Gas cap drive

There are different mechanisms which favours the fluids to flow through
the porous network and into the wells in the reservoir. Besides oil, gas
and water, other factors such as pressure gradient, gravity and capillary
action make the flow possible. Reservoir drive mechanisms are of two
types. They are depletion drive and water drive. Depletion drive happens
in places where oil and water bearing sands are not in contact. In this
isolated petroleum space, the energy available to drive it to the surface
can be supplied by the gas dissolved in the solution within the oil or by
the gas above the oil accumulation in the reservoir. The former is called
solution gas drive and the latter is called gas cap drive.

A gas cap is a gas phase which occurs above oil zone in a reservoir. If
there is more gas exists in a reservoir that the oil can hold at existing
temperature and pressure, the extra gas being lighter will lie above the
liquid phase. This gas cap is actually a supplier of additional energy. As
more and more oil and gas is produced, the reservoir pressure will
become low. Then the gas cap will expand to help fill the pores occupied
previously by the produced oil and gas.

The liquid phase below the gas cap will be saturated. The pressure
experienced at the gas-oil contact will be saturation pressure. If pressure
is reduced, some of the gas dissolved in the oil will come out and add to
the gas cap. So a gas cap drive is often accompanied by a solution gas
drive. The gas cap drive is more effective than gas solution drive because
the oil recovery range is about 25-40% of that contained in the reservoir
compared to 15-25% in solution gas drive. The size of gas cap is an
important criterion which determines the relative impact of the two
mechanisms. The larger the gas cap, the smaller pressure drop in the
reservoir required for the gas cap to expand. Therefore the impact of
solution gas drive will be lower if the relative size of gas cap is larger.

In order to obtain maximum benefit from a gas cap reservoir, gas

saturation in the oil zone must be low. If gravitational segregation allows
the saturated gas in the oil zone to migrate up structure to gas cap, it is
termed as secondary gas cap. High vertical permeability, low flow
velocity and favourable oil mobility are required for this to happen.

In a production point of view, a gas cap reservoir can be characterised by

a slow but fairly constant pressure decline with cumulative production.
Production of significant and increasing quantities of gas is another
characterisation. To preserve reservoir energy and to prevent the
withdrawal of gas from the gas cap, wells are progressively worked over
or shut in.

The recovery of gas cap drive primarily depends upon the dimension of
gas cap, efficiency of gas displacement process and effectiveness of
gravity segregation. The presence and the nature of reservoir
heterogeneity influence the stability and the uniformity of the
displacement front and which in turn affect volumetric sweep efficiency.
Gas oil relative permeability is another important factor as it defines the
relative mobility of the two phases. The microscopic flow efficiency of the
displacement process is determined by residual oil saturation to gas
value. Low field production rates increase recovery because it can induce
gravity segregation and thereby prevents the generation of unstable
fronts. Good vertical permeability will allow the oil to move downward
with less bypassing of gas. If there is a steep angle of dip that permit oil
drainage to the bottom of the structure, higher recoveries up to 60
percent or greater can be obtained. However, extremely thin oil columns
may reduce the recovery rate regardless of the size of gas cap. Also if the
oil viscosity increases, the amount of gas bypassing will increase, which
ultimately leads to a lower oil recovery.

(TAREK AHMED, 2006)

References:
AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE, 1996. Introduction to oil and gas
production. 5th ed. American Petroleum Institute Information Handling
Service.
TAREK AHMED, 2006. Reservoir engineering hand book. 3rd ed.
Burlington: Elsevier

Bibliography:
BILL D. BERGER AND KENNETH E. ANDERSON, 1992. Modern Petroleum:
A BASIC PRIMER OF THE INDUSTRY. Third edition. Oklahoma: PennWell
Publishing Company.

Primary hydrocarbon migration

Oil and gas once generated will move away from the source rock into
porous and permeable beds and continue its migration unless an
impermeable rock stops its progress. There are two reasons for this
migration. First, the hydrocarbons expand to take up more space than
the original organic matter formed by algae, bacterial and leaf skins. So
their pressure on the rock increases and eventually they try to escape.
Next, being less dense than the surrounding rock and water, they tend to
rise upwards. It will take millions of years for the oil and gas to rise a few
kilometres.

The transport of hydrocarbons within the source rock is termed as

primary migration. The precise mechanism of primary petroleum
migration is not known despite intensive investigation. There are different
mechanisms involved in the movement of oil and gas at different burial
stages, at various times. Solution migration is the driving phenomenon in
the relative shallow time intervals before the peak generation of oil and
gas. During the peak generation, a pressure driven migrating mechanism
is dominant. Micro fracturing due to internal pore pressures found in
mature source rocks is another important factor for primary migration. In
the case of gases, diffusion through water saturated pore spaces of
shales is relevant.

Water is considered as the first transporting agent in the process of

primary hydrocarbon migration. Expulsion of dissolved hydrocarbons in
water by compaction happens at an increased temperature. This is found
especially in fine grained sedimentary rocks where as compaction does
not have much influence in closely packed sandstones or conglomerates.
(D.H.Welte and D.Leythaeuser, 1983)

From the figure, it is evident that the amount of water which is expelled
with compaction decreases with depth. Chance for moving oil in water
solution is greatest around the depth of 1000 metres because shales
have high porosities for additional compaction and water expulsion.
Hydrocarbon movement can also take place in separate phase (oil or
gas). Capillary pressures of fine grained pores in shells and buoyancy of
oil are the major forces in the separate phase transport mechanism.
Water cannot overcome the high capillary pressure at this phase. The
dominant migration mechanism shifts from migration in water solution to
oil phase migration from a depth around 1500m and then to gaseous
phase from a depth approximately 3500m. Thus the petroleum
generation potential of source rock controls the efficiency of primary
migration mechanism as separate phase. The other factors required for
continuous phase are proper structure of organic matter in the source
rock, concentrated pour water and partially oil wet source rock.

Diffusion is regarded as another contributing process of hydrocarbon

migration in the source rock. In this, transportation distances are
expected to be short and follow local concentration gradients. Effective
diffusion coefficients for hydrocarbons are found out to calculate the
amount of hydrocarbons escaping from source rocks by diffusion.
Reference:
D. H. Welte and D. Leythaeuser, 1983 . Geological and
physicochemical conditions for primary migration of hydrocarbons.
[online]. Available from:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p23p242m4106v241/fulltext.pdf
[Accessed 02 November 2010].

Bibliography:

DJEBBAR TIEB AND ERLE C. DONALDSON, 2004. Petrophysics: Theory

and practise of measuring reservoir rock and fluid transport properties.
Burlington: Elsevier