This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition. Gas-condensate reservoirs exhibit complex phase and flow behaviors. A good understanding of how the condensate accumulation influences the productivity is important.
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Optimizing the productivity of gas-condensate wells - (2006).pdf
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition. Gas-condensate reservoirs exhibit complex phase and flow behaviors. A good understanding of how the condensate accumulation influences the productivity is important.
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition. Gas-condensate reservoirs exhibit complex phase and flow behaviors. A good understanding of how the condensate accumulation influences the productivity is important.
Optimizing the Productivity of Gas/Condensate Wells
C. Shi, R.N. Horne, and K. Li, Stanford U. Copyright 2006, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A., 2427 September 2006.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.
Abstract Gas-condensate reservoirs exhibit complex phase and flow behaviors due to the appearance of condensate banking in the near-well region. A good understanding of how the condensate accumulation influences the productivity and the composition configuration in the liquid phase is very important to optimize the producing strategy, to reduce the impact of condensate banking, and to improve the ultimate gas recovery.
This study addressed several issues related to the behavior of the composition variation, condensate saturation build-up and condensate recovery during the gas-condensate producing process. A key factor that controls the gas-condensate well deliverability is the relative permeability, which is influenced directly by the condensate accumulation. The accumulated condensate bank not only reduces both the gas and liquid relative permeability, but also changes the phase composition of the reservoir fluid, hence reshapes the phase diagram of reservoir fluid and varies the fluid properties. Different producing strategies may impact the composition configuration for both flowing and static phases and the amount of the liquid trapped in the reservoir, which in turn may influence the well productivity and hence the ultimate gas and liquid recovery from the reservoir. Changing the manner in which the well is brought into flowing condition can affect the liquid dropout composition and can therefore change the degree of productivity loss.
In this study, compositional simulations of multicomponent gas-condensate fluids were conducted at field scale to investigate the composition and condensate saturation variations. Different producing strategies have been compared, and the optimum producing sequences are suggested for maximum gas recovery. A core flooding experiment with two- component synthetic gas-condensate was designed and constructed to model gas-condensate production behavior from pressure above the dew-point to below. Experimental observations of gas-condensate production confirm the dramatic changes in the liquid composition seen in the simulations.
Introduction Liquid forms in a gas-condensate reservoir when the bottom- hole pressure drops below the dew-point pressure. The accumulated condensate in the vicinity of the well bore causes a blockage effect and reduces the effective permeability appreciably, and also causes the loss of heavy components at surface. These effects depend on a number of reservoir and well parameters.
The productivity loss caused by the condensate buildup is striking. In some cases, the decline can be as high as a factor of two to four, according to the case studies of Afidick et al. 1
and Barnum et al. 2 . Even in very lean gas-condensate reservoirs with a maximum liquid drop out of only 1%, the productivity may be reduced by a factor of about two as the pressure drops below the dew-point pressure 1 . In order to predict well deliverability and calculate gas and liquid recovery, it is necessary to have a detailed knowledge of liquid banking in gas-condensate fields.
Fevang and Whitson 3 addressed the well deliverability problem in their gas-condensate modeling, where they observed that well deliverability impairment resulting from near well-bore condensate blockage depends on PVT, absolute and relative permeabilities, and how the well is being produced.
The relative permeability effect has been reported in field observations. Variations of reservoir fluid PVT properties at discovered condition have been observed and discussed for many reservoirs around the world (for example reference 4 for mid-eastern reservoirs and reference 5 for North Sea reservoirs). Lee 6 also presented an example to show the variation of composition and saturation of the gas-condensate system due to the influences of capillary and gravitational forces.
Roussennac 7 illustrated the phase change during the depletion in his numerical simulation. According to Roussennac, during the drawdown period, with the liquid building up in the well grid cell, the overall mixture in that cell becomes richer in heavy components, and the fluid behavior changes from the initial gas-condensate reservoir to that of a volatile/black oil reservoir. 2 SPE 103255 The well producing scheme may impose significant impacts on PVT properties. However, the manner by which the producing scheme influences the PVT properties has not yet been sufficiently addressed. This study aims to investigate the producing strategy and its influences on productivity and composition.
Compositional simulations of a multicomponent gas- condensate system and a binary-component gas-condensate system were conducted here. To confirm the compositional variations resulting from producing strategy, a core flood experiment has also been designed and constructed to investigate the gas-condensate flow behavior in porous media. The simulation models, the experimental apparatus and the procedures are described here. Following that, the simulation results and the experimental results are presented. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.
Simulation models
Multicomponent simulation model The primary objective of the simulation was to understand the impact of producing scheme on the condensate banking and compositional variations. A hypothetic cylindrical reservoir model, with radius of 5200 ft and permeability-thickness of 20 md50 ft has been chosen, and a simulator E300 (2005a, Eclipse) with fully implicit (FULLIMP) method was used to simulate the performance under different producing strategies.
The multicomponent fluid properties are shown in Table 1. Additional laboratory liquid dropout data were used to correlate with equation of state (EOS) phase-behavior calculation. The PVT program used in this study was PVTi by Geoquest. The Modified Peng-Robinson EOS was used to perform the fluid characterization. Figure 1 shows the liquid dropout calculation from a tuned EOS, which matches well with the measured data. Figure 2 shows the phase envelope for this multicomponent gas-condensate system. The EOS predictions were then used as the input to the simulator.
Table 1: Fluid composition of gas-condensate Component N 2 CO 2 C 1 C 2 C 3 iC 4 nC 4 iC 5 nC 5 C 6 C 7 C 8 C 9 C 10+ C 10+ MW C 10+ density (g/cm3) Fluid (mol%) 0.0085 0.0065 0.8358 0.0595 0.0291 0.0045 0.0111 0.0036 0.0048 0.0060 0.0080 0.0076 0.0047 0.0103 183 0.8120
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 x 10 7 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 Pressure (MPa) L i q u i d
d r o p o u t liquid dropout (simulated) liquid dropout (experimental)
Figure 1: Liquid dropout from constant volume depletion (CVD) experiment.
Figure 2: Phase diagram of a multicomponent condensate system.
In the simulations, small radii around the well-bore were chosen to allow for accurate pressure drop calculation in the near well-bore region.
In porous media, PVT properties are controlled by the in-situ reservoir temperature, pressure and the porous media properties. In this study, no temperature change has been considered. Hence, the PVT properties are determined by the in-situ reservoir pressure and the way the heavy components accumulate. In order to investigate how the producing strategy influences the condensate blockage and hence, the final gas recovery, two sets of simulations were conducted, one with fixed bottom-hole pressure (BHP) strategy with different BHP settings and the other with varying BHP as a function of time,.
Binary-component simulation model To investigate the composition and saturation change resulting from the producing scheme, a binary-component gas- condensate system was selected to conduct the core flooding experiment. Figure 3 shows the phase diagram of the C 1 /C 4
(85%/15%) synthetic gas-condensate system. This system has low critical temperature (T c = -13.2 C) and critical pressure (p c = 1760 psi), which makes the experiment easy to perform under room temperature and within relatively low pressure SPE 103255 3 range, and at the same time considerable condensate dropout is expected to form during the experiment.
To simulate the core flooding experiment under constant pressure drop, one gas injector and one producer were used in a simulation model. Both wells are controlled by bottom-hole pressure, such that the fluid from the injection well is always in gas phase with reservoir pressure higher than the dew-point pressure, while fluid around the producing well is always in two-phase with BHP set below the dew-point pressure.
The same simulator (E300) and FULLIMP method were used for this simulation.
Figure 3: Phase diagram for a two-component methane-propane gas-condensate system.
Experimental Apparatus and Procedures
Experimental Apparatus The gas-condensate experiment consists of four major parts (see Figure 4): the gas supply and exhaust part, the core flow system part, the gas sampling part, and the data acquisition part.
One of the unusual aspects of the experiment was the ability to measure in-place composition, as well as the usual pressure, temperature and flow.
The upstream gas mixture was stored in a piston cylinder (Hai An, China, capacity 4,000 ml, pressure range 0-32 MPa), which was attached to a water pump (HIP, model 62-6-10). This was to control the gas supply pressure at a level higher than the gas-condensate dew point pressure. The downstream gas exhaust was discharged to the fumehood directly for this experiment since the total volume of the exhaust is small.
The core flow system consists of the titanium core-holder (Shiyi Science and Technology, model J300-01), which can support a system pressure as high as 40 MPa, and a Berea sandstone core plug with length of 25.04 cm and diameter of 5.06 cm.
The gas samples were collected into seven Tedlar gas sampling bags (SKC west, model 232-02), six along the core- holder and one at the downstream port for the exhaust gas. Gas sampling bags were connected to the system in a way that the bags can be vacuumed before the experiment and the sampling gas pressure is low enough not to blow off the bags. An HP 5880A series gas chromatograph was used to analyze the composition of gas samples. A 30 ft packing column (Alltech, model 12713) was specified for the TCD detector for the light component analysis.
Different capacity pressure transducers were used to measure the absolute pressures and the pressure drops occurring during the gas flowing process. Two 2,000 psi transducers and a 3,000 psi digital pressure gauge were attached to the core- holder inlet and the first sampling port to measure the upstream flowing pressure of the system and the core plug respectively. Experience showed that the pressure drop between the core-holder inlet and the first core port is very small; hence the original mixture entering into the core plug was ensured to be above the dew-point pressure. Two 1,250 psi transducers were attached to the end of the core-holder and the last sampling ports. Pressure differences along the sampling ports were measured by the 320 psi transducers.
Sampling part HC Detector PR P P P P P Computer LabView Water pump C 1 & C 4 Exhaust BPR Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer DP DP DP DP DP Sampling part S S S S S S S Water pump Vacuum pump Exhaust Vacuum Sampling part HC Detector PR P P P P P Computer LabView Water pump C 1 & C 4 Exhaust BPR Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer DP DP DP DP DP Sampling part S S S S S S S Water pump Vacuum pump Exhaust Vacuum HC Detector HC Detector PR P P P P P P P P P P Computer LabView Computer LabView Water pump Water pump C 1 & C 4 Exhaust BPR Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer Transducer DP DP DP DP DP DP DP DP DP DP Sampling part SS SS SS SS SS SS S Water pump Water pump Vacuum pump Exhaust Vacuum
Figure 4: Schematic diagram of the gas-condensate flow system.
Experimental Procedures Before the flow test, the core was saturated with pure methane at a pressure of 1,806 psi. Then 2 pore volumes of gas mixture of methane and butane were flushed through the core. The core system pressure after equilibrium was 2,106.8 psi.
Four batches of composition samples along the core were collected during the experiment. The first batch was taken before the flow test at pressure 2,106.8 psi. The second batch samples were taken during the flow test, when the final upstream and downstream pressure reached 1,625.6 psi and 1,200 psi respectively. After shutting down the gas supply the upstream pressure dropped to 663.09 psi. The third batch samples were then taken. The upstream pressure was further drawn down to 61.5 psi, and the fourth batch samples (only 2) were taken at the exit. 4 SPE 103255 These four sampling points are shown in Figure 3. All gas samples were collected in the sampling bags and sent to the gas chromatograph for composition analysis.
Results and Discussion
Experiment results Figure 5 shows the gas chromatograph results for all the gas samples. Notice that the first batch of gas samples, which were collected before the flow test, show slightly different composition for the same component (C 1 or C 4 ) at different sample ports and these compositions also differ slightly from the initial compositions. The samples taken at the sample port 2 and 6 are the only two samples exactly equal to the initial compositions. Sample 1, 3 and 4 show higher C 4 percentage and sample 5 shows lower C 4 percentages compared to the initial 19% C 4 percentage. This may be due to the fact that the core was presaturated with pure methane at pressure 1,800 psi.
When the upstream pressure drops, more gas condensate drops out into the core, and the accumulated condensate liquid, which is richer in heavier component, can not flow until the condensate saturation reaches the threshold saturation on the relative permeability curve. Hence the flowing phase consists of lighter component; this is confirmed by the composition decrement in C 4 component in the second and the third flow test.
When the core system pressure drops below the pressure corresponding to the maximum liquid drop-out point, the condensate starts to revaporize. A higher percentage of heavier component was expected to be seen at this stage. This is confirmed by the composition results from the last batch samples (batch 4), where the sampling pressure was only 61.5 psi and the C 4 composition is as high as 57.5%. At this point in the experiment, the accumulated heavy component was revaporized and recovered.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 Port C 4
( % ) Batch 1 Batch 2 Batch 3 Batch 4 Flow direction original composition 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 Port C 4
( % ) Batch 1 Batch 2 Batch 3 Batch 4 Flow direction original composition
Figure 5: Gas sample results for the mole fraction of C 4 in the flowing phase.
Multicomponent simulation results In the field scale simulation results, Figure 6 shows the condensate saturation profiles vs. radius r for different times. The region of interest here is the two-phase zone. As expected, as the production proceeds, the pressure-drop expands to regions further away from the producing well. Once the pressure drops below the local dew-point pressure, condensate drops into the reservoir and accumulates until the accumulated liquid saturation reaches the relative permeability threshold. From the figure, we can also see that the near well region has the greatest liquid accumulation resulting from the early liquid drop-out.
Figure 7 shows mole fractions of C 7 for the liquid phase. The trend is similar to that of saturation profiles, noticing that the heavy component (C 7, in this case) accumulation is more prominent in the near well region. 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) S c
( f r a c t i o n ) t = 0.5 day t = 1.5 days t = 102 days t = 206 days t = 345 days t = 575 days t = 670 days t = 755 days t = 840 days t = 900 days t = 940 days t = 980 days t = 990 days t = 1000 days increasing producing time
Figure 6: Saturation profiles at different times.
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) C 7
i n
l i q u i d
p h a s e
( f r a c t i o n ) t = 0.5 day t = 1.5 days t = 102 days t = 206 days t = 345 days t = 575 days t = 670 days t = 755 days t = 840 days t = 900 days t = 940 days t = 980 days t = 990 days t = 1000 days increasing producing time
Figure 7: Mole fraction profiles of C 7 in liquid phase.
a) Strategy of fixed BHP In a PVT cell, the liquid drop-out from the gas-condensate system can be revaporized if we either lower the BHP or increase the BHP. However, in a porous medium, the liquid drop-out is immobile unless the liquid accumulation reaches the critical condensate saturation value on the relative permeability curve. The accumulated condensate is generally made up of heavier components and hence changes the local phase composition. Whether the condensate build-up can be revaporized is mainly determined by the local fluid composition. Figure 8 shows the saturation profile for different well BHPs. We can see SPE 103255 5 that the liquid saturation still accumulates as the BHP drops, and no revaporization appears to happen for this particular fluid system.
As the BHP drops, more C 7 , one of the heavy components, drops to the liquid phase (Figure 9). Although the total gas production (Figure 10) increases as the BHP decreases, the well productivity (Figure 11) drops dramatically as liquid saturation builds up.
Figure 12 and Figure 13 show that as the BHP decreases, the two-phase region expands, and more heavy- component will be left in the reservoir.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) S C
( f r a c t i o n ) BHP = 2000 psi BHP = 500 psi BHP = 1000 psi BHP = 1500 psi BHP = 2500 psi BHP = 3000 psi BHP = 3500 psi BHP = 4000 psi decreasing BHP
Figure 9: Mole fraction profiles of C 7 in liquid phase.
0 5000000 10000000 15000000 20000000 25000000 30000000 35000000 40000000 45000000 50000000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W G P T
( m s c f ) BHP = 2000 psi BHP = 500 psi BHP = 1000 psi BHP = 1500 psi BHP = 2500 psi BHP = 3000 psi BHP = 3500 psi BHP = 4000 psi decreasing BHP
Figure 10: Total gas production profile for different BHP.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W P I G
( m s c f / d a y - p s i ) BHP = 2000 psi BHP = 500 psi BHP = 1000 psi BHP = 1500 psi BHP = 2500 psi BHP = 3000 psi BHP = 3500 psi BHP = 4000 psi decreasing BHP single phase two phases
Figure 11: Well productivity index (WPIG) profiles for different BHP.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) S c
( f r a c t i o n ) BHP = 2000 psi BHP = 500 psi BHP = 1000 psi BHP = 1500 psi BHP = 2500 psi BHP = 3000 psi BHP = 3500 psi BHP = 4000 psi decreasing BHP
Figure 12: Comparison of condensate saturation profiles for different BHP at t = 1000 days. 6 SPE 103255 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) C 7
i n
l i q u i d
p h a s e
( f r a c t i o n ) BHP = 2000 psi BHP = 500 psi BHP = 1000 psi BHP = 1500 psi BHP = 2500 psi BHP = 3000 psi BHP = 3500 psi BHP = 4000 psi decreasing BHP
Figure 13: Comparison of mole fraction profiles of C 7 in liquid phase at t = 1000 days.
In this case, we can decrease the BHP to achieve greater pressure difference; hence temporarily to produce more gas from the reservoir. However, lowering the BHP will cause the expansion of the two-phase region, and the accumulation of more heavy-component in the reservoir. Hence, lowering the BHP may not be a good strategy for maximizing total fluid recovery.
b) Strategy of BHP ramping as a function of time. Instead of setting BHP at a fixed value, we can also control the BHP such that it ramps as a function of the producing time. For all simulation tests in this case, the initial reservoir pressure and the final well bottom-hole pressure control were the same.
Figure 14 shows the ramping strategies used in this study. Increasing the ramping time, the gas production rate increases at the late producing life, although the initial production rate is low due to the smaller pressure difference (Figure 15). The well loses some gas production in total when the ramping time increases (Figure 16). However, the well productivity index reduction is delayed from the high productivity of single- phase flow to low productivity of two-phase flow (Figure 17). The accumulation of condensate saturation (Figure 18) and heavy component (Figure 19) are also delayed. 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 5500 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W B H P
( p s i ) Increase ramping time
Figure 14: BHP ramps as functions of time. 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W G P R
( m s c f / d a y ) Increase ramping time
Figure 15: Gas production rate profiles for different ramping strategies.
0 5000000 10000000 15000000 20000000 25000000 30000000 35000000 40000000 45000000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W G P T
( m s c f ) Increase ramping time
Figure 16: Total gas production profiles for different ramping strategies.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) W P I G
( m s c f / d a y - p s i ) Increase ramping time
Figure 17: Well productivity index profiles for different ramping strategies.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Time (days) S c
( f r a c t i o n ) Increase ramping time
Figure 18: Condensate saturation profiles for different ramping strategies. SPE 103255 7
Figure 19: mole fraction profiles for C 7 in liquid phase at different ramping strategies.
From Figures 20 and 21, we can see that by increasing the ramping time, the two-phase region can be effectively shrunk by a factor as much as 10, and less heavy-component can be left in the reservoir. This is very meaningful from the point of the long-term field development since it has been reported from many field cases that the heavy components are difficult to recover once they have been left in the reservoir.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) S c
( f r a c t i o n ) ramp = 0 ramp = 1000 ramp = 100 ramp = 200 ramp = 300 ramp = 400 ramp = 500 ramp = 600 ramp = 700 ramp = 800 ramp = 900 Producer Increase ramping time
Figure 20: Saturation profiles for different ramping strategies at t = 1000 days.
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Radius r (ft) C 7
i n
l i q u i d
p h a s e
( f r a c t i o n ) ramp = 0 ramp = 1000 ramp = 100 ramp = 200 ramp = 300 ramp = 400 ramp = 500 ramp = 600 ramp = 700 ramp = 800 ramp = 900 Producer Increase ramping time
Figure 21: Mole fraction profiles of C 7 in liquid phase for different ramping strategies at t = 1000 days.
Two-component simulation results Figures 22 to 29 show the simulation results for the binary- component methane/butane system. These are a representation of flow in the experiment described earlier. The general conclusions for the BHP strategy are the same for both multicomponent and binary-component systems. That is, the total gas production increases as a result of greater pressure difference between the reservoir and the well, but at the same time, lower BHP also brings more heavy-component into the reservoir and generates a larger two-phase region. For this particular binary combination of C 1 and C 4 , the saturation profile (Figure 22) shows decreases after the accumulated condensate saturation reaches a maximum value. Noticing that this maximum condensate saturation (S cam =0.53) is greater than the critical condensate saturation (S ac =0.25) from the relative permeability curve. The mole fraction of C 4 in the liquid phase also drops as the well continues producing. The reason is that some revaporization of the in-place liquid phase takes place; thus the two-phase zone varies as the well keeps producing.
Figure 25 shows that the well gas productivity drops significantly from single-phase flow to two-phase flow and the lower the BHP, the greater the drop in gas productivity. 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Distance (cm) S c t = 0.005h t = 0.01h t = 0.015h t = 0.02h t = 0.025h t = 0.035h t = 0.055h t = 20h flow direction
Figure 22: Saturation vs. distance for binary-component condensate system at BHP = 75 atm.
Figure 24: Total gas production profiles for different BHP.
0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000 1400000 1600000 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 Time (hour) W P I G
( s c c / h o u r - a t m ) BHP = 75 atm BHP = 25 atm BHP = 35 atm BHP = 45 atm BHP = 55 atm BHP = 65 atm BHP = 85 atm BHP = 95 atm BHP = 105 atm BHP = 115 atm increasing BHP s i n g l e
p h a s e
r e g i o n t w o
p h a s e s
r e g i o n
Figure 25: Well gas productivity profiles for different BHP.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 Time (hour) S c
( f r a c t i o n ) BHP = 75 atm BHP = 25 atm BHP = 35 atm BHP = 45 atm BHP = 55 atm BHP = 65 atm BHP = 85 atm BHP = 95 atm BHP = 105 atm BHP = 115 atm increasing BHP
Figure 26: Condensate saturation vs. time for different BHP.
( f r a c t i o n ) BHP = 75 atm BHP = 25 atm BHP = 45 atm BHP = 65 atm BHP = 85 atm BHP = 105 atm flow direction decreasing BHP
Figure 29: Mole fraction of C 4 vs. distance for different BHP at t = 20h.
SPE 103255 9 In summary from the simulation results, we can conclude that there is no standard way to optimize the producing strategy. Using low BHP or rapid ramping time for BHP, we can achieve high total gas production temporarily, however, to minimize the condensate banking blockage and hence to enhance the ultimate gas and liquid recovery, higher BHP or slower ramping time for BHP may be a better strategy. The optimal approach is likely to be dependent on the original composition.
Conclusions 1. In gas-condensate flow, local composition changes due to relative permeability effects. 2. Composition and condensate saturation change significantly as a function of producing sequence. The higher the BHP, the less the condensate banking and a smaller amount of heavy-component is trapped in the reservoir; increasing ramping time of BHP will also help to alleviate the condensate banking and heavy-component trapping. 3. Gas productivity can be maximized with proper producing strategy. The total gas production can be achieved by lowering the BHP or dropping the BHP quickly instead of ramping slowly to a preset BHP value. 4. Productivity loss can be reduced by optimizing the producing sequence. 5. The condensate drop-out will hinder the flow capability, due to relative permeability effects.
Nomenclature N 2 nitrogen CO 2 carbon dioxide C 1 methane C 2 ethane C 3 propane iC 4 i-butane nC 4 n-butane iC 5 i-pentane nC 5 n-pentane C 6 hexane C 7 heptane C 8 octane C 9 nonane C 10+ decene MW molecular weight CVD constant volume depletion BHP bottom-hole pressure S cc critical condensate saturation Sc condensate saturation WPIG gas productivity index of a well (mscf/day-psi or scc/hour-atm) WGPT well total gas production (mscf or scc) T c critical temperature (K or C) p c critical pressure (psi or atm)
Acknowledgements We would like to express our appreciation to Saudi Aramaco and the members of SUPRI-D (Research Consortium on Innovation in Well Testing) for financial support and useful discussions.
References 1. Afidick, D., Kaczorowski, N.J., and Bette, S., 1994 Production Performance of a Retrograde Gas: A Case Study of the Arun Field, paper SPE 28749 presented at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference held in Melbourne, Australia.
2. Barnum, R.S., Brinkman, F.P., Richadson, T.W. and Spillette, A.G., 1995 Gas Condensate Reservoir Behavior: Productivity and Recovery Reduction Due to Condensation, paper SPE 30767 presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, TX.
3. Fevang, O. and Whitson, C.H., 1996 Modeling Gas- Condensate Well Deliverability, paper SPE Res. Eng., P221- 230.
4. Riemens, W.G. and de Jong, L.N.J.: Birba Field PVT Variations Along the Hydrocarbon Column and Confirmatory Field Tests, paper SPE 13719 presented at the SPE 1985 Middle East Oil Technical Conference held in Bahrain, March 11-14, 1985.
5. Schulte, A.M.: Compositional Variation within a Hydrocarbon Column Due to Gravity, paper SPE 9235 presented at the 55 th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Dallas TX September 21-24, 1980.
6. Lee, S.T.: Capillary-Gravity Equilibria for Hydrocarbon Fluids in Porous Media, paper SPE 19650 presented at the 64 th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio TX October 8-11, 1989.
7. Roussennac, B., 2001 Gas Condensate Well Test Analysis, MS report, Stanford University.
SI metric conversion Factors atm 1.013250 * E+05 = Pa ft 3 1.589873 E-01 = m 3 F (F-32)/1.8 = C in. 3 1.638706 E+01 = cm 3 psi 6.894757 E+00 = kPa