THE SPE IMAGE LIBRARY SPE 15537

The Effects of Multiphase Flow on the Interpretation of Pressure

Buildup Tests

15537

Ayan, C.
Lee, W.J.
Texas A and M U.
SPE Members

Copyright 1986, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Inc.

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 61st Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers held
in
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., October 5-8, 1986.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee

following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by
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ABSTRACT

A two-dimensional, three-phase variable bubble point

reservoir simulator was developed to simulate pressure buildup
tests involving multiple phases. The model runs indicated that
non-uniform saturation distributions throughout the drainage area
can cause erroneous interpretations when single liquid phase
techniques, as modified by the Perrine-Martin theory, are used
during the analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Pressure transient tests have proven to be one of the most

useful methods to obtain reliable information about the producing
formation and the condition of the wellbore. One of the most
 THE SPE IMAGE LIBRARY SPE 15537

common well testing techniques used in practice is pressure

buildup testing. Interpretation theory is based on analytical
solutions of the radial diffusivity equation. Among the several
assumptions used in the derivation of the radial diffusivity
equation are single phase liquid flow, small and constant liquid
compressibility, constant viscosity, small pressure gradients,
constant and isotropic permeability, constant porosity, and
negligible gravitational forces.

The flow of more than one phase before and during a pressure
buildup test is frequently observed in field practice. One of the
most common techniques used to analyze multiphase pressure buildup
tests is the method proposed by Perrine. He suggested using single
phase theory to analyze multiphase tests after replacing single
phase mobility and compressibility with total mobility and
Impressibility of the reservoir fluids. Martin later justified
Perrine's approach on a theoretical basis. His derivation of
multiphase flow equations assumes negligible gravity forces
and neglects the terms containing products of pressure and
saturation gradients. The studies by Weller and Earlougher et
al. indicate that the second order terms can be neglected.

The work performed by Perrine, West et al. and Weller

indicated the formation of a gas zone around the wellbore for
solution gas drive reservoirs initially above saturation pressure.
The resulting permeability reduction around the wellbore has been
referred as a pseudo-skin by Weller. A study similar to ours
performed by Kazemi investigated the effect of the gas block on oil
productivity and the role of gas saturation gradients on the
pressure buildup curve. The effects of saturation gradients
on transient-well tests have also been analyzed by Chu et al.
In their study, the limitations of the Perrine-Martin theory was
investigated with a two-phase reservoir simulator. They concluded
that if saturation gradients exist, the Individual phase mobilities
can be computed for only a limited set of conditions. A
pseudo-pressure function similar to the real gas potential defined
by Al-Hussainy et al. was proposed by Fetkovich. His
pseudo-pressure function also contains a pressure dependent
relative permeability term. In a later study, Raghavan
demonstrated the calculation and the use of this pseudo-pressure
function for drawdown and buildup analysis. The use of pseudo-time
for multiphase flow problems was demonstrated in the work of
Aanonsen. It was shown that for the infinite acting period,
the difference between solution gas drive and single phase liquid
performances was small when pseudo-pressure and pseudotime were,
used in the analysis. The paper by Raghavan contains an
overview of the literature and some examples of the techniques used
for the analysis of well tests involving multiple phases.