TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRETE

SCHOOL OF MINERAL RESOURCES ENGINEERING

MSc Petroleum Engineering

Special topics in Petroleum Engineering

Instructor: Professor Vassilis Gaganis

Student: Pavlos Poutachidis

Chania, 2019
 Table of Contents

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. i

Problem statement ................................................................................................................................ 2
1. Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the liquid production rate falls
below 1,000 stb/d. What is the depth and the temperature at that depth where the fluid turns to a two-
phase one?............................................................................................................................................. 4
2. Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the oil production rate falls
below 200 stb/d. What is the depth and the temperature at that depth where the fluid turns to a two-
phase one?............................................................................................................................................. 7
3. A gas injection valve is to be set 300 feet above the packers’ depth. Compute the required gas
injection rate (Gas sg=0.64) so as to double the liquid production rate when the water exhibits the
maximum value found in q. 1. Do the same for q. 2. ........................................................................... 8
4. By assuming a water cut level of zero, find the relative reduction of the oil production rate if the
skin factor increases from 2 to 4. Similarly, find the relative increase of the oil production rate if the
skin factor is removed due to some acidification project. .................................................................. 10
5. In a few years from now the reservoir pressure is expected to decrease by 500 psi. Is it possible to
maintain the original production rate by simply decreasing the separator pressure given that it can
never be set to a value less than 200 psi as this is the minimum pressure required to ensure flow to the
sales point? ......................................................................................................................................... 11

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Problem statement

A production system is under study. The reservoir can be considered as homogeneous and
cylindrical with a drainage radius of 2,000’, a thickness of 200’ and permeability of 20 mD. The
reservoir connate water is hydraulically connected to the surface; hence the reservoir pressure is
hydrostatic. The pressure gradient due to water salinity is given in the following Table 1. The reservoir
temperature is given in the following Table 1.
The well is a typical build-and-hold one (2D well), that is it exhibits a vertical part (L1)
followed by a curved one and another straight (but inclined, L3) one so as to reach the target. The
curved part has been drilled with an inclination build up ratio of 3o/100’ thus leading to a curvature
radius R equal to 1,910’. The diameter of the borehole within which the production casing has been
installed is 9.75”. The production casing has been installed down to the well bottom hole and it is an
L80 grade one with an outer diameter of 8.625” and a weight of 49 lbm/ft.
The tubing string is hanged from the wellhead and it arrives at 500’ (MD) above the well
bottom hole. It is of the same quality as the production casing string and it has an OD of 3.5” and a
weight of 12.8 lbm/ft. The tubing and the casing string roughness is 0.001”. A packer has been
installed 700’ (MD) above the bottom hole. Additionally, an SSSV with a bean size of 2.25” is
installed at 1,000’ (MD) and two closed sliding sleeves are installed at 3,000’ (MD) and at 5,000’
(MD) respectively.
The perforations are centered halfway between the bottom hole and the lower end of the tubing,
that is 250’ below the tubing string. Note that due to some formation damage a skin factor of 2 appears
in the reservoir.
The temperature profile is assumed to vary linearly between the reservoir temperature at target
depth and ambient temperature (60 oF) at surface. The heat coefficient has been estimated at 5 BTU/
(h deg ft2).
The reservoir fluid is a black oil with an Rs value of 500 scf/bbl, gas gravity of 0.64 and 30
API. The reservoir water specific gravity is 1.02. No contaminants have been traced in the fluid
composition.
The separator pressure has been set at 500 psi.
1) Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the liquid production
rate falls below 1,000 stb/d. What is the depth and the temperature at that depth where the fluid turns
to a two-phase one?
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 2) Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the oil production rate
falls below 200 stb/d. What is the depth and the temperature at that depth where the fluid turns to a
two-phase one?
3) A gas injection valve is to be set 300 feet above the packers’ depth. Compute the required
gas injection rate (Gas sg=0.64) so as to double the liquid production rate when the water exhibits the
maximum value found in q. 1. Do the same for q. 2.
4) By assuming a water cut level of zero, find the relative reduction of the oil production rate
if the skin factor increases from 2 to 4. Similarly, find the relative increase of the oil production rate
if the skin factor is removed due to some acidization project.
5) In a few years from now the reservoir pressure is expected to decrease by 500 psi. Is it
possible to maintain the original production rate by simply decreasing the separator pressure given
that it can never be set to a value less than 200 psi as this is the minimum pressure required to ensure
flow to the sales point?

Table 1. Data Set

q ( deg/100 ft) 3 deg/100’

L1 (ft) 4500 feet
L3 (ft) 1000 feet
Φ (deg) 80 deg
T (F) 212 feet
pi (psi) 2940 psi

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 1. Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the
liquid production rate falls below 1,000 stb/d. What is the depth and the
temperature at that depth where the fluid turns to a two-phase one?

By introducing the well parameters, a deviated well was constructed in the Pipesim software
(fig. 1).
After introducing the input data, the Pwf (psia) over Q (STB/d) (figure 2) is generated in the
Completions tab and has to be noted that the fluid is a two-phase one since there is a slight curvature
from the initial pressure at 2940. By running nodal analysis, the following results are generated.

Table 2 – System results

Operating point STB/d Psi at NA Pb at NA

WCUT=74 % Flowrate=2753.714 sbbl/day 2753.714 2889.114 3046.315
WCUT=75 % Flowrate=2505.389 sbbl/day 2505.389 2894.525 3046.251
WCUT=76 % Flowrate=2242.527 sbbl/day 2242.527 2900.031 3046.185
WCUT=77 % Flowrate=1868.064 sbbl/day 1868.064 2907.325 3046.095
UNCONVERGED WCUT=78 % Flowrate=1145.756 sbbl/day
UNCONVERGED WCUT=79 % Flowrate=953.7126 sbbl/day

The maximum water cut level until the liquid production rate falls below 1000 stb/d is 79%.
But it is not operational, so the maximum water cut that the production can bear is 77% with a liquid
flowrate of 1868.064 sbbl/day. The fluid is already a two-phase one as can be seen in figure 2, the
bubble point pressure is 3046 psi at NA, and the reservoir temperature at 7950 MD is 212.0775 F.

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Figure 1 - Well

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Figure 2. Nodal analysis systems plot

Figure 3 Inflow and outflow curves

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 2. Find the maximum water cut level that the production can bear until the
oil production rate falls below 200 stb/d. What is the depth and the temperature
at that depth where the fluid turns to a two-phase one?

The maximum water cut level until the oil production rate falls below 200 stb/d is 84% at a
rate of 192 stb/d, but it is not operational so the maximum water cut at which the production can
bear is at 77 % with an oil rate 429,6538 stb/d of oil.

Table 3 -

Water Cut, % Stock-tank oil rate

76 538.1938
77 429.6538
78 252.0657
79 271.4035
80 228.5458
81 228
82 216
83 204
84 192
85 180

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 3. A gas injection valve is to be set 300 feet above the packers’ depth.
Compute the required gas injection rate (Gas sg=0.64) so as to double the liquid
production rate when the water exhibits the maximum value found in q. 1. Do the
same for q. 2.

At maximum water cut the production rate is at 1868.064 stb/d, to find the needed injection
rate to double the liquid production the system analysis tab was used and the following parameters
were introduced (fig, 4), and after running the table 4 is generated and it is clear that to double the
production a total injection rate of 0.15 mmscf/d is required.
At 77% water cut the oil rate is 429,6538 stb/d to calculate how much gas is required to double
the rate the same procedure was completed. The results are shown in table 4.
To double the liquid and oil production rate when the water exhibits the maximum value found
in questions 1 and 2 (Wc=77%), is 0,15 mmscf/d.

Figure 4 – system analysis

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Table 4 – Gas injection and liquid flowrate

Injection rate, Stock-tank oil at outlet

Water cut, % liquid flowrate Stb/d
mmscf/d (STB/d)
429.4372
0 1867.118

0.05 2965.004 681.951

77 0.1 3474.909 799.229

0.15 3822.197 879.1054

0.2 4102.769 943.637

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 4. By assuming a water cut level of zero, find the relative reduction of the oil
production rate if the skin factor increases from 2 to 4. Similarly, find the relative
increase of the oil production rate if the skin factor is removed due to some
acidification project.

With a skin factor of 2 and a water cut of zero the oil production is 6275.634 stb/d
By assuming a water cut level of zero and a skin factor of 4 the oil production is 6056.759
stb/d resulting to a reduction of 218.875 stb/d.
If the skin factor is removed the oil production is 6504.756 stb/d with an increase of 229.122
stb/d.

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 5. In a few years from now the reservoir pressure is expected to decrease by
500 psi. Is it possible to maintain the original production rate by simply decreasing
the separator pressure given that it can never be set to a value less than 200 psi as
this is the minimum pressure required to ensure flow to the sales point?

At the given pressure the well is not operational, as it shown from the inflow and outflow curves (fig
5).

Figure 5 – Inflow and outflow curves

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