substitution is as follows: EJERCICIO asta aki repetir el ejercicio 6.1 cinco veces m=

in chapter 2, the concept of drive indexes, first introduced to the reservoir engineering literature by pirson , was developed. to illustrate the use of these drive indexes, calculations are performed on the conroe field, texas.

figure 6.1 shows the pressure and production history of the conroe field, and fig. 6.2 gives the gas and two-phase oil formation volume factor for the reservoir fluids. table 6.1 contains other reservoir and production data and summarizes the calculation in columm form for three different periods. GRAFICO fig. 6.1 reservoir pressure and production data, conroe field (after schilthuis, trans. AIME.) GRAFICO fig. 6.2 pressure volume relations for conroe field oil and original complement of dissolved gas. (after schilthuis, trans. AIME.)

TABLA 6.1

the use of such tabular forms is common in many calculations of reservoir engineering in the interest of standardizing and summarizing calculations that may not be reviewed or repeated for intervals of months or sometimes longer. they also enable an engineer to take over the work of a predecessor with a minimuj of briefing and study. tabular forms also have the advantage of providing at a glance the component parts of a calculation, many of which have singnificance themselves. the more important factors can be readily distinguished from the less iportant ones, and trends in some of the component parts often provide imsight into the reservoir behavior. for example, the values of line 11 in table 6.1 show the expansion of the gas cap of the conroe field as the pressure declines. line 17 shows the values and others calculated elsewhere are plotted versus cumulative production in fig.

6.3, which also includes the recovery at each period, expressed as the percentage the cumulative oil is of the initial oil in place as calculated at that period. the increasing values of the initial oil during the early life of the field may be explained by some of the limitations of the material balance equation discussed in chapter 2, particularly the average reservoir pressure. lower values of the average reservoir cause the calculated values of the initial oil to be low through the effect on the oil and gas volume factors. the indications of fig.6.3 are that the reservoir contains approximately 600 MM STB of initial oil and reliable values of the initial oil are not obtained until about 5% of the oil has been produced. this is not a universal figure but depends on a number of factors, particularly the amount of pressure decline. for conroe, the drive indexes have been calculated at each of there periods, as given in line 18,19, and 20 of table 6.1. for example, at the end of 12 months the calculated initial GRAFICO fig. 6.3. active oil, conroe field (after schilthuis, trans. AIME,) oil in place is 415 MM STB, and the value of Np(B+(Rp-Rsoi)Bg) given in line 14 is 131 MM cu ft. then EJERCICIO

these figures indicate that during the first 12 months 39.5% of the production was by water drive. 32,0% by gas cap expansion, and 28,5% by depletion drive. at the end of 36 months, as the pressure stabilized, the current mechanism was essentially 100% water drive and the cummulative mechanism increased to 64,6% by water drive. if figures for recovery could be estimated using the drive indexes. an increase in the depletion drive and gas-drive indexes would indicate the need for water injection to supplement the natural water influx and to turn the recovery mechanism more toward water drive.

3. material balance as a straight line in chapter 2 sect. 4, the method developed by havlena and odeh of applying the general material balance equation was presented. this approach defines several new variables (see chapter 2) and rewrites the material balance equation as eq. (2.13): FORMULA this equation is then reduced for a particular application and arranged into a form of a straight line. when this is done, the slope and intercept often yield valuable assistance in determining such parameters as N and m. the usefulnes of this approach is illustred by applying the method to the data from the conroe field example discussed in the last section. for the case of a saturated reservoir with an initial gas cap, such as the conroe field, and neglecting the compressibility term. Ef,w Eq. (2.13) becomes FORMULA

if N is factored out of the first two terms on the right-hand side and both sides of the equation are divided by the expression remaining after factoring, we get FORMULA

for the example of the conroe field in the previous section, the water production values were not known. for this reason, two dummy parameters are defined as F' = F - WpBw and W'e = We-WpBw. equation (6.4) then becomes FORMULA

equation (6.5) is now in the desired form. if a plot of F'/[Eo+mB.........] as the ordinate and W'e/[ Eo+mB.......] as the abscissa is constructed, a straight line with slope equal to 1 and intercept equal to N is obtained. table 6.2 contains the calculated values of the ordinate, line 5, and abscissa, line 7, using the conroe field data from table 6.1. figure 6.4 is a plot of these values. if a least squares regression analysis is done on all there data points calculated in table 6.2, the result is the solid line shown in fig. 6.4. the line has a slope of 1.21 and an intercept, of N, of 396 MM STB. this slope is significantly larger than 1, which is what we should have obtained from the havlena-odeh method. if we now ignore the first data point, which represents the earliest production, and determine the slope and intercept of a line drawn through the remainig two points (the dashed line in fig. 6.4), we get 1.00 for table 6.2. tabuleted values from the conroe field for use in the havlena-odeh method line No. quantity units months after start of production

GRAFICO fig.6.4. havlena-odeh plot for the conroe field. solid line represents line drawn through all the data points. dashed line represents line drawn through data points from the later production periods.

a slope and 600 MM STB for N, the intercept. this value of the slope meets the requirement for the havlena-odeh method for this case. we should now raise the question: can we justify ignoring the first point? if we realize that the production represents less than 5% of the initial oil in place and fact that we have met the requirement for the slope of 1 for this case, then there is justification for not including the first point in our analysis.we conclude from our analysis that the initial oil in place is 600 MM STB for the conroe field. you may take issue with the fact that an analysis was done on only two points. clearly, it would have been better to use more data points, but none were available in this particular example. as more production data are colleceted, then the plot in fig. 6.4 can be updated and the calculation for N reviewed. the important point to remember is that if the havlena-odeh method is used, the condition of tje slope and/or intercept must be met for the particular case you are working with. this imposes another restriction on the case of the conroe field example.