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

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Listening to the Reservoir Interpreting Data from Permanent Downhole Gauges

Roland N. Horne
Stanford University

Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Lecturer Program

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Permanent Downhole Gauges (PDG)

More than 10,000 installed

worldwide.

Usually installed to monitor

downhole equipment.

Data rarely applied for

reservoir analysis.

Reservoir Engineering Uses

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Reservoir pressure Flowing bottomhole pressure management Replacement for shut-in tests Skin determination Monitoring interference effects Voidage control Tubing hydraulics matching Inflow performance modeling Monitoring well treatments History matching
Kragas, Turnbull and Francis (2004)
4

Replacement of Shut-In Tests

Northstar, Alaska 6 wells, 2 days duration 10,000 STB/d production would be lost per well 120,000 STB acceleration per campaign 650,000 STB acceleration over field life And, $1.6 million avoided wireline costs
5

Kragas, Turnbull and Francis (2004)

PDG-Specific Issues
1. Manipulation of huge volumes of data. 2. Deconvolution to see characteristic behaviors. 3. Identification of break points, to separate transients. 4. Changes (such as permeability and skin) as a function of time. 5. Flow rate information. 6. Temperature measurements.
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1. Manipulation & Processing of Data

Data at 1 second frequency = 32 million data/year per gauge. Physical storage and access are a challenge even for todays databases. Access, retrieval and transfer are a challenge even for todays bandwidths.

Chorneyko (2006)

1. Manipulation & Processing of Data

6000 5900 Pressure (psia) 5800 5700 5600 5500
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa a a a a a

Outliers
a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa aa aaaa aa aaa a a a a a a a a a a aa a a a aaaa a a a aa aaaa a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa aaa a

Pressure
a aa aa aaa aa a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa a

Behavioral aberration
a a a a a a

a aa aaa a a aaa a a a a aa a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

Noise

aa a aaaa a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa a a a a a a a a aaaa aa a

aaaaa aaa a aa a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa a a aa

a a a a a a a a

Missing flow data Missing data

a a aa a a aaaa aa a a a a a a a a a a a a aa aaa a a a a aa a a a a a a a a a a a a a aa aaa aaaaa a aa a aaaaa a aaaa

Rate
0 100 200 300 Time (hour) 400 500

(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)

Denoising with Wavelets

Noisy signal Denoised signal

(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)

Outlier Filtering with Wavelets

Outlier points Acceptable points

(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)

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2. Deconvolution
t

pw(t) = q' ( ).p0 (t ) d

pressure
0 flow

constant pressure reservoir model

Theoreticians playground, since 1949. Remained impractical until recently. Work of von Schroeter, Hollaender and Gringarten (2004), using nonparametric regression, p and q matching, derivative restrictions and smoothness limit constraints.
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2. Deconvolution
2820 10000

45 hours of data, no transient longer than 5 hours

2800 2780 8000 Flow rate, bbl/day
12

Pressure, psi

events
2760

6000

4000 2740

5 hours
2720 2700 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Time, hrs

2000

Nomura (2006)

2. Deconvolution
100
Pressure, psi 2820 2800 2780 6000 2760 4000 2740 10000 8000

Pressure derivative, psi

2720 2700 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Time, hrs

2000

TRUE case1 case2 case3

10

45 hour response, inferred from deconvolution

1 0.001

Flow rate, bbl/day

0.01

0.1 Time, hrs

10

45 100
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Nomura (2006)

2. Deconvolution Issues
Model may change over time. Buildups and drawdowns may be different.
Levitan (2005): shut-ins only Olsen & Nordvedt (2006): shut-ins only

Strong dependence on break points.

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3. Transient Identification Break Points

Wavelet approach: Athichanagorn et al. (2002) 2810

2800 2790 2780 Pressure, psi 2770 2760 2750 2740 2730 2720 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
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Time, hrs
Nomura (2006)

3. Break Points and Deconvolution

100 Wavelet Adjusted TRUE Pressure derivative

Inaccurate break points are fatal for deconvolution

10

1 0.001

0.01

0.1 Time, hrs

10

100
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Nomura (2006)

3. Break Points and Rate Normalization

Inaccurate break points are also problematic for rate normalization

Houz (2006)

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3. Break Points Approaches

Wavelets often used for first round. Khong (2001): statistical method. Rai (2005 and 2007):
Savitzky-Golay smoothing filter Segmentation method

Olsen & Nordvedt (2005): pattern matching method. Nomura (2006): insertion and deletion.
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3. Break Points
case 1 2 3
100

threshold 0.5 0.01 2

initial insertion 18 136 36 167 11 151

deletion 95 81 101

Pressure derivative, psi

TRUE case1 case2 case3

10

1 0 .0 0 1

0 .0 1

0 .1 T im e , h rs

10

100

Nomura (2006)

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4. Permeability and Skin Change in Time

Constant property solution k(t)=constant , s(t)=constant Real data Data match, constant k and s

(Lee, 2003)

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4. Permeability and Skin Change in Time

Quadratic function for permeability k(t)= a(t-tL)2+kL , s(t)=s0 + b t Real data Data match, variable k and s

(Lee, 2003)

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4. k and s Changes Field Observations

Khong (2001) Athichanagorn, Horne and Kikani (2002) Richardson, Roux, Quinn, Harker and Sides (2002) Lee (2003) Haddad, Proano and Patel (2004) Coludrovich, McFadden, Palke, Roberts and Robson (2004) Chorneyko (2006) Olsen and Nordtvedt (2006)
22

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4. k and s Changes
de Oliviera and Kato (2004): analytical models used traditionally for conventional well test interpretation may be too simple to define the pressure and flow rate transients that occur during the extended duration of a permanent downhole gauge record. Using full-scale numerical models is probably what we need, but not widely applied (yet).
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5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges

Both p and q contain measurement errors. Match both simultaneously.
nc r r r 1 r r 2 2 obj = d p + Rr ( b ) + D a q 2 r =1 2

von Schroeter, Hollaender and Gringarten (2004) Nomura (2009) Ahn and Horne (2008)
24

12

5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges

8910 8908 8600 8400 8200 8000 7800 7600 7400 7200 7000 6800 450 measured iteration 1 iteration 2 iteration 3 iteration 4

Pressure (psia)

8902 8900 8898 8896 8894 450 measured iteration 1 iteration 2 iteration 3 iteration 4 500 550 Time (seconds) 600

650

Liquid rate [bbl/d]

Pressure [psia]

8904

Rate (STB/d)

8906

500

Time (seconds)

Time (seconds)
Ahn (2008)
25

550 Time (seconds)

600

650

5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges

Pressure

Rate

p q

A flow event

B noise event
26

13

6. Temperature Data
q
Temperature responds to flowrate changes

T Duru (2008)

27

6. Temperature Data

Match temperature history porosity

Duru and Horne (2008)

28

14

Concluding Remarks (1)

Permanent downhole gauges are rich sources of reservoir data. Not just more, but better! Good progress on:
Noise and outlier removal Break point identification Deconvolution Combining rate data Utilizing temperature data

But, more work to do!

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Concluding Remarks (2)

The ultimate goal is to achieve a high degree of automation. Nobody wants to look at 100 million data points! Eventual inclusion in SmartFields procedures.

30

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Acknowledgements
Members of the SUPRI-D research consortium on innovation in reservoir testing. SUPRI-D graduates:
Athichanagorn (1999) Khong (2001) Lee (2003) Rai (2005) Nomura (2006) Duru (2008) Ahn (2008)
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SPE Distinguished Lecturer Program

The SPE Distinguished Lecturer Program is funded principally through a grant from the SPE Foundation. The society gratefully acknowledges the companies that support this program by allowing their professionals to participate as lecturers. Special thanks to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) for its contribution to the program.
Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl

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