SPE-186969-MS

Enhanced Reservoir Characterisation Using Integrated Production Data

Analysis

E. Motaei, A. Ataei, E. Yazdi, Y. Y. Khor, and M. Faiz, PETRONAS Carigali Sdn. Bhd

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/IATMI Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 17-19 October 2017.

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
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Abstract
Production data analysis (PA) refers to all analytical approaches and tools to reveal reservoir properties,
performance, and characteristics such as material balance, Flowing Material Balance (FMB), Pressure
Transient Analysis (PTA), Rate Transient Analysis (RTA), Decline Curve Analysis (DCA) and
deconvolution.
PA provides robust information comprising reservoir container volume, depletion mechanism, reservoir
connectivity and well performance. It provides the best view on reservoir performance and helps to
characterize the reservoir to understand reservoir quality, boundaries and flow characteristics to develop
and optimize current reservoir management prior to any dynamic modelling.
In this paper, the focus will be on analytical methods such as Rate Transient Analysis (RTA), Flowing
Material Balance (FMB), Pressure Transient Analysis (PTA) and analytical simulation as an integrated
approach for enhanced production data analysis in Gas fields. The idea of FMB has been introduced by L.
Mattar (1997) and it is generally applied to determine oil or gas in-place using flowing pressure data (L.
Mattar and Anderson, 2005).
The main objective is to show the methodology for production data analysis, illustrate its added value to
reservoir performance monitoring as well as its advantages for well-test design and production forecasting.
The results show that different approaches need to be used consistently to enhance the reservoir
characterization and improve reservoir understanding in using production data prior to full field dynamic
application. Integration helps to resolve uncertainties quickly and economically.

Introduction
Integration of RTA with PTA and reservoir models can resolve uncertainty in connected volume, reservoir
connectivity and well interference.
To investigate well connectivity and boundaries, the Kabir diagnostic plot is used. Kabir (2011)
introduced a plot of Tubing Head Pressure (THP) vs gas flow rate as a diagnostic plot, which shows the
three main flow regimes:

• Transient flow period;

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• Quasi-steady state flow period; and

• Pseudo-Steady State (PSS) flow period.

Transient flow happens at early time production when the pressure disturbance wave is propagating in
the reservoir and the THP vs gas flow rate is negative, as shown in Figure-1. The Quasi-Steady Sate flow
refers to decline in THP at given gas rate plateau period while the wave has not yet reached the reservoir
boundary. As the wave touches the boundary, which can be a geological feature or the drainage area from
another well, the flow regime change to PSS and well rate will drop which creates a positive slope on the
Kabir diagnostic plot.

Figure 1—Typical Kabir Diagnostic Plot, Tubing Head Pressure vs Gas Flow Rate

The Kabir plot could be used for flow patterns in an individual well or could be used for connectivity
checking between multiple wells in a reservoir. Synchronized behaviour on a Kabir diagnostic plot confirms
fluid communication across the group of wells, especially at the boundary dominated (PSS) region. Figure
2 shows data from five wells that are in communication in the reservoir, while Figure-3 shows two wells in
the same carbonate platform but with no proper reservoir connectivity.
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Figure 2—Typical Kabir Diagnostic Plot for well-connected wells draining same reservoir

Figure 3—Typical Kabir Diagnostic Plot for wells in different zones

In this paper, a comprehensive approach is implemented as a workflow, with full details below:
1. Quality control of input data including gauge data and geological data such as porosity, NTG, reservoir
quality, thickness, and well trajectory;
2. Pre-processing Gauge data to validate pressure-rate accuracy and synchronization;
3. Converting measured pressure into reservoir datum pressures from available data - either Turing head
pressure or permanent downhole gauge pressure using a Wellbore model which is tuned to measure
data during the field-life time-step;
4. Applying RTA to estimate connected volume for individual wells and the full reservoir;
5. Applying FMB as an alternate way to estimate connected volume and exploring under-depletion areas
which might be limited by producing wells and geological boundaries/features;
6. Applying PTA as a verification in a single well and reservoir (multi-well) level for reservoir
characterization such as permeability and geological /fluid induced boundaries, by analysis of pressure
using rate as an input into the model, along with NTG, porosity, thickness and PVT;
7. Implementing deconvolution for long-term reservoir/well performance analysis and reservoir
characterization;
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8. Integration of PTA/RTA and deconvolution findings with the geological (static) understanding in the
example fields - one carbonate platform and one clastic sand.

Field B Case Study

The field is a carbonate platform with different reservoir quality vertically which is located in the Central
Luconia Province, offshore Sarawak Malaysia. The main objective in this field was to understand reservoir
connectivity for future development as a pre-qualifier tool for full field dynamic modelling.
The reservoir is divided into upper and lower reservoirs by a tight zone with almost no vertical
permeability. In the upper zone, which is called Zone-1, well B-1 has been on production since 2006.
Production data from this well is analyzed to investigate the possibility of infill drilling to increase resources
in the upper zone. Figure-4 depicts the field cross section across main zones (Z1 and Z2).

Figure 4—Field B Cross Section

Reservoir connectivity
Wells B-1 and B-2 are drilled horizontally in Z1 and Z2, respectively. The Kabir diagnostic plot for both
wells in Figure-3 shows the PSS flow regime signature is clearly formed, confirming boundary dominated
flow. In addition, the two separate PSS trends suggest a lack of vertical communication between the two
wells and hence, the two zones are hydrodynamically disconnected due to the tight zone at the base of
zone-1 (Z1-D).

Connected volume and well drainage estimation using production data analysis
To determine the connected under-depletion volume, FMB and Agarwal type curve analysis is performed (as
shown in Figure-5) based on the Agarwal and L. Mattar approach, using production data and petrophysical
inputs such as gas saturation, porosity, NTG, and fluid properties (gas FVF). The under-depletion area is
calculated and projected onto the structure map as shown in Figure-6. The under-depletion volume fits the
zone-1 physical boundary, indicating that the depleted volume is almost the whole available static volume,
and so there is no undrained potential. Infill wells would accelerate but not increase gas recovery.
The connected volume from both FBM and Agarwal method is calculated to be 521 BSCF.
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Figure 5—Flowing Material Balance (FMB) p/z and Agarwal FMB plot of well B-1

Figure 6—Estimated Drainage radius from FMB shows the connected volume is covers all static GIIP

As an integration, PTA is performed which was proposed by Pinillos 2015, to investigate the vertical
communication between the Z1 and Z2 and to test the Z1-D tightness. PTA analysis is shown in Figure-7. To
match the flowing pressure, the Z1-D does provide pressure support to the Z2, but with lag due its tightness
which leads to a pressure gap in zone Z1/Z2. In other words, the volumetric discharge is not seen by pressure
analysis in the upper zone (Z1) by well B1, while it is seen on the lower zone by well B2, indicating that
the Zone Z1-D separating two zones Z1/Z2 by post-production due to its selective pressure support while
during geological time the pressure equilibrium was established (in pre-production).
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Figure 7—Pressure History Match in Well B2 requires support of volume from tight Zone Z1-D

To compare the connected GIIP, Static P/Z from conventional pressure build-up (PBU) analysis is plotted
in Figure 8. In this figure, the measured data is projected to the GIIP from FMB/Agarwal analysis. The data
fits just some pressure points but not all of them. This discrepancy suggests that the PBU does not always
reflect the true reservoir pressure, possibly due to the limited shut-in time - most of the PBU data were
collected after short shut-in periods of 8-24 hrs. A minimum shut-in duration period is required to establish
full boundary signature on measured pressure PBU. In this specific case, the elongated horizontal well
section means that a long duration build-up is required. This is a good application for RTA/PTA integrated
analysis as an alternate approach for classic material balance and volumetric calculations.

Figure 8—Comparing GIIP from FMB/Agarval and PBU P/Z in well B1

Deconvolution
As a complementary work, a robust deconvolution is performed on the B1 well pressure/rate data, to estimate
the connected volume and also reservoir average quality during depletion time. The under-depletion volume
is calculated from pore volume by deconvolution using gas saturation and fluid properties of the reservoir
fluid. The results are provided in Figure 9, and show reasonable agreement for connected volume from FMB
(521 BSCF) vs under-depletion volume from deconvolution (572 BSCF).
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Figure 9—Deconvolution application on well B1

The analysis of deconvolution using all three detailed pressure build-up periods reflects the same PSS
response and confirms the boundary dominated flow which is fully in agreement with physical reservoir
structure boundaries. The full signature of all time span (more than 100,000 hrs) is used to rebuild the full
reservoir response as shown in top derivative plot in Figure 9.
Table 1 summarizes all estimated connected volumes from different approaches.

Table 1—Summary of estimated connected volume

Conclusions
Below are the key findings:
1. GIIP
a. The targeted Zone 2 for the infill well is clearly in partial communication with Zone 1D.
b. The total connected volume to well B1which is the current active producer in this zone is 517
BSCF.
c. This volume is in line with updated MBAL model (521 BSCF), and using PTA and
Deconvolution (572 BSCF)
d. The recent static model also shows 507 BSCF of GIIP which are in line with other production
driven analysis.
2. Infill opportunity
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a. B1 wellis producing under pseudo steady flow regime which is very well established and the
boundaries are consistent with the mapped geological boundaries for this zone.
b. The under-depletion volume is almost covers the full static volume and therefore infill wells
would accelerate but not increase gas recovery.

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