Water Influx

Nearly all hydrocarbon reservoirs are surrounded by

water-bearing rocks called aquifers. These aquifers may
be substantially larger than the oil or gas reservoirs they
adjoin as to appear infinite in size, or they may be so
small in size as to be negligible in their effect on
reservoir performance.
As reservoir fluids are produced and reservoir pressure
declines, a pressure differential develops from the
surrounding aquifer into the reser-voir. Following the
basic law of fluid flow in porous media, the aquifer
reacts by encroaching across the original hydrocarbon-
water contact. In some cases, water encroachment
occurs due to hydrodynamic conditions and recharge of
the formation by surface waters at an outcrop.
 In many cases, the pore volume of the aquifer is not
significantly larg-er than the pore volume of the
reservoir itself. Thus, the expansion of the water in the
aquifer is negligible relative to the overall energy
system, and the reservoir behaves volumetrically.
In this case, the effects of water influx can be ignored. In
other cases, the aquifer permeability may be sufficiently
low such that a very large pressure differential is
required before an appreciable amount of water can
encroach into the reservoir. In this instance, the effects
of water influx can be ignored as well.
 This chapter focuses on those reservoir-aquifer
systems in which the size of the aquifer is large
enough and the permeability of the rock is high
enough that water influx occurs as the reservoir
is depleted.
This chapter also provides various water influx
calculation models and a detailed description of
the computational steps involved in applying
these models.
 CLASSIFICATION OF AQUIFERS
Many gas and oil reservoirs produced by a mechanism
termed water drive. Often this is called natural water
drive to distinguish it from artifi-cial water drive that
involves the injection of water into the formation.
Hydrocarbon production from the reservoir and the
subsequent pressure drop prompt a response from the
aquifer to offset the pressure decline. This response
comes in a form of water influx, commonly called water
encroachment, which is attributed to:
Expansion of the water in the aquifer
Compressibility of the aquifer rock
Artesian flow where the water-bearing formation outcrop
is located structurally higher than the pay zone
Reservoir-aquifer systems are commonly
classified on the basis of:
Degree of pressure maintenance
Flow regimes
Outer boundary conditions
Flow geometries
 Degree of Pressure Maintenance
Based on the degree of the reservoir pressure
maintenance provided by the aquifer, the
natural water drive is often qualitatively
described as:
Active water drive
Partial water drive
Limited water drive
The term active water drive refers to the water
encroachment mecha-nism in which the rate
of water influx equals the reservoir total
produc-tion rate. Active water-drive reservoirs
are typically characterized by a gradual and
slow reservoir pressure decline.
 Outer Boundary Conditions
The aquifer can be classified as infinite or finite
(bounded). Geologi-cally all formations are finite,
but may act as infinite if the changes in the pressure
at the oil-water contact are not felt at the aquifer
boundary. In general, the outer boundary governs
the behavior of the aquifer and, therefore:
a. Infinite system indicates that the effect of the
pressure changes at the oil/aquifer boundary can
never be felt at the outer boundary. This boundary
is for all intents and purposes at a constant pressure
equal to initial reservoir pressure.
b. Finite system indicates that the aquifer outer
limit is affected by the influx into the oil zone and
that the pressure at this outer limit changes with
time.
 Flow Regimes
There are basically three flow regimes that
influence the rate of water influx into the
reservoir. Those flow regimes are:

a. Steady-state
b. Semi-steady (pseudo-steady)-state
c. Unsteady-state
 Flow Geometries
Reservoir-aquifer systems can be classified on
the basis of flow geom-etry as:
a. Edge-water drive
b. Bottom-water drive
c. Linear-water drive
 Recognition of Natural Water Influx
Normally very little information is obtained during
the exploration-devel-opment period of a reservoir
concerning the presence or characteristics of an
aquifer that could provide a source of water influx
during the depletion period.
Natural water drive may be assumed by analogy
with nearby producing reservoirs, but early
reservoir performance trends can provide clues. A
comparatively low, and decreasing, rate of
reservoir pressure decline with increasing
cumulative withdrawals is indicative of fluid influx.
Figure 1. Flow geometries

Linear-water Drive
 Indications of fluid influx.
Early water production from edge wells is indicative of
water encroachment. Such observations must be
tempered by the possibility that the early water
production is due to formation fractures; thin, high
permeability streaks; or to coning in connection with a
limited aquifer. The water production may be due to
casing leaks.
If the reservoir pressure is below the oil saturation
pressure, a low rate of increase in produced gas-oil ratio
is also indicative of fluid influx.
Calculation of increasing original oil-in-place from
successive reservoir pressure surveys by using the
material balance assuming no water influx is also
indicative of fluid influx.
 WATER INFLUX MODELS
Several models have been developed for estimating water influx that
are based on assumptions that describe the characteristics of the
aquifer.
The mathematical water influx models that are commonly used in
the petroleum industry include:
Pot aquifer
Schilthuis steady-state
Hursts modified steady-state
The Van Everdingen-Hurst unsteady-state
- Edge-water drive
- Bottom-water drive
The Carter-Tracy unsteady-state
Fetkovichs method
- Radial aquifer
- Linear aquifer
 The Pot Aquifer Model
The simplest model that can be used to estimate
the water influx into a gas or oil reservoir is
based on the basic definition of compressibility. A
drop in the reservoir pressure, due to the
production of fluids, causes the aquifer water to
expand and flow into the reservoir. The
compress-ibility is defined mathematically as:
V = c V p .. (1)
Applying the above basic compressibility
definition to the aquifer gives:
Water influx = (aquifer compressibility) (initial
volume of water) (pressure drop)
or
We = (cw + cf) Wi (pi - p) .(2)
where We = cumulative water influx, bbl
cw = aquifer water compressibility, psi-1
cf = aquifer rock compressibility, psi-1
Wi = initial volume of water in the aquifer,
bbl
pi = initial reservoir pressure, psi
p = current reservoir pressure (pressure at
oil-water contact), psi
 Calculating the initial volume of water in the
aquifer requires the knowledge of aquifer
dimension and properties. These, however, are
seldom measured since wells are not
deliberately drilled into the aquifer to obtain
such information. For instance, if the aquifer
shape is radial, then:
(3(
 Equation (2) suggests that water is
encroaching in a radial form from all
directions. Quite often, water does not
encroach on all sides of the reservoir, or the
reservoir is not circular in nature.
To account for these cases, a modification to
Equation (1) must be made in order to
properly describe the flow mechanism. One of
the simplest modifications is to include the
fractional encroachment angle f in the
equation, to give:
We = (cw + cf) Wi f (pi - p) .(4)
..(5)
 The above model is only applicable to a small
aquifer, i.e., pot aquifer, whose dimensions are of
the same order of magnitude as the reservoir
itself. Dake (1978) points out that because the
aquifer is considered relatively small, a pressure
drop in the reservoir is instantaneously
transmitted throughout the entire reservoir-
aquifer system. Dake suggests that for large
aquifers, a mathematical model is required which
includes time dependence to account for the fact
that it takes a finite time for the aquifer to
respond to a pressure change in the reservoir.
 Schilthuis Steady-State Model

Schilthuis (1936) proposed that for an aquifer

that is flowing under the steady-state flow
regime, the flow behavior could be described
by Darcys equation. The rate of water influx
ew can then be determined by applying
Darcys equation:
(6)
 The last relationship can be more conveniently
expressed as:

.(7)
 The parameter C is called the water influx
constant and is expressed in bbl/day/psi. This
water influx constant C may be calculated from
the reservoir historical production data over a
number of selected time intervals, provided that
the rate of water influx ew has been determined
independently from a different expression.
If the steady-state approximation adequately
describes the aquifer flow regime, the calculated
water influx constant C values will be constant
over the historical period.
Note that the pressure drops contributing to
influx are the cumulative pressure drops from the
initial pressure.
 In terms of the cumulative water influx We,
the common Schilthuis expression for water
influx is:

(8)

Equation (8) may be written in the following

form:
Hursts Modified Steady-State Model

.(9)
One of the problems associated with the
Schilthuis steady-state model is that as the water
is drained from the aquifer, the aquifer drainage
radius ra will increase as the time increases. Hurst
(1943) proposed that the apparent aquifer
radius ra would increase with time and, therefore
the dimensionless radius ra/re may be replaced
with a time dependent function, as:
ra/re = at (10)
 Substituting Equation (10)into Equation (6)
gives:
..(11)

..(12)

..(13)
 The Hurst modified steady-state equation
contains two unknown constants a and C, that
must be determined from the reservoir
aquifer pressure and water influx historical
data. The procedure of determining the
constants a and C is based on expressing
Equation (11) as a linear relationship.

..(14)
 Figure 2 :Modified Steady State
Water Influx Model
Equation (14) indicates that a plot of (pi -
p)/ew versus ln(t) will be a straight line with
a slope of 1/C and intercept of (1/C)ln(a),
as shown schematically in
Determination of C and n
Figure (2).
 Everdingen-Hurst Unsteady-State Model
The mathematical formulations that describe the flow
of crude oil system into a wellbore are identical in form
to those equations that describe the flow of water
from an aquifer into a cylindrical reservoir, as shown in
Figure (3)
When an oil well is brought on production at a
constant flow rate after a shut-in period, the pressure
behavior is essentially controlled by the transient
(unsteady-state) flowing condition. This flowing
condition is defined as the time period during which
the boundary has no effect on the pressure behavior.
The dimensionless form of the diffusivity equation, is
basically the general mathematical equation that is
designed to model the transient flow behavior in
reservoirs or aquifers.
Figure 3. Water influx into a cylindrical reservoir.
 In a dimensionless form, the diffusivity equation
takes the form:
(15)

Van Everdingen and Hurst (1949) proposed

solutions to the dimensionless diffusivity
equation for the following two reservoir aquifer
boundary conditions:
Constant terminal rate
Constant terminal pressure
 For the constant terminal rate boundary
condition, the rate of water influx is assumed
constant for a given period; and the pressure
drop at the reservoir-aquifer boundary is
calculated. For the constant terminal pressure
boundary condition, a boundary pressure drop
is assumed constant over some finite time
period, and the water influx rate is determined.
In the description of water influx from an
aquifer into a reservoir, there is greater interest
in calculating the influx rate rather than the
pressure.
 This leads to the determination of the water influx as a
function of a given pressure drop at the inner
boundary of the reservoir-aquifer system.
Van Everdingen and Hurst solved the diffusivity
equation for the aquifer-reservoir system by applying
the Laplace transformation to the equation. The
authors solution can be used to determine the water
influx in the following systems:
Edge-water-drive system (radial system)
Bottom-water-drive system
Linear-water-drive system
 Edge-Water Drive

Figure 4. shows an idealized radial flow system

that represents an edge-water-drive reservoir.
The inner boundary is defined as the interface
between the reservoir and the aquifer.
The flow across this inner boundary is
considered horizontal and encroachment occurs
across a cylindrical plane encircling the reservoir.
With the interface as the inner boundary, it is
possible to impose a constant terminal pressure
at the inner boundary and determine the rate of
water influx across the interface.
Figure 4. Idealized radial flow model
 Van Everdingen and Hurst proposed a solution to
the dimensionless diffusivity equation that utilizes
the constant terminal pressure condition in
addition to the following initial and outer
boundary conditions:
Initial conditions:
p = pi for all values of radius r
Outer boundary conditions
For an infinite aquifer
p = pi at r =
For a bounded aquifer
Van Everdingen and Hurst assumed that the aquifer is
characterized by:
Uniform thickness
Constant permeability
Uniform porosity
Constant rock compressibility
Constant water compressibility
The authors expressed their mathematical relationship
for calculating the water influx in a form of a
dimensionless parameter that is called dimensionless
water influx WeD. They also expressed the dimensionless
water influx as a function of the dimensionless time tD
and dimensionless radius rD, thus they made the solution
to the diffusivity equation generalized and applicable to
any aquifer where the flow of water into the reservoir is
essentially radial.
 Figure 5. Dimensionless water influx WeD for several values of
ra/re. (Van Everdingen and Hurst WeD. Permission to publish
by the SPE.)

The authors presented their solution in

tabulated and graphical forms .
 The two dimensionless parameters tD and
rD are given by:
(16(

(17)

(18(
 The water influx is then given by:

(19)

(20)
Table 10-1
Table 10-2
 Equation (20 )assumes that the water is encroaching in a
radial form. Quite often, water does not encroach on all
sides of the reservoir, or the reservoir is not circular in
nature. In these cases, some modifications must be
made in Equation (20) to properly describe the flow
mechanism. One of the simplest modifications is to
introduce the encroachment angle to the water influx
constant B as:
(21)

(22)
is the angle subtended by the reservoir
circumference, i.e., for a full circle = 360 and for
semicircle reservoir against a fault =180, as shown in
Figure 10-12.
Figure 6: Water Drive Reservoir