Basra University For Oil and Gas Engineering

College of Oil and Gas Engineering

Department of Oil and Gas Engineering

-Reservoir Engineering-
Primary recovery mechanisms

Student’s Names :
-Zainab Muslim

-Aliaa Ahmed

-Ali Hussein Jameel

-Hussein Ali Fadel

-Mohamed Nawfel

-Ayoub Mustafa

16/4/2020
Content:

Introduction
1-Rock and liquid expansion drive (Zainab Muslim)

2-Gas cap drive (Mohammad Nawfel)

3-Water drive (Hussein Ali Fadel)

4-Gas Depleation Drive (Ayoub Mustafa)

5-Gravity Drainage Drive (Aliaa Ahmed)

6-Combination drive
Conclusion (Ali Hussein Jameel)
Introduction
What is a Primary Recovery?
Muskat defines primary recovery as the production period "beginning with the initial field
discovery and continuing until the original energy sources for oil expulsion are no longer
alone able to sustain profitable producing rates. Primary recovery is also sometimes referred
to as pressure depletion because it necessarily involves the decline of the reservoir pressure.
Primary recovery should be distinguished clearly from secondary recovery. Muskat defines
secondary recovery as "the injection of (fluids) after the reservoir has reached a state of
substantially complete depletion of its initial content of energy available for (fluid) expulsion
or where the production rates have approached the limits of profitable operation
Primary recovery is also known as primary production.

BREAKING DOWN Primary Recovery

Primary recovery is less expensive than secondary and enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
Enhanced oil recovery techniques are costly and use gases, chemicals, and heat to extract the
oil. EOR is expensive and not always useful. Primary recovery takes advantage of the natural
tendency for crude oil to rise to the surface once a well punctures the underground oil field.
The crude oil, contained in the ground, is under intense pressure, whereas the hollow well
shaft is at lower pressure. Oil will flow rapidly into the area of lowest pressure into the well
and up to the surface. When oil under pressure is uncontained, it can result in an oil geyser,
spouting from the earth. During primary recovery typically only 5- to 15-percent of a well’s
total of potential hydrocarbons are extracted.
PRIMARY RECOVERY MECHANISMS:-
For a proper understanding of reservoir behavior and predicting future perfor- mance, it is
necessary to have knowledge of the driving mechanisms that control the behavior of fluids
within reservoirs. The overall performance of oil reser- voirs is largely determined by the
nature of the energy, driving mechanism, available for moving the oil to the wellbore. There
are basically six driving mechanisms that provide the natural energy necessary for oil
recovery:
- Rock and liquid expansion drive
- Water drive
-Gas cap drive
-Depletion drive
- Gravity Drainage drive
-Combination Drive
1-Rock and liquid expansion drive:
Rock and Liquid Expansion When an oil reservoir initially exists at a pressure higher than its
bubble-point pressure, the reservoir is called an undersaturated oil reservoir. At pressures
above the bubble-point pressure, crude oil, connate water, and rock are the only materials
present. As the reservoir pressure declines, the rock and fluids expand due to their individual
compressibilities. The reservoir rock compressibility the result of two factors:
- Expansion of the individual rock grains
- Formation compaction
Both of the above two factors are the results of a decrease of fluid pressure within the pore
spaces, and both tend to reduce the pore volume through the reduction of the porosity. As the
expansion of the fluids and reduction in the pore volume occur with decreasing reservoir
pressure, the crude oil and water will be forced out of the pore space to the wellbore. Because
liquids and rocks are only slightly com- pressible, the reservoir will experience a rapid
pressure decline. The oil reser- voir under this driving mechanism is characterized by a
constant gas-oil ratio that is equal to the gas solubility at the bubble point pressure. In the
case of a volumetric reservoir with a heavy oil that is characterized by both; a low gas
solubility and a low bubblepoint pressure, the reservoir driving mechanism for this type of
reservoirs is considered the least efficient driving force and usually

results in the recovery of only a small percentage of the total oil in place ranging between 3-
5%. Figure below shows a conceptual illustration of the impact of the low gas solubility on
the reservoir recovery performance.

oil reservoir Under rock And fluidexpansions Driving mechanism

2-Gas cap drive:
A type of reservoir-drive mechanism in which the energy for the transport and production of
reservoir fluids is provided by the expansion of gas either in the gas cap or inside the oil phase.

A gas cap is a gas phase which occurs above oil zone in a reservoir. If there is more gas exists
in a reservoir that the oil can hold at existingtemperature and pressure, the extra gas being
lighter will lie above theliquid phase. This gas cap is actually a supplier of additional energy.
Asmore and more oil and gas is produced, the reservoir pressure willbecome low. Then the gas
cap will expand to help fill the pores occupiedpreviously by the produced oil and gas.

The liquid phase below the gas cap will be saturated. The pressureexperienced at the gas-oil
contact will be saturation pressure. If pressureis reduced, some of the gas dissolved in the oil
will come out and add tothe gas cap. So a gas cap drive is often accompanied by a solution
gasdrive. The gas cap drive is more effective than gas solution drive becausethe oil recovery
range is about 25-40% of that contained in the reservoircompared to 15-25% in solution gas
drive. The size of gas cap is animportant criterion which determines the relative impact of the
twomechanisms. The larger the gas cap, the smaller pressure drop in thereservoir required for
the gas cap to expand. Therefore the impact of solution gas drive will be lower if the relative
size of gas cap is larger.
In order to obtain maximum benefit from a gas cap reservoir, gassaturation in the oil zone must
be low. If gravitational segregation allowsthe saturated gas in the oil zone to migrate up
structure to gas cap, it istermed as secondary gas cap. High vertical permeability, low
flowvelocity and favourable oil mobility are required for this to happen.

In a production point of view, a gas cap reservoir can be characterised bya slow but fairly
constant pressure decline with cumulative production.Production of significant and increasing
quantities of gas is anothercharacterisation. To preserve reservoir energy and to prevent
thewithdrawal of gas from the gas cap, wells are progressively worked overor shut in.

The recovery of gas cap drive primarily depends upon the dimension of gas cap, efficiency of
gas displacement process and effectiveness of gravity segregation. The presence and the nature
of reservoirheterogeneity influence the stability and the uniformity of thedisplacement front and
which in turn affect volumetric sweep efficiency.

Gas oil relative permeability is another important factor as it defines therelative mobility of the
two phases. The microscopic flow efficiency of thedisplacement process is determined by
residual oil saturation to gasvalue. Low field production rates increase recovery because it can
inducegravity segregation and thereby prevents the generation of unstablefronts. Good vertical
permeability will allow the oil to move downwardwith less bypassing of gas. If there is a steep
angle of dip that permit oildrainage to the bottom of the structure, higher recoveries up to
60percent or greater can be obtained. However, extremely thin oil columnsmay reduce the
recovery rate regardless of the size of gas cap. Also if theoil viscosity increases, the amount of
gas bypassing will increase, whichultimately leads to a lower oil recovery.
3-Water drive:
Many reservoirs are bounded on a portion or all of their peripheries by water-bearing rocks
called aquifers. The aquifers may be so large compared to the reservoir they adjoin as to appear
infinite for all practical purposes, and they may range down to those so small as to be negligible
in their effects on the reservoir performance.
the reservoir may outcrop at one or more places where it may be replenished by surface water as
shown schematically in Figure below.
The decline in the reservoir pressure is usually very gradual. The pressure –production history
of a typical water drive reservoir is shown in the figure. It is not uncommon for many thousands
of barrels of oil to be produced for each pound per square inch drop in reservoir pressure. The
reason for the small decline in reservoir pressure is that oil and gas withdrawals from the
reservoir are replaced almost volume for volume by water encroaching into the oil zone.
Several large oil reservoirs in the Gulf Coast areas of the United States have such active water
drives that the reservoir pressure has declined by only about 1 psi per million barrels of oil
produced.

Water production is the main concern of this type of drive mechanism since early excess water
production occurs in structurally low wells. This is characteristic of a water drive reservoir, and
provided the water is encroaching in a uniform manner, nothing can or should be done to
restrict this encroachment, as the water will probably provide the most efficient displacing
mechanism possible.

Ultimate recovery from water drive reservoirs is usually much larger than recovery under any
other producing mechanism. Recovery is dependent upon the efficiency of the flushing action
of the water as it displaces the oil and the degree of activity of the water drive. The ultimate oil
recovery normally ranges from 35% to 75% of the original oil-in-place.
4-Gas Depleation Drive:
Primary recovery from solution-gas-drive reservoirs depends on: type of geologic
structure, reservoir pressure, gas solubility, fluid gravity, fluid viscosity, relative
permeabilities , presence of connate water, rate of withdrwal, and pressure drawdown.

-so this In this type of reservoir, the principal source of energy is a result of gas liberation
from the crude oil and the subsequent expansion of the solution gas as the reservoir pressure
is reduced. As pressure falls below the bubble point pressure, gas bubbles are liberated
within the microscopic pore spaces. These bubbles expand and force the crude oil out of the
pore.

-oil production by depletion drive is usually the least efficient recovery method. Ultimate oil
recovery from depletion drive reservoirs may vary from less than 5% to about 30%. The low
recovery from this type of reservoir suggests that large quantities of oil remain in the
reservoir and, therefore, depletion drive reservoirs are considered the best candidates for
secondary recovery applications.
From a statistical study, the primary recovery factors were obtained for different oil
gravities and solution gas-oil ratios in sands sandstones, limestones, dolomite, and chert.
Based on work of the same type in 135 reservoir systems.
5-Gravity Drainage Drive:

The mechanism of gravity drainage occurs in petroleum reservoirs as a result of differences in

densities of the reservoir fluids. The effects of gravitational forces can be simply illustrated by
placing a quantity of crude oil and a quantity of water in a jar and agitating the contents. After
agitation, the jar is placed at rest, and the more dense fluid (normally water) will settle to the
bottom of the jar, while the less dense fluid (normally oil) will rest on top of the denser fluid. The
fluids have separated as a result of the gravitational forces acting on them.
Due to the long periods of time involved in the
petroleum accumulation and migration process, it is generally assumed that
the reservoir fluids are in equilibrium. If the reservoir fluids are in equilibrium
then the gas–oil and oil–water contacts should be essentially horizontal.
that reservoirs operating largely under a gravity drainage producing mechanism are characterized
by the following factors:

1-Reservoir pressure: Variable rates of pressure decline depend principally upon the amount of
gas conservation. Strictly speaking, where the gas is conserved and the reservoir pressure is
maintained, the reservoir would be operating under combined gas cap drive and gravity drainage
mechanisms. Therefore, for the reservoir to be operating solely as a result of gravity drainage, the
reservoir would show a rapid pressure decline. This would require the upstructure migration of the
evolved gas where it later was produced from structurally high wells, resulting in rapid loss of
pressurer

2-.Gas–oil ratio: These types of reservoirs typically show low gas–oil ratios from structurally
located low wells. This is caused by migration of the evolved gas upstructure due to gravitational
segregation of the fluids. On the other hand, thestructurally high wells will experience an
increasing gas–oil ratio as a result of the upstructure migration of the gas released from the crude
oil.

3-Secondary gas cap: A secondary gas cap can be found in reservoirs that initially were
undersaturated. Obviously the gravity drainage mechanism does not become operative until the
reservoir pressure has declined below the saturation pressure, since above the saturation pressure
there will be no free gas in the reservoir.

Water production: Gravity drainage reservoirs have little or no water production. Water
production is essentially indicative of a water drive reservoir.
4-Ultimate oil recovery: Ultimate oil recovery from gravity drainage reservoirs will vary widely,
due primarily to the extent of depletion by gravity drainage alone. Where gravity drainage is good,
or where producing rates are restricted to take maximum advantage of the gravitational forces,
recovery will be high. There are reported cases where recovery from gravity drainage reservoirs

has exceeded 80% of the initial oil-in-place. In other reservoirs where depletion drive also plays
an important role in the oil recovery process, the ultimate recovery will be less.
In operating gravity drainage reservoirs, it is essential that the oil saturation in the vicinity of the
wellbore must be maintained as high as possible. There are two obvious reasons for this
requirement:

(1)high oil saturation means a higher oil flow rate

(2)high oil saturation means a lower gas flow rate.

In order to take maximum advantage of the gravity drainage producing mechanism, wells should
be located as low as structurally possible. This will result in maximum conservation of the
reservoir gas.
6-Combination drive:
Also named mixed drive recovery : the mechanism that have at least two of the basic drive
mechanism ، in practical the reservoir has tow mechanism .
The driving mechanism most commonly encountered is one in which both water and free gas
are available in some degree to displace the oil toward the producing wells and be combination
drive like Fag below.
There are Two combinations of driving forces can be present in combination-drive
reservoirs and gravity segregation play an important factor to effect on the two forces
The forces are :
A) depletion drive and a weak water drive and;
B) depletion drive with a small gas cap and a weak water drive.

In these method a relatively rapid pressure decline and external gas cap expansion are
insufficient to maintain reservoir pressures .
 If a small gas cap is present the structurally high wells will exhibit continually increasing
gas-oil ratios, provided the gas cap is expanding . It is possible that the gas cap will shrink due
to production of excess free gas, in which case the structurally high wells will exhibit a
decreasing gas-oil ratio. This condition should be avoided whenever possible, as large volumes
of oil can be lost as a result of a shrinking gas cap.
It is recovery good and greater than depletion , Actual recovery from this mechanism will
depend upon the degree to which it is possible to reduce the magnitude of recovery by depletion
drive. It will be economically feasible to institute some type of pressure maintenance operation,
either gas injection, water injection, or both gas and water injection, depending upon the
availability of the fluids. that enhance the recovery .
The example of combination of natural water influx and gas cap drive. In many of the
western Canadian heavy oil deposits, solution gas drive and compaction drive act in
combination,
Production well Design under mixed Drive The design of Production well under combined
drives mechanisms it involves recognizing the size and strength of the dominant primary
driving energy of the reservoir.
Example: Oil Production well Design
- Dominant Water Drive- Perforation should be as far as possible above the Oil-Water contact.
Dominant Gas Cap Drive- Perforation should be as far as possible below the gas-oil contact.
Conclusion:
From previous information we know information about primary recovery mechanisms. And
we can dedicate the percentage of recovery from any method.
It is the friction between volume of hydrocarbon production to the volume initially in reservoir
the recovery =( volume hydrocarbon production)/ initial hydrocarbon × 100%

And this percentage oil reservoir:

Gas reservoir:

And know GOR The solution gas-oil ratio (GOR) is a general term for the amount of gas
dissolved in the oil. And each mechanism drive different in behavior with oil production.
Also the pressure in reservoir also decline in each mechanism but depends on the mechanism.
Like the fig below:

Pressure and OIIP GOR and OIIP

References:
*Investopedia-primary-recovery

*petrowiki Primary drive mechanisms

*RESERVOIR ENGINEERING HAND BOOK Third Edition- Tarek Ahmed

*B.C. craft and M.F. hawkins ; revised by Ronald E. Terry

* Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary

* AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE, 1996. Introduction to oil and gas

production. 5th ed. American Petroleum Institute Information Handling Service.
Reservoir engineering hand book. 3rd ed. TAREK AHMED, 2006. Burlington: Elsevier

Bibliography: BILL D. BERGER AND KENNETH E. ANDERSON, 1992. Modern

Petroleum: A BASIC PRIMER OF THE INDUSTRY. Third edition. Oklahoma:
PennWell Publishing Company.