Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 Ž2000.

291–300
www.elsevier.nlrlocaterjpetscieng

EOS tuning to model full field crude oil properties using

multiple well fluid PVT analysis
Reyadh A. Almehaideb ) , Abdulla S. Al-Khanbashi, Mohamed Abdulkarim,
Maher A. Ali
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, College of Engineering, United Arab Emirates UniÕersity, P.O. Box 17555,
Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
Received 12 December 1998; accepted 15 December 1999

Abstract

Equations of State ŽEOS. are increasingly being used to model fluid properties of crude oil and gas reservoirs. This
technique offers the advantage of an improved fluid property prediction over conventional black oil models. Once the crude
oil or condensate fluid system has been probably characterized, its PVT behavior under a variety of conditions can easily be
studied. This description is then used, within a compositional simulator, to study and choose among different scenarios for
EOR schemes, such as miscible gas injection for oil reservoirs or liquid recovery under lean gas injection for condensate
reservoirs. In this paper, crude oil from a reservoir in the United Arab Emirates ŽUAE. was characterized using the
Peng–Robinson Equation of State ŽPR-EOS. to arrive at one EOS model that accurately describes the PVT behavior of
crude oil produced from the different wells in the reservoir. The multi-sample characterization method is used to arrive at
one consistent model for crude oil for the whole reservoir. The fluid samples are first analyzed for consistency to make sure
that they are representative of oil produced, and then they are used to obtain parameters for EOS model. The tuning
procedure for the EOS is done systematically by matching the volumetric and phase behavior results with laboratory results.
Also, a consistent C 7q pseudo-component split using the Whitson splitting method is used for all samples to arrive at a
consistent model for crude oil for the whole reservoir. Results showed a very good match of PVT properties predicted using
the EOS model with laboratory tests for this field. These results demonstrate the usefulness of the multi-sample method in
providing one EOS model for the crude oil using PVT test results from different wells. The EOS model developed for this
particular field may be used in reservoir simulation studies to optimize hydrocarbon recovery. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V.
All rights reserved.

Keywords: Equations of state; Modeling; Crude oil; Reservoir; Fluid properties

1. Introduction phase behavior of a wide variety of reservoir fluids.

Petroleum engineers have traditionally used Equa-
tions of State ŽEOS. to predict the volumetric and
)
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: reyadh@uaeu.ac.ae ŽR.A. Almehaideb..
This predictive tool is of great importance during the
evaluation of new discovered reservoirs, in the de-
sign and the management of oil recovery projects
during the various stages of reservoir exploitation.
EOS models have unique advantages over classical
PVT correlations that allow one to model a number

0920-4105r00r$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 0 - 4 1 0 5 Ž 0 0 . 0 0 0 4 3 - 7
292 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300
of reservoir engineering problems such as gas injec-
tion or the development of condensate and volatile
fields. Many articles in the literature discussed the
use of EOS models for predicting of PVT reservoir
fluid properties. The Peng–Robinson Equation of
State Ž1976. ŽPR-EOS. has become one of the most
widely used and accepted models for petroleum fluid
property prediction.
Extensive efforts have been made in the past two
decades to improve the performance of EOSs. These
include the move from two-constant to three-con-
stant equations to enhance the accuracy of volumet-
ric calculations. Peneloux et al. Ž1982. first intro-
duced volume translations or shifts to improve the
accuracy of Soave–Redlich–Kwong ŽSRK. EOS.
Jhaveri and Youngren Ž1984. defined volume shifts
for light hydrocarbons to be used with the PR-EOS
and provided a correlation to define the volume shift
for the plus fraction. Another major improvement
resulted from the introduction of parameters called
binary interaction coefficients ŽBICs. to better match
the saturation pressure predictions. Katz and Firooz-
abadi Ž1978. proposed a fixed set of BICs for
methane–hydrocarbon mixtures. Cheuh and Praus-
nitz proposed a correlation to calculate BICs as a
function of the critical volumes.
Coats and Smart Ž1986. were the first to suggest
the need for tuning EOS parameters to better match
experimental PVT behavior. Tuning some EOS pa-
rameters to the measured PVT data for that particular
fluid allows the proposed model to predict accurately
the properties of the hydrocarbon system. Coats and
Smart showed that adjustment of the BICs, the phys-
ical properties of heavy fractions, and the constant
part of the parameter V for methane and the plus
fraction are powerful regression variables to tune the
EOS. Slot-Peterson Ž1989. outlined a systematic ap-
proach to tune various BICs, which he concluded
was crucial for reservoir fluids.
Due to the indefinite nature of the heavy fraction,
its physical constants Ž Pc , Tc , v . may be considered
tuning parameters. Pedersen et al. Ž1989. reported
that a proper characterization for the heavy fraction
will reduce the need for extensive tuning of the EOS.
They concluded that minimal splitting followed by
adjusting the EOS plus fraction’s parameters, gener-
ally denoted by V a and V b is sufficient for getting a
good match. Merrill and Newley Ž1993. reported that
the selection of certain laboratory data included in
the tuning process is required to develop a satisfac-
tory fluid model. Merrill et al. Ž1994. presented a
comparison of different EOS tuning methods. They
concluded that the tuning process is highly depen-
dent on the quality of the laboratory data.
Significant progress has been achieved in the
characterization of the plus fraction, C 7q, of the
hydrocarbon reservoir fluid. An insufficient descrip-
tion of the heavier hydrocarbons reduces the accu-
racy of PVT predictions as shown by Whitson Ž1983..
Volumetric and phase behavior of reservoir fluid and
especially volatile oils and gas condensates are quite
sensitive to the properties of the heavier components.
The heavy end fraction is composed of hundreds of
hydrocarbon compounds and it is difficult to repre-
sent the properties of all of these components by
only one fraction. Unfortunately, complete experi-
mental data on the distribution of molecular weight,
true boiling point ŽTBP., and density for a hydrocar-
bon plus fraction are seldom available. Many authors
showed that the splitting of C 7q fraction into a
limited number of fractions enhances the predictive
capability of the EOS. Whitson Ž1983, 1984. used a
gamma distribution model to describe molecular
weightrmole fraction relations for C 7q fractions.
Another widely used distribution model is the expo-
nential function ŽAhmed, 1989.. Soreide Ž1989.
modified Whitson’s method using on a constant
Whatson K factor to generate the distribution of
specific gravities. Riazi Ž1997. developed a two-
parameter distribution model to predict the properties
of the C 7q fraction. Results using Riazi’s method
were in excellent agreement with the experimental
data.
Several articles have addressed the procedures for
evaluating the accuracy of the experimental PVT
data ŽBashbush, 1981; Drohm et al., 1988a,b.. The
material balance check is considered the best tech-
nique for evaluating depletion experiments such as
the differential liberation test for black oil systems
and the constant volume depletion test for gas con-
densate systems. Another check is to use the Hoff-
man plot ŽHoffman et al., 1953. to identify the trend
of K-values at low pressures, which is useful for
separator test data. In some instances, it might be
possible to correct a material balance error in part of
the data by adjusting the mole fractions in order to
 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300 293

give K-values that fit the general trend that match R 2 Tc2
results of general PVT correlations or the EOS a s Va Ž 4.
Pc
ŽBashbush, 1981..
Many authors addressed the problem of modeling C s Ý z i Ci Ž 5.
the compositional variation in the hydrocarbon reser- i
voirs by EOS models. Sage and Lacy Ž1939. re- The values of both V a and V b are constants for all
ported a decrease in the light hydrocarbon fractions components and are equal to 0.45724 and 0.0778,
with increasing depth, and an increase in the heavy respectively. Also,
fraction with depth. Schulte Ž1980. proposed calcu-
lating the compositional variation with depth using m s 0.37464 q 1.5422 v y 0.26992 v 2 Ž 6.
an EOS-based calculation procedure. Montel and
EOS were generally developed for pure fluids and
Gouel Ž1985. proposed a calculation algorithm to
then extended to mixtures through the use of mixing
predict the vertical compositional gradient. Few au-
rules. The mixing rules for the two PR-EOS parame-
thors ŽHamoodi et al., 1994; Carison and Cawston,
ters, a and b, are as follows:
1996. addressed EOS modeling of some reservoirs
that have both areal and vertical compositional varia- (
Ž a a . m s Ý Ý x i x j ai a j a i a j Ž1 y k i j . Ž 7.
tions. Horizontal compositional variations signifi- i j
cantly affected the PVT behavior in these reservoirs.
bm s Ý x i bi , Ž 8.
The main objective of this paper is to arrive at i
one EOS model that describes the PVT behavior of
crude oil produced from different wells in a produc- where x is either the gas or the liquid mole fraction.
ing oil reservoir located onshore Abu Dhabi, UAE. BICs, k i j , may be determined from available correla-
The PR-EOS is used with the multi-well characteri- tions such as Pedersen et al. Ž1989..
zation technique. This is done along with an exten- Eq. Ž1. may be rewritten in the following reduced
sive checking of the accuracy of available experi- form based on the compressibility factor, Z:
mental data. To check the accuracy of this model, Z 3 q Ž B y 1. Z 2 q Ž A y 3 B 2 y 2 B . Z
the output from this model is compared with all
available experimental PVT data for the reservoir q Ž B 3 q B 2 y AB . s 0 Ž 9.
under consideration.
where,
Ž aa . m p
As 2 Ž 10 .
2. Equation of state model Ž RT .
bm p
The three-parameter ŽJhaveri and Youngren, 1984. Bs Ž 11 .
version of the Peng–Robinson Ž1976. EOS is used in RT
this study. The form of the EOS is: PV
Zs Ž 12 .
RT RT
Ps
ŽVybqC. Solution of this equation gives the compressibility
aa factor for both liquid and vapor phases.
y Ž 1. A multi-sample characterization technique adapted
V Ž V qb qC . qbŽ V y b qC .
by Whitson et al. Ž1988. is used in this model to
where, accommodate the vertical variation in the composi-
RTc tion. The C 7q fraction for all samples is character-
bsVb Ž 2. ized using the splitting procedures proposed by
Pc Whitson et al. Ž1988.. Whitson extended his standard
model in 1983, to account for compositional varia-
a 0.5 s 1 q m Ž 1 y Tr0.5 . Ž 3.
tion with depth. They proposed a probability density
294 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300

function to describe the relation between mole frac-
tion and mole weight. This method assumes that the
component distribution in a fluid can be represented
by a continuous, three-parameter, gamma probability
function. This function is in the form:
ay1
Ž MW y h . y Ž MW y h .
pŽ M . s exp
b 0aG Ž a . b0
a fluid samples for a certain faulted reservoir located
Ž 1 q ln Ž d . .
= .
d Ž MW y h . rb 0
Where a , b , and h are parameters defining the
distribution, G is the gamma function, a is a mea-
sure the shape of the distribution, h is the lowest
mole weight in the plus fraction, and b is a normal-
ized condition which can be determined from the
function:
MWNqy h s ab
The mathematical details of obtaining the molecular
weight distribution are discussed extensively by Sor-
eide Ž1989.. The output of this model is a set of
pseudo-components with fixed molecular weight and
critical properties but with varying mole fractions in
the different samples. Critical properties ŽTc , Pc , and
Vc . for the pseudo-component are estimated from
any available correlation such as the Lee–Kesler
correlation Ž1975. or Riazi and Al-Sahhaf correlation
Ž1996..
In order to ensure that the predicted model will
satisfy the phase equilibrium calculations as well as
the volumetric properties, we used all data form PVT
laboratory experiments for all valid samples. The
necessary data for the tuning process normally in-
clude the compressibility of unsaturated fluid, the
saturation pressure, and the gas–liquid ratio or the
liquid drop-out at various pressure stages below satu-
ration pressure.
3. Data
The available information in this study is a set of
a routine PVT laboratory data for six bottom-hole
Ž 13 . onshore Abu Dhabi, UAE. The data consists of the
reservoir fluid compositional analysis up to C 11q for
two wells, up to C 10q for three wells, and up to only
C 7q for one well. Differential liberation ŽDL., con-
stant-composition expansion ŽCCE., and separator
tests ŽSEPS. data are available for all wells with
complete analysis of extracted vapor during DL and
separator experiments. Table 1 illustrates the data
used in screening this reservoir. The reservoir pro-
Ž 14 . duces sweet black oil as the percentage of hydrogen
sulfide is negligible and the mole fraction of C 7q for
all samples is greater than 25%.
The data was first evaluated by plotting oil prop-
erties with depth to ensure a uniform vertical compo-
sitional gradient. The bubble point pressures and the
percentage of both methane and heptane plus are
used for such plots. Inspection of bubble point pres-
sure vs. depth, presented in Fig. 1a, reveals that the
samples W21 and W47 have a trend different from
the others. Fig. 1b is a plot of C 7q fraction vs.
depth. It shows a linear trend with increasing C 7q
mole fraction with depth, which is to be expected,
for four of the samples. The other two samples
belonging to wells W21 and W47 are off from the
trend. The variation of C 1 over the tested interval is
shown in Fig. 1c. It does not show a significant
change, but a small increase in C 1 percentage with

Table 1
PVT data screening for the field under consideration
Well no. Depth Žft ss. P b Žpsig. T Ž8F. N2 CO 2 C1 C2 C3 I-C 4 NC 4 I-C 5 NC 5 C6 C 7q
mol%
W47 9217 1840 255 0.15 2.64 28.7 6.57 5.7 1.26 4.01 2.37 2.62 4.31 41.67
W1 9003 1325 255 0.21 2.28 19.23 5.73 6.7 2.07 4.4 2.79 3.53 5.49 47.57
W3 9114 1248 255 0.47 2.53 17.74 5.4 6.38 2.09 5.24 2.99 2.88 5.43 48.85
W7 9231 1208 255 0.13 1.82 18.25 5.04 6.01 1.88 4.61 2.4 3.53 5.44 50.89
W10 9166 1181 255 0.24 1.84 17.9 5.1 6.06 1.84 4.42 2.49 3.43 5.17 51.49
W21 9320 1565 255 0.25 2.51 24.6 6.14 5.86 1.94 4.43 2.34 2.17 4.29 45.47
 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300 295

MWC 7q
g C 7qs isC Nq Ž 16 .
f i MWi
Ý gi
is7

where,

zi
fi s isNq Ž 17 .
Ý zi
is7

This makes each of the four samples to have a

lumped pseudo-component for all components start-
ing with C 7 and above. However, each of these
lumped fractions has a different average molecular
weight. The next step is to unify the molecular
weights of the plus fraction. This is done using the
splitting technique proposed by Whitson et al. Ž1988..
The plus fraction in each of the samples is split into
a number of pseudo-components. Each of these
Fig. 1. Ža. Bubble point pressure variation with depth. Žb. %mole
C 1 variation with depth. Žc. %mole C 7 variation with depth.
pseudo-components has the same molecular weight
in the four samples with different mole fractions in
each. Whitson’s method allows one to assign from
two to five pseudo-components for the C 7q fraction.
The choice of the number of pseudo-components
decreasing depth is noticeable. Again, the points for
was decided for the four samples based on the
wells W21 and W47 are off from the trend. These
predicted bubble point pressure. Table 2 is a compar-
plots indicated that fluids from wells W21 and W47
ison between the experimental bubble points and
are probably not in communication with fluids in the
bubble points predicted using the EOS model, each
other four wells, which is probably due to the faulted
time calculated with a different number of pseudo-
nature of the reservoir. This conclusion led to con-
components. The table shows that the minimum
structing the fluid EOS model for the reservoir based
percentage average absolute deviation Ž%AAD. is
on the fluids coming from the majority of the wells,
i.e. fluids from wells W1, W3, W7, and W10.

Table 2
4. Results Effect of C 7q fraction splitting on the predicted bubble point
pressure
For samples with compositional analysis to higher Well no. Experimental Predicted bubble point pressure
carbon number say, C 11q, a grouping scheme is bubble point using EOS Žpsig.
pressure
done in order to lump all the components to C 7q Žpsig. Number of pseudo-components
fraction. The molecular weight and specific gravity 2 3 4 5
for C 7q are calculated by the following two mixing W7 1208 1163 1231 1186 1188
rules relations proposed by Lee et al. Ž1981.: W3 1248 1218 1289 1242 1245
W10 1181 1154 1221 1177 1179
1 Nq
W1 1325 1268 1341 1239 1295
MWC 7qs Ý z i MWi Ž 15 . %AAD 3.18 2.44 1.26 1.08
z C 7q is7
296 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300

achieved when five pseudo-components are used. In Table 3

Table 2, the %AAD is defined as: Regression parameters before and after tuning
Variable Initial value Final value % Difference
n Pb Ž exp . y Pb Ž EOS . MW for C 7q of W7 219.23 227.64 3.83
%AADs Ý ABS
is1
ž Pb Ž exp . / i
= 100% MW for C 7q of W3
MW for C 7q of W10
214.16
211.77
228.33
232.50
6.62
9.79
Ž 18 . MW for C 7q of W1 214.00 232.09 8.45
Skewness parameter, 1.0 1.10 9.82
Since the model should also be able to predict other a , for W7
experimental data that are dependent on phase be- Skewness parameter, 1.0 1.06 4.85
a , for W3
havior and volumetric prediction, the proposed EOS Skewness parameter, 1.0 1.01 0.32
was used next to simulate the differential liberation a , for W10
and separator tests. Comparisons of these results, Skewness parameter, 1.0 1.07 6.14
using default EOS parameters, were not very satis- a , for W1
factory indicating the need for tuning of the EOS. Watson K factor 1.0 0.99 y0.44
To improve the phase equilibrium and volumetric
calculations predicted by the EOS, a number of
regression schemes were carried out to choose the
the molecular weight of C 7q, skewness parameter
most significant EOS parameters to perform tuning
for each sample, and the Watson characterization
on. One scheme is to modify the properties of the
before and after regression are illustrated in Table 3.
plus fraction such as the molecular weight of the
plus fraction, the skewness parameter for the molar
distribution of each sample, and the Watson charac-
terization factor. Fig. 2 shows a plot of the measured
molecular weight of the C 7q for the four samples
under study. It shows that there is no clear trend of
increasing molecular weights with depth. This may
either be due to the small difference between the
molecular weight of samples under study or to the
inaccuracies involved in measuring the C 7q molecu-
lar weight. It is of note that the ideal trend was also
not apparent in the data for three other fields re-
ported by Hamoodi et al. Ž1996.. Therefore, using
the C 7q splitting and characterization as regression
parameters is a reasonable selection. The values of

Fig. 3. Ža. GOR vs. pressure, DL test, Well W7. Žb. Bo vs.
pressure, DL test, Well W7. Žc. Liquid density vs. pressure, DL
Fig. 2. Variation of plus fraction molecular weight with depth. test, Well W7.
 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300 297

cates the significance of adjusting the previously

mentioned parameters.
Table 4 is a summary of the comparison between
experimental and simulated separator test results,
both before and after regression. The average abso-
lute error for the bubble point pressure is 1.16. An
excellent prediction already exists for the simulated
separator liquid density, with errors of less than
1.0%. Only a slight improvement in this property is
achieved by regression. The improvement in the
calculated and simulated Bo and especially GOR
values from the separator test is, however, quite
significant. The average absolute deviation for all
wells improved from 1.8% to 0.92% for Bo after
regression and from 7.5% to 1.4% for the GOR after
regression.

Fig. 4. Ža. GOR vs. pressure, DL test, Well W3. Žb. Bo vs.
pressure, DL test, Well W3. Žc. Liquid density vs. pressure, DL
test, Well W3.

Figs. 3–5 show the results of the differential

liberation test for three of the wells ŽW1, W3, and
W7, respectively. for which experimental DL data is
available. Each of these figures shows one of the
crude oil properties vs. pressure for each well. The
experimental data and two lines of simulated data are
shown on each figure. The first simulated line repre-
sents the EOS prediction with the default parameters
and the C 7q fraction split into five pseudo-compo-
nents as discussed above. The second line represents
the EOS prediction with the regressed parameters. In
each of these figures, the GOR, the Bo and the liquid
density are plotted vs. pressure for each well. It is Fig. 5. Ža. GOR vs. pressure, DL test, Well W1. Žb. Bo vs.
clear that there is a significant improvement in the pressure, DL test, Well W1. Žc. Liquid density vs. pressure, DL
simulated EOS values after regression, which indi- test, Well W1.
298 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300

Table 4
Comparison of experimental and simulated separator test data, before and after regression ŽScheme 1.
Well no. % Absolute deviation Ž%AD.
ro Žgrcm3 . Bob , bblrSTB Total GOR, MSCFrSTB
Exp. Before After Exp. Before After Exp. Before After
value regression regression Value regression regression value regression regression
W1 0.824 0.6067 0.188 1.321 3.7850 2.045 0.366 9.0163 1.749
W3 0.825 0.6060 0.1369 1.347 1.1135 0.1728 0.357 5.3221 0.273
W7 0.821 0.3654 0.3963 1.308 1.4525 0.6857 0.314 7.3248 3.505
W10 0.825 0.7272 0.3026 1.318 0.9863 0.7640 0.314 8.2802 0.256
Average of all wells 0.5763 0.2559 1.8343 0.9169 7.4858 1.445

To illustrate the effectiveness of the multi-sample
characterization scheme, it is compared with a com-
monly used scheme in which the V a and V b for
both C 1 and C 7q pseudo-components and the BIC
between the same components are varied through
regression. For this scheme, the %ADD for the
bubble point pressures after regression is 1.2% com-
pared to 1.08 before regression Žsee Table 2. for the
multi-sample characterization method. The compari-
son between calculated and experimental separator
data from this scheme is also presented in Table 5. It
shows that the prediction of this scheme is not as
effective as regressing on the C 7q splitting parame-
ters for the separator data.
From the previous results, it is apparent that the
multi-sample characterization scheme is suitable for
this reservoir since a good match for all PVT proper-
ties was attained. Another advantage of this scheme
is that it provided a systematic approach to tuning
and concentrates only on data that is not reliably
measured.
5. Conclusions
This work has demonstrated the usefulness of the
multi-well characterization method for modeling the
PVT properties of oil reservoirs. It provided a unique
EOS description that is valid for all samples tested.
We conclude with the following additional points:
1. Excellent results were obtained for the reservoir
under study using a combination of DL and sepa-
rator test data.
2. From the multiple options available to tune the
EOS, the characterization of the C 7q fraction was
sufficient to get a close match with experimental
values.

Table 5
Comparison of experimental and simulated separator test data, before and after regression ŽScheme 2.
Well no. % Absolute deviation Ž%AD.
ro , Žgrcm3 . Bob , bblrSTB Total GOR, MSCFrSTB
Exp. Before After Exp. Before After Exp. Before After
value regression regression Value regression regression value regression regression
W1 0.824 0.6067 0.892 1.321 3.7850 1.530 0.366 9.0163 5.733
W3 0.825 0.6060 0.977 1.347 1.1135 1.437 0.357 5.3221 2.069
W7 0.821 0.3654 0.0596 1.308 1.4525 0.629 0.314 7.3248 3.977
W10 0.825 0.7272 0.9666 1.318 0.9863 1.082 0.314 8.2802 5.081
Average of all wells 0.5763 0.7238 1.8343 1.169 7.4858 4.215
 R.A. Almehaideb et al.r Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 26 (2000) 291–300 299

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