Production of Oil & Gas

2
 Production Phase
i. Once petroleum found & well drilled operation enters “production phase”
ii. After oil and gas found, appraisal drilling need to be done to check for
commercial viability
iii. Important to test formation to ensure profit and determine proper rate of
extraction
iv. New well begins production, a potential test is run – determine most oil and
gas to be produced in a 24 hr period
v. Most efficient recovery (MER) rate – based on most oil and gas can be
extracted for a sustained period of time without harming formation
vi. Some well under enough pressure – do not need pumping system. Only
install Christmas tree or a series of valves and pipes at the surface to
produce oil and gas

3
vii. Most well require some kind of lifting method
depending on depth of well and whether the well
has multiple completion
viii.Most common method is Rod Pumping
ix. When oil and gas reach surface they are separated
x. Gas is sent to processing plant
xi. Sediment and water from oil is removed; then oil is
transported to refinery

4
 Glossary of Terms
- Formation
i. Refers to either a certain layer of the earth’s crust or
a certain area of layer.
ii.It often refers to the area of rock where a petroleum
reservoir is located
- Christmas Tree
i. Series of pipes and valves system for controlling the
flow of oil from a well
ii.Due to high underground pressures, the oil was
naturally lift by gas or air ; thus no additional pumps
needed 5
- MER (Most Efficient Recovery)
i. MER rate: based on most oil and gas that can extracted for a
sustained period of time without harming the formation
ii. Generally, most well cannot work 24 hrs, 7 days a week –
could damage formation
- Multiple Completions
i. Drilling single well at several different depth in formation
ii. Reason: increase production from a single well

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 Oil Production Processes
Primary Recovery

Natural Artificial
Flow Lift
Secondary Recovery

Gas
Water
Injection
Flooding
Tertiary Recovery (EOR)

Conventional Methods Non-conventional Methods

Thermal Non-thermal MEOR

Methods Methods
1.Primary Recovery (Natural Methods)
i. 1st method of producing oil from a well
ii. Solution gas drive
a. pressure inside reservoir relieved when well
punctures and gas trapped in oil forms bubbles
b. Bubbles grow, exert pressure push oil to well and up
to surface (20-30%)
iii. Gas cap drive
a. If contain gas cap, drill well directly into oil layer –
gas cap expand
b. Expanding gas pushes oil into well (40%)
iv. Water drive scenario
a. Water layer press against oil layer
b. Water pushes oil towards surface and replace it
within the pores of the reservoir rock
c. Highest recovery: up to 75% 8
2.Secondary Recovery
i. Used to enhance or replace primary techniques
ii. Water flooding
a. Additional injection well is drilled into the reservoir
b. Pressure water injected
c. Water displaces the oil in reservoir

iii. Mechanical Lift

a. Reciprocating or plunger pumping called “horsehead”
b. Pump barrel lowered into well on 6 inch string steel rod
(sucker rods)
c. Up and down movement force oil up to tubing

9
3. Tertiary Recovery
i. When 2nd recovery no longer effective
ii. Thermal Process
a. Steam Flooding – steam injected, heats oil to flow
readily
b. in-situ combustion (fire flooding) – air injected, a
portion if oil ignited , combustion front moves
away from air injection well toward production well
iii. CO2 injection
a. CO2 injected, mix with oil – reduces forces that
hold oil to pores, allows easily displace by injected
water
iv. Chemical recovery
i. Inject polymer into water phase of reservoir trap,
large molecule add bulk to water, water thicken,
wash oil from pores
ii. Sometimes surfactant added to reduce force
water to solid
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4. Improvement of formation
characteristic
i. To aid 3rd recovery because
production drop
ii. Acidizing
a. Injecting acid into a soluble formation
(exp: carbonate) to dissolve rocks
b. Enlarge the existing voids and increase
permeability

iii. Hydraulic Fracturing

a. Inject a fluid into formation under
significant pressure to enlarge existing
fracture and create new fracture
b. This fracture extend outward from well
bore into formation therefore increase
permeability
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 Petroleum Production System
1. Petroleum hydrocarbon production involve 2 districts
i. Reservoir – a porous medium with a unique storage and flow
characteristic
ii. Artificial structures includes well, bottom hole, surface gathering,
separation and storage facilities
2. Production Engineering - attempts to maximize production in a cost
effective way
3. Appropriate production technology and method related directly with
other major area of petroleum engineering such as formulation
evaluation, drilling and reservoir engineering
4. Petroleum Hydrocarbon
i. Mixture of many compounds – petroleum and natural gas
ii. Mixture depending on its composition and conditions of P and T
occur as liquid or gas or mixture of 2 phase

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 Reservoir
Engineering
Fundamentals

13
 Reservoir Engineering
1. Porosity Fundamentals
i. Define: Porosity = Total pore volume in the rock sample
Total rock sample volume (solid+pore)
ii. Mathematically:
V

Vl

iii. Range of porosity: 0.1 to 0.3

iv. Use reservoir core to measure porosity
v. Limitations
a. Rock sample must be large enough to obtain many sand
grains and many pores to be representative
b. Features sample has a different type of pore space from
sandstone

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2. Fluid Saturation
i. Water saturation, Sw = Volume filled by water
Total pore volume
Oil saturation, So = Volume filled by oil
Total pore volume
ii. If oil and water is the only fluid present, Sw + So = 1
iii. In most oil fields Sw tends to increase as porosity decrease
iv. Typical value of Sw – 0.1 to 0.5
v. Free gas also present in oil pools,
Free gas saturation, Sg = Volume filled by free gas
Total pore volume
vi. 3 factors should always be remembered conceiving fluid saturation
a. It vary from place to place in reservoir rock; Sw higher in less
porous sections due to gravity segregation of the gas, oil and water

15
b. Vary with cumulative withdrawal; oil produced replace by water
or gas
c. Oil and gas saturation frequently expressed in terms of HC-filled
pore space.
Pore space = fV
HC-filled pore space: SofV + SgfV = (1-Sw)fV
Therefore,

S0V S
Oil saturations, So'   o
(1  S w )V 1  S w
S gV Sg
Gas saturations, S 
'

(1  S w )V 1  Sw
g

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Example
One of the most important determinations for an oil accumulation
is the volume of oil in place. Suppose that in geological evidence
is known that the area extent of an oil reservoir is 2 million sqft
and that the thickness of the bay zone is 30 ft. If the sand
porosity and water saturation are 0.2 and 0.3, respectively, how
much oil is present?

Solution:
Volume of bay = 2,000,000 ft3 x 30 ft = 6x107ft3
Total pore volume = 0.2 x 6x107 = 12x106 ft3
Then Sw+So=1; So = 1 - 0.3 = 0.7
Total oil volume = 0.7 x 12x106 = 8.4x106 ft3
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3. Permeability
i. Measurement of the ease with which fluid flow through the rock
ii. A function of a degree of interconnection between pores in the rock
iii. The concept was introduced by Darcy in a classical experimental work
from both petroleum engineering and ground water hydrology
iv. The flow rate can be measured against pressure (head) for different
porous media
v. The flow rate of fluid thru specific porous medium is linearly
proportional top head difference btw the inlet and outlet and
characteristic property of the medium, thus
u = kDP
Where k = permeability and is a characteristic property of
the porous medium

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a. Suppose a cylindrical sample (core) of a porous rock is fully saturated with
liquid of viscosity m.

A
Q

P1 P2

b. Experimentally for a particular rock sample the expression

Ql
k Darcy Equation
A( P1  P2 )
where k is constant
c. Q will increase a k increases, the higher the value of k the more readily will
liquid flow through the core

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d. If in flow rate contain two fluid (oil and water), free gas is not present then,

Qo ol
ko 
A( P1  P2 )

Qw wl
kw 
A( P1  P2 )
d. If Q (cm3/s), m (cp), l (cm) A (cm2), and P1 and P2 (atm), the value of k in
Darcy is
1 Darcy = 10-8 cm2

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4. Oil Gravity
i. Commonly expressed in degree API
141 .5
o
API   131 .5
SG60o F

ii. The terms heavy, medium and light crude cover approximately the ranges
10 to 20o, 20 to 30o and over 30o API, respectively
5. Instantaneous Water/Oil Ratio (WOR)
i. Homogeneous formation produce only oil and water (no free gas) then
k o dP k w dP
qo  qw 
 o dl  w dl
ii. The pressure drop in oil may differ slightly from that in the water owing to
effect of capillary forces, so dividing the equations above, results in

qw k w dP

qo k o  w
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iii. At the surface
qw Bo qw

qo Bo qo
iv. Or from above equation
(surface) Bo k w  o
WOR 
ko  w

Where Bo is oil formation volume factor:

v. Bo is defined as ratio of the volume of oil (plus the gas in solution) at
reservoir T and P to the volume of oil at standard conditions (so-called
stock-tank oil)

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6. Instantaneous Gas/Oil Ratio (GOR)
i. Homogeneous formation producing only oil and gas (no water
production, although water may be present in the formation)

k o dP k g dP
qo  qg 
 o dl  g dl

ii. Where the pressure drop across the distance dl is the same for
both fluid, if capillary forces are neglected. Dividing

qg k g o

qo ko  g

iii. Stock-tank oil rate will be qo/Bo, and surface free gas rate
qg/Bg. In addition to free gas produced from the formation,
each barrel of stock-tank oil will release a volume Rs of gas,
then the total surface gas/oil ratio is

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 iv. At the surface
q g Bg Bo qg
Rs   Rs 
qo Bo B g qo
v. Therefore
(surface) Bo k g  o
GOR  Rs 
Bg k o  g

7. Productivity Index
i. Bottom hole flowing pressure - producing pressure (Pwf) at the bottom of
the well
ii. The difference btw this and the well static pressure (Ps) is

Drawdown  Ps  Pwf

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iii. Ratio of producing rate of the well to its draw down is called
Producing Index.
iv. If the rate q (bbl/day) of stock-tank liquid and draw down
(psi), the productivity index (J) is defined as
q
J
Ps  Pwf
(bbl/day/psi)

iii. Productivity index is based on the gross liquid rate (oil rate +
water rate)
iv. Specific productivity index, Js is the number of barrel (gross)
of stock-tank liquid produced/day/psi/ft net thickness
J q
Js  
h h( Ps  Pwf )
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