SPE 164427

Overview of Material Balance Equation (MBE) in Shale Gas & NonConventional Reservoir
Vikash Kumar Singh, PDP University (India)

Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference held in Manama, Bahrain, 1013 March 2013.
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 have not been
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Abstract
Material balance has long been used in reservoir engineering practice as a simple yet powerful tool to determine the Original-Gas-In-Place
(G). The conventional format of the gas material balance equation is the simple straight line plot of p/Z versus cumulative gas production
(Gp) which can be extrapolated to zero p/Z to obtain G.The method was developed for a volumetric gas reservoir. It assumes a constant
pore volume of gas and accounts for the energy of gas expansion, but it ignores other sources of energy such as the effects of formation
compressibility, residual fluids expansion and aquifer support. In this paper, overview will presented on new format of the gas material
balance equation is presented which recaptures the simplicity of the straight line while accounting for all the drive mechanisms. It uses a
p/Z** instead of p/Z. The effect of each of the mentioned drive mechanisms appears as an effective compressibility term in the new gas
material balance equation. Also, the physical meaning of the effective compressibilitys are explained and compared with the concept of
drive indices. Furthermore, the gas material balance is used to derive a generalized rigorous total compressibility in the presence of all the
above-mentioned drive mechanisms, which is very important in calculating the pseudo-time used in rate transient analysis of production
data.
This Paper will represent another two method of MBE for unconventional reserve.one is appropriate for estimating OGIP and second is
appropriate for making Reservoir prediction. These techniques are differing from MBE of conventional gas reservoir in which effect of
absorbed gas are included. For calculating OGIP, the assumption of equilibrium between free gas and absorbed gas phase is required. No
additional assumptions are required for reservoir prediction.

Session-A
Introduction
It has been great interest to find G by using material balance equation.The conventional gas material balance equation was developed for a
volumetricreservoir.Therefore, the p/Z vs. cumulative gas plot may give misleading result in some situation [e.g. when the formation
compressibility of same order of magntitude as gas compressibility(overpressured reservoir) or where desorption play a role(coal bed
methane/shale).Fig.1 shown p/Z vs. G for several scenario with the same G.It is seem from figure that except for volumetric reservoir,the
plot is not a straight line because gas expansion is the not only the drive mechanism.In fact,water encroachment in water drive
reservoir,formation and residual fluid expansion in overpressured reservoir and gas desorption in CBM or shale reservoir can have a
significant role as a driving force in these cases.Various author has produced rigrous form of gas material balance equation considering
these effect.Jensen & smith proposed a simplified material balance equation for unconventional gas reservoir by assuming that stored free
gas is negligible and consequently omitted the effect of water saturation completely.However,King derived a comprehensive material
balance equation for unconventional gas reservoir that account for the free and adsorbed gas,water encroachment/production and water and
formation compressibility.
This study present an advanced,rigrous gas material balance equation and is plotting function that unifies all the previously mentioned
modification in one equation.The new gas material balance equation has same format as traditional material balance equation is can be
plotted as a straight line with pi/Zi as Y-intercept and G as a X-intercept.A significant advantage of this material balance equation is that it
can be used to define he total compressibility of the system;therefore,the pseudotime calculated with this total compressibility honour
material balance in all situation.

SPE 164427

Volumetric Reservoir
The conventional gas material balance was derived based on the fact thae the remaining gas in the reservoir at any pressure expand to fill
the reservoir volume,which was initially occupied by G at the initial pressure.In other word,the reservoir volume occupied by gas stay
constant.In this situation gas compressibility is the only production mechanism.
Substituting for Bg from the real gas law,at constant temperature,result in :

Generalized Equation
In this paper,we derive the advance gas material balance equation to account for water encroachment in water drive reservoir,expansion of
formation and of residual liquid in overpressured reservoir and gas desorption in CBM and shale gas reservoir in the same simple format of
equation(2).The new quation in addition of all previous mention effect is following:

Water influx and production:

Overpressured reservoir

When matrix shrinkage occur during CBM production,the(fracture)porosity containing the free gas increases.In that situation,Cf has
negative value and a complex function of pressure.If compressibility term Cf,Co and Cw are constant value ,a simplified form of equation

(5) can be written as:

CBM/Shale gas Desorption

.(7)

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Advance Material Balance Equation

The advance material balance equation,with consideration of water encroachment/production,formation and residual fluid expansion angas
desorption can be written as:

..(8)
If both side of previously described equation are divided by

..(9)

Plotting function of Advance MBE

-Equation (9) is an easy formulation for a general material balance equation and can be plotted as
to give a straight line.However it is derived based on the PV of the free
gas.Therefore,the straight line crosses the abscissa at Gf(free gas volume),not G.This is inconvenience and is disadvantage of
this plotting format(shown in figure 2)

Fig2:-

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-A new term Z* has been introduced while explaining the work of CBM mbe as:

and reformatted equation (1) as:

..(9)

This equation has same format as the conventional gas material balance equation ,and can be plotted as a straight line of p/Z* vs. Gp which
can be extrapolates to G, as can be seen in fig.3.This format has clear advantage over that fig.2 in that it extrapolate to the greater to the
greater practical value of G rather than Gf.whereas this format os theoretically applicable to gas reservoir other than CBM,the fact that the
p/Z* value littil resemblance to the conventional p/Z value detract from its utility.

Fig.3-kings p/Z* and p/Z plots

In an effort to generalized gas material balance equation for all reservoir(conventional,overpressured and CBM/Shale),a new term Z** has
been developed which replaced initial Z* and have written the gas material balance equation eqn(9) as:

..(10)
The advantage of the Z** format is that the p/Z** values are similar in magnitude to the conventional p/Z values.As shown in fig.4

Fig.4-p/Z** and p/Z plots

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p/Z** vs. Gp is a straight line that start from the conventional pi/Zi and extrapolate to G.this formulation and presentation has simplified
the applicability of the general material balance equation .The definition of Z** was derived from equation(9) &(10) as:

.(11)
Also Z** related to Z* by the following relation:

Equation (10) is the general material balance equation for all reservoir(conventional,overpressured and CBM/Shale).when plotted as p/Z**
vs. Gp it yield a straight line which is similar to the conventional p/Z plot,start from the conventional pi/Zi and extrapolate to G.

CONCLUSION
An advanced gas material balance equation has been presented and the corresponding plotting function introduced;therefore,the material
balance equation can be plotted as a straight line with pi/Zi as Y-intercept and G as X-intercept.The similiarity of the recommended
plotting procedure,pi/Z** vs.Gp to the more commonly used p/Z format is a great practical advantage.it allow the use of a rigrous material
balance formulation for complex and unconventional gas reservoir.The advance gas material balance equation is used to derive a rigorous
definition for total compressibility that can be used for analyzing fluid flow in unconvemtional gas reservoir,or when gas is the not only
mobile phase.

SPE 164427

Session-B
Material Balance Technique for Coal -Seam and Devonian Shale gas Reservoir with Limited Water influx
INTRODUCTION
The material balance equation is a fundamental tool for determining the original gas in place and production performance of conventional
gas reservoir.For conventional gas reservoir,the material balance equation has the form:

Equation 1 and 2 are derived with the following assumption.

1. The gas and reservoir rock are non-reactive;
2. The reservoir act ac a constant volume tank(i.e. change in porosity with pressure decline are negligible);
3. The reservoir can be moduled with an average pressure and an average saturation(i.e. all gradient can be ignored);
4. Reservoir water is incompressible.
5. Reliable production and pressure data are available.
6. Relaible PVT data are available.
Coal-Seam and Devonian Shale Reservoir
Coal-Seam and Devonian shale reservoir are characterized by a dual porosity nature(both primary and secondary porosities exist).The
primary porosity of these reservoir is composed of very fine pores. The dimension of these pores have two important consequences.First,a
large internal surface area exists in the primary-porosity matrix.This surface area contain many potential adsorption sites on which large
quantity of gas is adsorbed.Second,the permeability of primary porosity system is extreamly low.
Gas stored by adsorption typically is modeled with an adsorption isotherm(the amount of gas in equilibrium with rock surface as a function
pressure at a fixed temperature).The adsorption isotherm most commonly used for unconventional gas reservoir is the Langmuir type
isotherm:

Where Cve is the adsorption isotherm in scf/ft^3.The adsorption isotherm also can be written in term of Cme(lbm mol/ft^3),where
If the reservoir is undersaturated (Sg=0 and all gas is in the adsorbed state),the the adsorption isotherm has to be held constant at the
desorption pressure,Pd, where Pd is less than the initial reservoir pressure.Fig.1 gives the adsorption isotherm for an undersatuarated
reservoir.

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Gas is transported through the primary porosity system through diffusion.Gas transport through the primary porosity matrix obey Ficks
first law:

The secondary porosity system of coal seam and Devonian shale consists of the natural fracture system inherent in these reservoirs.This
fracture system acts as a sink to the primary porosity system and as a conduit to production wells(fig.2).

Material Balance Equations

A material balance equation over the entire primary porosity/secondary porosity can be obtained by containing Eqs. 2 and 4:

Equ.6 was derived with the assumption that the free and adsorbed gas phase were in equilibrium.This assumption makes Eq.6 appropriate
for drainage volumes that have been shut in after a finite production period or for reservoir undergoing rapid desorption/diffusion.The first
term in the large parentheses accounts for free gas;the second accounts for adsorbed gas.
Eq.7 is a water-phase mass balance equation over the secondary porosity system.This water treatment is also slightly different from that
used in conventional equations because of the dewatering phase required by some unconventional gas reservoir.
In all cases, these equations can be put into the familiar form,

SPE 164427

Also,for the special cases of dry reservoir(We=Wp=0 and S*=Swir), such as Piceance basin coal seam and some Canadian coal seam,Eqs 9
become

A less restrictive form of the material-balance equation for Coal seams and Devonian shale reservoir can be obtained by adding a gas
desorption term Gd, to Eq.2a.This equation has the form

Eq.12 is a gas phase material balance over the natural fracture system, while Eqs.13 are gas phase material-balance equations over the
primary porosity matrix.Eq.13b assumes pseudo-steady-state flow in the primary-porosity matrix.Eqs.13,coupled with Eq.7,are less
restrictive than Eq.6 because they do not require the assumption of equilibrium between the free and adsorbed gas phase.These equation
therefore are appropriate for flowing condition.
The average water saturation,Sw* has been left explicitly in Eqs.6 and 12 so that it can be incorporated directly if measurement from well
logs are available(e.g.,from observation wells).

Estimation of Future Reservoir Performance

Eqs.7,12 and 13b were used to estimate the production profile of the well.A computer program was written to solve these three equations
simultaneously.All input data used in the finite-difference simulator were assigned in material balance simulator.
The relatively permeability data were incorporated into the material balance simulator through performance relationships

In the material balance simulator, the relative permeability are evaluated explicitly(i.e. at beginning of the time step).The inclusion of skin
factor in above formula is due to the following reason:
1. A fundamental difference exist between finite-difference simulator well PIs and the field scale well PIs used in material balance
simulator.
2. The skin caused by rapid gas desorption in the near well bore vicinity can not be modeled properly in the material balance simulator.
3. The skin caused by hydraulic fracture is handled implicitly in the finite difference simulator.This skin must be entered into material
balance simulator.Skin will be calculated by
S=-ln(xf/rw)
Note: With the help of match between finite difference and material balance simulator, material balance approach can be used to predict
negative decline periodobserved in unconventional reservoir.

Conclusion
For estimating OGIP,a genearilized equation linearized with p/Z* developed with assume equallibarium between free gas and adsorbed
gas.A following general conclusion has been drawn :
- Material balance can be used for Unconventional reservoir.
-A p/Z* analysis method has been develop to analyze the non volumetric behavior of Coal-seam and Devonian shale reservoir.This method
can be applied to any non-volumetric reservoir.
-For flowing wells,material balance approach can be used to predict the negative decline observed in Unconventional reservoir.

SPE 164427

Reference
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King,G.R.:Material Balance technique for Coal seam and Devonian Shale Reservoir; Paper-SPE 20730
Ikoku,C.U.:Natural Gas Reservoir engineering, John Wiley & sons
King, G.R., and Ertkin:A survey of mathematical model related to methane production from coal seam, paper 8951
Leung, W.: A fast convolution method for Implementing single porosity finite/infinite aquifer model for water influx
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S.Moghadam, O.Jeje and L.Mattar: Advance gas material balance in simplified format, SPE-139428
Ramagost,B.P.,and Farshad :P/Z abnormally pressured gas reservoir, paper SPE-10125
Rahman,N.M.A.,Anderson,D.M.,and Mattar:New rigorous material balance equation for gas flow in a compressible formation,
paper SPE 100563
King G.R. :Matrial balance technique for coal seam and devonian shale gas reservoir with limited water influx,paper SPE20730
Pletcher,J.L., :Improvement to reservoir material balance method,paper SPE-62882