OG 442 Reservoir Engineering II

Well Testing Fundamentals

Lecture 3

09/04/2025 By Fulmence Kaborogo –UDSM CME 1

 Introduction
 Reservoir characterization is of one of the greatest
problems facing the petroleum engineer.
Exploration scientists /engineers :– Is this zone
economic? How large is this reservoir?
Reservoir engineers:–What is the average
reservoir pressure? amount of reserves? (they are
required for forecasting performance and
optimize production)
Production engineers– wants to know to extent
of well damaged, Why is this well not performing as
well as expected?
 There are several ways by which it is possible to
gain information about the reservoir characteristics,
but in this course,Bywell
09/04/2025 testing
Fulmence Kaborogo will be discussed. 2
–UDSM CME
 Well test concept
 In well testing a step change in rate is created
in the well by either allowing to flow or closing it
and this change in rate causes a change in
pressure either in the same or different well
located in the same drainage area.
 These manipulated rates (input signal) and
pressures (output signal i.e. response) are
measured in one or more wells and analysed, and
 inferred to a mathematical model that relates the
measured pressure change to the induced rate
change to obtain information about the subsurface
reservoir (reservoir characterization).
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 Well test concept

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 Reason for well testing
 The major purpose of well testing is to provide
data for describing and modelling the reservoir;
The data from well test contribute to reserve
estimation and are used to determine if reservoirs
and reservoir zones are economic,
 provides the average and local reservoir pressure
and
 the state of near-well reservoir volume (well-
damage) which are inputs to production
optimization, and model conditioning (history
matching).
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 Types of well tests
 Well tests may be classified as :periodic
production tests, productivity tests and transient
pressure tests
 Production Tests are run routinely to physically
measure oil, gas and water produced by a
particular well under normal producing
conditions.
 Productivity tests Involves a determination of
produced fluid flow versus bottom hole pressure
drawdown..
 In transient pressure tests involves observing
pressure changes and fluid withdraw or injection
rates
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during transient flow to the well.
By Fulmence Kaborogo –UDSM CME 6
 Transient Pressure Tests
 A transient test is essentially conducted by
creating a pressure disturbance in the reservoir
and recording the pressure response at the
wellbore, pwf as a function of time.
 The main classes of transient well tests are;
drawdown test,
build-up test, and
interference test
injection and falloff tests, which are the
equivalents of drawdown and build-up tests for
injectors.
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 Pressure drawdown test

 Conditions
A static, stable and
shut-in well is opened
to flow at Flow
constant rate

and then the flowing

bottom hole pressure
is recorded

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 Pressure drawdown test

 The objectives of the drawdown test includes

To obtain average permeability of the
reservoir rock within the drainage area of
the well
To assess the degree of damage or
stimulation
To obtain pore volume of the reservoir
To detect reservoir heterogeneity within
the drainage area of the well.
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 Transient solution for drawdown
test
 Infinite acting line-source solution is the most
fundamental solution applicable in transient
well testing
 It assumes an infinite reservoir such that the
solution is not influenced by any boundaries i.e.
 It also treats the well as a line source i.e. any
effects due to the finite well radius are ignored
 Which means that the inner constant flow
boundary condition will be taken at “r =0” and
not at “rw =0”.
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 Transient solution for drawdown
test
 The pressure behavior during Transient flow
at constant rate is described by the following
equation as :;

 Where
 The solution portrays that at large distances
and small times the pressure is undisturbed i.e.
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 Solution pressure profile
• Pressure profile at a fixed time (blue line)

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 Solution pressure profile
 Distance at which the pressure remains
unchanged is approximated to all distances
“r” greater than give n by:

 and the speed at at which the pressure

front moves is approximated by ;

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 Radius of investigation
 The location of interest in well testing is the
radius within which the pressure is is
significantly influenced by the test.
 This radius is called radius of investigation and is
gives by;

 and the time need to investigate the reservoir

features at given distance from the well is
approximates as;

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Well pressure and skin effect
 Since the primary measurement in well test
is the bottomhole pressure, it is common to
express the solution at well radius
 Additionally, the early time behaviour is
also influenced by skin and wellbore-effects,
thus have to be accounted by adding the
pressure drop term due to skin (); which
gives;

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 Limitations
 The solution for well pressure is only valid
for times longer than some characteristic
time, dependent on well radius,

 and for times les than the time for the

nearest boundary to have influence on the
pressure signal located some distances at

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 Limitations
 A general solution for would be applied for
all times, where the exponential functions
can be obtained from published tables;

 One of the table includes (After Craft et al.

1991)

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 Drawdown test interpretation
 If the well pressure, is plotted as a function
of (semilog plot), should be a straight line.
 But the measured data deviates due to
some reasons including;
the early part of the data deviated due to
wellbore and near well bore effects.
and the late time part of the data will
deviate due to the effect of boundaries or
large scale heterogeneities.

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 Drawdown test interpretation

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 Drawdown test interpretation

slope, 𝑚, of the straight line part of the semi-

 The permeability is estimated based on the

log pressure response:

• Once the permeability is known, the skin can

time, 𝑡𝑠, on the straight line part of the semi-

be estimated from the well pressure at any

log pressure response:

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 Wellbore Storage effects
 Occurs due to the presence of liquid with
constant compressibility in the wellbore such
that;
 When a well is opened
there is a lag time before the flow through to
sand face reach a constant rate and
 when a well is shut in,
 the sand face flow rate does not go to zero
instantaneously
 This phenomena occurs especially in the testing
of development wells when the flow control
valve is at the surface.
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 Wellbore Storage effects

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 Wellbore Storage effects

 In the early times of flow, the measured

drawdown pressures will not produce the ideal
semi-log straight-line behavior that is expected
during transient flow.
 It is therefore important to distinguish the
effects of wellbore storage from the
interpretable reservoir response.
 the wellbore effect could be minimized by the
use of downhole control valves or placing a
packer near the producing zone.

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 Wellbore Storage effects

 The wellbore effect flow behaviour is

represented as ;

 Where Cs is the wellbore storage constant

given by fluid compressibility multiplied by
total wellbore volume
 The equation shows that, Initially, due to
wellbore storage , the well pressure varies
linearly with time.
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 Wellbore Storage effects

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 Skin effects
 The formation volume close to the wellbore
typically has altered permeability compared to the
surrounding reservoir
 Might be caused by invasion of mud, perforations,
fracturing ,acidizing, wax, and asphaltene deposits
etc.
 All these non-ideal conditions around the wellbore
are characterized by a dimensionless skin factor, S.
 This effect is referred to as formation damage if
reduces permeability and stimulation if it improves
permeability

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 Skin effect
 Positive skin factor (s > 0):
occurs when the permeability around the wellbore
(ks) is lower than that of the formation
It indicates the wellbore damage
result to the decrease in pressure drop (fluid
pressure is decreased by ∆Ps as it passes the skin
zone)
 Negative skin factor (s < 0):
occurs when the permeability around the wellbore
(ks) is higher than that of the formation
 It indicates the improved wellbore condition
(stimulation)
fluid
09/04/2025 pressure increase by ∆Ps
By Fulmence Kaborogo as it passes the skin
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 Skin effect

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 Positive Skin Effect
At steady state flow,
pressure at some
distances r

¿
Actual pressure Ideal pressure

¿ −

𝑸𝝁
∆ 𝒑 𝒔 𝒌𝒊𝒏 = 𝐒
𝟐 𝝅 𝒌𝒉
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 Negative Skin effect

At steady state
flow, pressure at
some distances r

¿
Ideal pressure Actual pressure

¿ +¿
𝑸𝝁
∆ 𝒑 𝒔 =− 𝐒
𝟐 𝝅 𝒌𝒉
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