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Fig. 3—Liquid level past recorder. Fig. 4—Liquid level past tandem recorders.
Fig. 7—Phase redistribution—large hump. Fig. 8—Phase redistribution—gas bubbling through oil?
never return to the initially measured pressure. While the obvious over, it is a near-wellbore effect. In theoretical terms, it is the problem
conclusion is that depletion has occurred, there are other explana- of changing skin. In this example, the skin is becoming less positive.
tions for this “apparent” depletion that have nothing to do with the The reverse of this effect—the pressure falling much faster than
size of the reserves, but rather simple wellbore phenomena that will expected from pressure-transient analysis—also is often observed.
be described later. This effect can be caused by an increasing near-wellbore skin owing
The tubing and the recorder were landed below the perforations, to fines movement, coning, loss of proppant, etc.
and there were some completion fluids in the wellbore at the begin-
ning of the test. The true initial reservoir pressure is the pressure re- Plugging
corded during the first 24 hours less the hydrostatic head of the Figs. 11 and 12 show the pressure from two electronic recorders lo-
completion fluids (10 kPa/m). The well was then flowed and the gas cated at exactly the same depth in the well. Note that the pressures
blew out all the completion fluids. At the end of test, the wellbore track very well except for the last flow immediately before the last
gradient showed dry gas all the way to the recorder. This means that shut-in. On one recorder, the pressure is decreasing, on the other, it
the recorded pressure should be decreased by the gas gradient (1 is increasing! This misbehavior was traced to hydrate plugging at
kPa/m) to give the reservoir pressure, whereas the initial pressure the pressure sensing port of one of the recorders; one was an “inside”
had to be decreased by the liquid gradient of 10 kPa/m. Recognizing recorder and the other one was an “outside” recorder, and hydrate
that the recorded pressures are not necessarily the reservoir pressur- was occurring at the perforations of the recorder carrier. A similar
es saved this pool from being abandoned. problem has also been observed in oil wells where the culprit was
a wax plug.
NearĆWellbore Effects
Recorder Effects
Fig. 10 shows a well flowing at a constant rate. During the draw-
Electronic pressure recorders are sophisticated electronic instru-
down, the flowing pressure is increasing rather than decreasing. The ments. They are very sensitive and can be affected sometimes by
explanation for this behavior is that during the flow period, the well very unexpected events. For example, in both strain and quartz
was cleaning up. When a well is drilled and completed, there can be gauges, we have observed that sometimes something as simple as
significant invasion of fluids and particulates (planned or other- a change in sampling frequency can cause the pressure to change.
wise) into the reservoir. During flow, these invaders can be pro- Fig. 13 is such an example.
duced, usually resulting in an improved near-wellbore permeability. Usually in electronic recorders, both the pressure and the temper-
Even though this is not truly a wellbore phenomenon, it is included ature are measured. In some recorders, however, these two are not
in this presentation because it happens so frequently and affects measured simultaneously and we have observed (Fig. 14) a slope
pressure-transient analysis in the same way as wellbore effects. More- change in the pressures every time a temperature is sampled! These
errors arise out of the internal voltage change and component tem- recorders in an observation well as part of a pulse test. Several ob-
peratures, as well as interpolation routines used with external cal- servations are in order.
ibration table. 1. One is a strain gauge and the other a quartz gauge, yet the re-
There are many causes for inconsistencies between recorders. sponses are identical in every detail. This is a glowing tribute to the
Some are related to wellbore hydraulics or known recorder charac- accuracies and resolutions of these two gauges.
teristics, such as resolution and drift. However, many others remain 2. The general declining trend does not correlate with the pulse
unexplained. An example is Fig. 15, which is Problem #4 from the test procedure and has to be attributed to external factors (such as
SPE Petroleum Showcase at the 1992 Petroleum Computer Confer- a declining regional aquifer pressure?).
ence in Houston. Whereas the two recorders track each other within 3. The observed spikes correspond in every detail between the
¼ of a psi throughout most of the test, there is an alarming difference two gauges. Therefore, these effects actually took place and are not
in the trend during the last 4 hours of shut-in. The bottom recorder gauge malfunctions.
pressure is increasing at a rate of 10 times that of the top recorder. 4. Some of the spikes are of the order of 60 kPa (10 psi) and are
The cause of this rather sudden change at 168 hours is undeter- orders of magnitude larger than the resolution of the two gauges.
mined.
Veneruso et al.8 have studied the performance of electronic
gauges using transfer functions. Some of the effects they discussed
were short term drift; long term drift; errors owing to temperature
gradient; noise; calibration and aging of tranducer; hysteresis owing
to temperature and pressure cycling; signal processing errors; and
adiabatic sensitivity. They also give some examples of comparative
gauge performance and discuss pressure gauge overshoot caused by
a step change in pressure.
External Factors
Other than transients imposed at the well during a test, there are
many external factors that affect the recorded pressure. The most
documented one is that of geotidal effects in which the rise and set
of the moon is observed in these very sensitive gauges. An example
is shown in Fig. 16. This is part of the buildup test in a high perme-
ability oil well. We have observed other cases in which the peak to Fig. 16—Geotidal effects.
trough magnitude of the geotidal effect was 1 psi (7 Kpa).
There are numerous cases, however, for which there is no known
explanation. Such an example is shown in Fig. 17, which shows two
Detection of Anomalies
The easiest way for engineers to detect anomalous pressures is
graphical inspection. Electronic pressure recorders are one case
where you definitely need a graphical tool. A computer program
with a graphical user interface capable of comparing pressures, tem-
peratures, zooming-in on portions of the data (most of the anomalies
are not evident on the scale of plots supplied by the service compa- Fig. 18C—PPD
nies) is absolutely necessary. Often all that is needed is a detailed
graphical scrutiny of the data and the anomalies become obvious. caused by a reservoir’s well-test transient. This follows from the en-
Many times, the pressure irregularities are directly associated with gineering gut feeling that the largest effect will be observed first, and
temperature inconsistencies and so temperatures should also be the strength of the transient decreases with time. Figs. 18 and 19
graphically inspected. Quick-zooms, multicurve displays, easy-to- show synthetic data for two models—a dual porosity reservoir, and
use software, etc. are a must in this visual analysis, otherwise the a homogeneous reservoir with wellbore phase redistribution. Figs.
task becomes onerous and impractical. 18A and 19A show the strip chart. A simple visual inspection of Fig.
There are a few simple procedures that help detect anomalies. 19A shows the wellbore dynamics in action at 10 to 15 hours. Figs.
1. The difference between two recorders (after they have been 18B and 19B, which portray the derivative (semilog derivative), do
synchronized) should be constant. not demonstrate any shape difference in the derivative between the
2. The primary pressure derivative (PPD)7 should be monotoni- two effects. However, the PPD7 (dp/dt) shown in Figs. 18C and 19C
cally decreasing. This in effect says that in a pressure buildup, the clearly identifies the wellbore dynamics by the increasing PPD.
strip chart (graph of pressure vs. time on arithmetic coordinates) is 3. By its very nature, the reservoir acts as a filter for a signal. This
concave downwards at all times. Any upward concavity cannot be is confirmed by the behavior of the diffusivity equation. This means
References
1. Ershaghi, I. and Woodbury, J.J., Example of Pitfalls in Well Test Analysis;
J. Pet. Tech., pp. 335–341, February 1985.
2. Agarwal, R.G., Al-Hussainy R., and Ramey, H.J., Jr., 1970, An Investiga-
tion of Wellbore Storage and Skin Effect in Unsteady Liquid Flow: 1. Ana-
lytical Treatment; Soc. Pet. Eng. Journal, Vol. 10, pp. 279-290.
3. Fair, W.B., Jr., Pressure Buildup Analysis with Wellbore Phase Redis-
tribution Effects; Soc. Pet. Eng. Journal, pp. 259-270, April 1981.
4. Mattar, L. and Santo, M., How Wellbore Dynamics Affect Pressure Tran-
sient Analsyis; J. Can. Pet. Tech., pp. 32-40, February 1992.
5. Slider, H.C., Worldwide Practical Petroleum Reservoir Engineering
Methods; PennWell Books, pp. 209-211, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
6. Stegemeier, G.L. and Matthews, C.S., 1958, A Study of Anomalous Pres-
Fig. 23—Statistical vs. engineering interpretation. sure Build-up Behaviour; Trans., AIME, 213, pp. 43-50.
7. Mattar, L. and Zaoral, K., The Primary Pressure Derivative (PPD)—A
A minimum of two gauges must be used during a test. Some com- New Diagnostic Tool in Well-Test Interpretation; J. Can. Pet. Tech., pp.
panies will use three gauges on a routine basis. In some tests we have 63-70, April 1992.
8. Veneruso, A.F., Ehlig-Economides, C. and Petitjean, L., Pressure Gauge
even had ten gauges in the wellbore! There are many companies that Specification Considerations in Practical Well Testing; SPE 22752 pres-
run two gauges but only look at one. The author has known this to ented at the 66th Annual Technical Conference of the SPE, Dallas, Texas,
happen even for some very high-profile wells. October 1991.