Elements of gas well monitoring are described as:

Generating accurate reserves estimates

Production forecasting,
Well testing,
Work over planning
Gas wells are usually cauterized by:
Low pressure draw downs and high well head pressures
This needs extreme care in surface handling of gas from
technical as well as economic considerations.
The situations are encountered in the gas wells may be given as:
1. Consistent production: if the formation has good
permeability.
2.
Intermittent production: If the formation is very tight*
and thus the permeability is very low.
Conventionally,
1. Well efficiency defined as absolute open flow potential and
deliverability of well**
2. The monitoring of gas well is given by rate of production.
* Tight gas reservoirs are generally defined as having less than 0.1 mille darcy
( m D) matrix permeability and less than ten percent matrix porosity.
** Deliverability of a gas well is generally taken as 25% of AOFP.
The deliverability of a given facility is variable, and depends on factors such as the
amount of gas in the reservoir at any particular time, the pressure within the
reservoir, compression capability available to the reservoir, the configuration and
capabilities of surface facilities associated with the reservoir, and other factors. In
general, a facility's deliverability rate varies directly with the total amount of gas in the
reservoir: it is at its highest when the reservoir is most full and declines as working
gas is withdrawn. Deliverability- is most often expressed as millions of cubic feet per
day (MMcf/day). It is also expressed in terms of equivalent heat content of the gas
withdrawn from the facility, most often in dekatherms per day (a therm is 100,000
Btu, which is roughly equivalent to 100 cubic feet of natural gas; a dekatherm is the
equivalent of about one thousand cubic feet (Mcf)).

During the primary production period of a gas field the

operator usually is not aware of any gas loss from the reservoir,
such as loss to shallow or deeper formations by means of well
bore communication gas, or vented from surface production
equipment, or gas lost by leaks in such equipment. This may be
carried out by periodical rate/pressure determination of the gas
from the specified well.
The measurement/monitoring must ensure:
- Sustained gas production
- Preferably no water production
- No sand production, and
- Least vibrations to well head equipment.
The basic Darcy law for a radial gas flow is given as:
------------ (1)
Where
qgr = gas flow rate at radius r, bbl/day r = radial distance, ft
h = zone thickness, ft g = gas viscosity, cp p = pressure, psi
0.001127 = conversion constant from Darcy units to field units

As the gas flow rate is usually expressed in scf/day. Referring to

the gas flow rate at standard condition as Qg, the gas flow rate qgr
under pressure and temperature can be converted to that of
standard condition by applying the real gas equation-of-state to
both conditions, or
or

------------- (2)

Where
psc = standard pressure, psia Tsc = standard temperature, R
Qg = gas flow rate, scf/day qgr = gas flow rate at radius r, bbl/day
p = pressure at radius r, psia T = reservoir temperature, R
z = gas compressibility factor at p and Tz sc = gas compressibility factor at standard
condition 1.0

Combining Equations 1and 2, we get:

Considering Tsc = 520 R and psc = 14.7 psia, the equation yield:
------------------------- (3)
Integrating Equation (3) from the wellbore conditions (rw and
pwf) to any point in the reservoir (r and p) to give:
------------------------- (4)
Imposing the condition of Steady-state flow which requires that
Qg is constant at all radii and Homogeneous formation which
implies that k and h are also constant, the above equation is
transformed as:
where
Therefore,
--------------- (5)
Integral o p ( 2p / g z) dp is called the real gas potential or real
gas Pseudo pressure and usually represented by m(p) or . i. e.
------------ (6) and the equation (5) gives:
or

----------- (7)

The equation 7 is a straight line between vs. ln r/rw form (5)

where slope is given by Q g T/0.703kh and as intercept. Thus
Qg may be given as:
------------------------- (8)
in the particular case when r = re , then :

----------------------------------------------- (9)

Where
e = real gas potential as evaluated from 0 to pe, psi 2/cp
w = real gas potential as evaluated from 0 to Pwf, psi2/cp
k = permeability, md h = thickness, ft.
re = drainage radius, ft. rw = wellbore radius, ft.
Qg = gas flow rate, scf/day

Further, when gas flow rate is expressed in Mscf/day, we get

-------------------------------------------- (10)

Where Qg = gas flow rate, Mscf/day,

In terms of average pressure pr ,the equation changes as:

--------------------------- (11)
Modification:
The exact gas flow rate , which incorporates the term 2/z may
be modified as constant(?), the equation (11) may be written as:

Removing the term 2/z and integrating, we get :

------------------------- (12)
Where
Qg = gas flow rate, Mscf/day and k = permeability, md
The term (g z ) avg is evaluated at an average pressure p,
given as

Note:
This modified method is called the pressure-squared method.
*** Only for the pressure range of < 2000 psi
Example

The following is the PVT data from a gas well :

The well is producing at a stabilized bottom-hole flowing

pressure of 3600 psi. The wellbore radius is 0.3 ft. The
following additional data is available:
k = 65 md h = 15 ft. T = 600R pe = 4400 psi re = 1000 ft.
Calculate the gas flow rate in Mscf/day.
SOLUTION:
TWO OPTIONS EXISTS
OPTION-1 Exact Calculations
Step 1. Calculate the term[ 2p/gz ] for each pressure as below:

Step 2. Plot the term[ 2p/gz ]versus pressure as shown in Figure:

Real gas pseudo pressure data

Step 3. Calculate numerically the area under the curve for each value of p.
These areas correspond to the real gas potential at each pressure.
These values are tabulated below and versus p is also plotted in
the figure above.

Step 4. Calculate the flow rate by applying Equation-8

OPTION-2 Approx. Calculations

The exact gas flow rate as expressed by the above method
can be approximated by removing the term [2/gz] outside the
integral as a constant.
Step 1. Calculate the arithmetic average pressure.

Step 2. Determine gas viscosity and gas compressibility factor at

4020 psi.
Step 3. Apply Equation

Remarks:
Results show that the pressure-squared method approximates the
exact solution of 37,614 with an absolute error of 1.86%. This
error is due to the limited applicability of the pressure-squared
method to a pressure range of <2000 psi.