Reservoir Engineering

Fundamentals

Course Code: RE03

1.1 Definition of a reservoir:
A reservoir is a subsurface volume of porous and permeable rock that
has both storage capacity and the ability to allow fluids to flow through
it. Hydrocarbons migrate upward through porous and permeable rock
formations until they either reach the surface as seepage or become
trapped below the surface by a non-permeable cap rock which allows
them to accumulate in place in the reservoir. Porosity and permeability
are influenced by the depositional pore-geometries of the reservoir
sediments and the post-depositional diagenetic changes that take place.

1.2 Types of reservoirs:

1-Sandstones:
Sandstone reservoirs are generally created by the accumulation of large
amounts of clastic sediments which is characteristic of depositional
environments such as river channels, deltas, beaches, lakes and
submarine fans. Sandstone reservoirs have a depositional porosity and
permeability controlled by grain size, sorting, and packing of the
particular sediments. Diagenetic changes may include precipitation of
clay minerals in the pore space, occlusion of pores by mineral cements,
or even creation of additional pores by dissolution of some sediment.

About 60% of the oil and gas reserves in the world’s giant fields occur
in sandstone reservoirs. If the carbonate fields of the Middle East are
excluded, the proportion is 80%.

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 Figure 1.1 Sandstone layers

2-Carbonates:
Carbonate reservoirs are created in marine sedimentary environments
with little or no clastic material input and generally in a location
between 30° north and south of the equator. Porosity types of carbonate
reservoirs include vuggy (pores larger than grains), intergranular
(between grains), intragranular or cellular (within grains), and chalky.
Diagenetic changes such as dolomitization, fracturing, dissolution, and
recrystalization (rare) are extremely important because they have the
ability to create very effective secondary porosity. Cementation, another
type of diagenesis, generally reduces porosity and permeability.

About one-third of the oil and gas reserves in the world’s giant fields
occur in carbonate reservoirs. Although averaging only about one-half of
the effective porosity of sandstones, carbonate reservoir reservoirs often
offset this large disadvantage by thicker productive intervals and, on
occasion, higher permeabilities.

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 Figure 1.2 Carbonate layers

3-Shale reservoirs:
Oil and gas production has been found in fractured shales, but has not
had substantial economic impact. Examples include production at
Florence, Colorado, and gas production in Kentucky.

4-Evaporites:
Evaporites consist of rock salt, anhydrite, and gypsum. Anhydrite can be
a reservoir rock (although not common) where circulating water has
developed porosity and permeability. Gas is produced from one horizon
at the Cotton Valley field, and oil is produced from the Upper Comanche
at the Pine Island Field of Louisiana.

5-Igneaous and metamorphic rock reservoirs:

These rocks do not normally contain oil and gas reservoirs due to their
high temperature origin. Where hydrocarbons are present, it is presumed
that effective porosity and permeability were developed after cooling.

Oil and gas in igneous and metamorphic rocks is not that uncommon.
There are good examples in Viet Nam, Indonesia, Japan, Venezuela, and
even the USA, where they are called “bald highs”.
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To be economically attractive, these unconventional reservoirs need all
the same attributes as a sedimentary play. They must have a trap with a
seal and porosity to hold fluids. There must be a source of hydrocarbons,
a migration path, and migration must have taken place. The porosity is
usually related to natural fractures augmented by hydrothermal solution
porosity formed near the fracture surfaces prior to hydrocarbon
migration. Solution porosity will not form after the oil or gas is in place.

The source and migration path are often from obvious normal sediments
near or surrounding the igneous or metamorphic rocks. Russian,
American, and Canadian scientists have postulated different deep-seated,
biotic, non-sedimentary sources for oil in granite. Most
igneous/metamorphic rocks with oil are up dip from somewhere, so you
don’t need deep genesis to get oil into them. But you do need pore space
to hold it.

1.3 Objectives of reservoir engineering:

The goal of reservoir engineer, starting with discovery of a productive
reservoir, is to set up a development project that attempts to optimize the
hydrocarbon recovery as part o fan overall economic policy. Reservoir
specialists thus continue to study the reservoir throughout the life of the
field to derive the information required for optimal production from the
reservoir.
The following must accordingly be estimated, with the aim of optimal
profitability for a given project:
a. Volumes of hydrocarbons (oil and/or gas) in place.
b. Recoverable reserves (estimated on the basis of several
alternative production methods).
c. Well production potential (initial productivity, changes).

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1.4 History of reservoir engineering:
Crude oil, natural gas, and water are the substances that are of chief
concern to petroleum engineers.
The precise knowledge of the behavior of crude oil, natural gas, and
water, singly or in combination, under static conditions or in motion in
the reservoir rock and in pipes and under changing temperature and
pressure, is the main objective of petroleum engineers.
As early as 1928 petroleum engineers were giving serious consideration
gas-energy and recognized the need for more precise information
concerning physical conditions in wells and underground reservoirs.
Early progress in oil recovery method made it obvious that computations
made from wellhead or surface data were generally misleading. Sclater
and Stephenson described the first recording bottom-hole pressure gauge
and thief for sampling fluids under pressure wells.
The need for accurate bottom-hole pressures was further emphasized
when Millikan and Sidwell described the first precision pressure gauge
and pointed out the fundamental importance of bottom-hole pressures to
petroleum engineers in determining the most efficient methods of
recovery and lifting procedures. With this contribution the engineer was
able to measure the most important basic information for reservoir
performance calculations “reservoir pressure”.
Francher, Lewis, and Barnes made on e of the earliest petro physical
studies of reservoir rocks measuring the permeability of reservoir rock
samples based on the fluid flow equation discovered by Darcy in 1856.
Wycoff and Botset made a significant advance in their studies of the
simultaneous flow of oil and water, and of gas and water in
unconsolidated sands. This work was later extended to consolidated
sands and other rocks, and in 1940 Leverett and Lewis reported research
on the three-phase flow of oil, gas and water.

It was early recognized by the pioneers in reservoir engineering that

before the volumes of oil and gas in place could be calculated, the
change in the physical properties of bottom-hole samples of the reservoir
fluids with pressure would be required. Accordingly in 1935 Schilthuis

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described a bottom-hole sampler and a method of measuring the
physical properties of the samples obtained. These measurements
included the pressure-volume-temperature relations, the saturation or
bubble-point pressure, the total quantity of gas dissolved in the oil, the
quantities of gas liberated under various conditions of temperature and
pressure, and the shrinkage of the oil resulting from the release of its
dissolved gas from solution. These data made the development of certain
useful equations feasible, and they also provided an essential correction
to the volumetric equation for calculating oil in place.
The next significant development was the recognition and measurement
of connate water saturation, which was considered indigenous to the
formation and remained to occupy a part of the pore space after oil or
gas accumulation.

This development further explained the poor oil and gas recoveries in
low permeability sands with high connate water saturation, and
introduced the concept of water, oil and gas saturations as percentages of
the total pore space. The measurement of water saturation provided
another important correction to the volumetric equation by correcting the
pore volume to hydrocarbon pore space.

Although temperature and geothermal gradients had been of interest to

geologists for many years, engineers could not make use of these
important data until a precision subsurface recording thermometer was
developed. Millikan pointed out the significance of temperature data in
application to reservoir and well studies. From these basic data
Schilthuis was able to derive a useful equation, commonly called the
Schilthuis material balance equation. It is a modification of an earlier
equation presented by Coleman. Wilde, and Moore and is one the most
important tools of reservoir engineers.

Odeh and Havlena have shown how the material balance equation can be
arranged into a form of a straight line and solved. In reservoirs under
water drive the volume of water which encroaches into the reservoir also

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enters into the material balance on the fluids. Although Schilthuis
proposed a method of calculating water encroachment using the
material-balance equation, it remained for Hurst and, later, Van
Everdingen and Hurst to develop methods for calculating water
encroachment independent of the material balance equation, which
applies to aquifers of either limited of infinite extent, in either steady-
state or unsteady-state flow. The calculations of Van Everdingen and
Hurst have been simplified by Fetkovich.

Tarner and Buckley and Leverett laid the basis for calculating the oil
recovery to be expected for particular rock and fluid characteristics.
Tarner and, later, Muskat presented methods for calculating recovery by
the internal or solution gas drive mechanism, and Buckley and Leverett
presented methods for calculating the displacement of oil by external gas
cap drive and water drive.
During the 1960s, the terms reservoir simulation and reservoir
mathematical modeling became popular. These terms are synonymous
and refer to the ability to use mathematical formulas to predict the
performance of an oil or gas reservoir. Reservoir simulation was aided
by the development of large-scale, high speed digital computers.
Sophisticated numerical methods were also developed to allow the
solution, of a large number of equations by finite-difference or finite-
element techniques.
With the development of these techniques, concepts, and equations,
reservoir engineering became a powerful and well defined branch of
petroleum engineering.