WHAT IS RESERVOIR ENGINEERING?

- Reservoir engineering may be defined as the art of "FORECASTING THE FUTURE

PERFORMANCE OF A GEOLOGIC OIL AND/OR GAS RESERVOIR FROM WHICH
PRODUCTION IS OBTAINED ACCORDING TO PROBABLE AND PREASSUMED
CONDITIONS", S.J.Pirson (1).

- Reservoir engineering is that "PHASE OF ENGINEERING WHICH DEALS WITH THE

TRANSFER OF FLUIDS TO, FROM, OR WITHIN NATURAL UNDERGROUND
RESERVOIRS. RESERVOIR ENGINEERING IS THE CORE OF PETROLEUM
ENGINEERING", J.C.Calhoun, Jr. (2).

- The reservoir engineer is, of course, concerned with "THE PRODUCTION OF OIL AND
GAS FROM THE RESERVOIR AND PRIMARILY WITH THE METHODS OF
STIMULATING OR INCREASING THE RECOVERY FROM THE RESERVOIR AS A
WHOLE", Amyx, Bass, and Whiting (3).

- In the process of illustrating the primary functions of a reservoir engineer, namely "THE
ESTIMATION OF HYDROCARBONS IN PLACE, THE CALCULATION OF A
RECOVERY FACTOR AND THE ATTACHMENT OF A TIME SCALE TO THE
RECOVERY", L.P.Dake (4).

- Reservoir engineering is "THE SCIENCE OF PRODUCING OIL AND GAS, IT

INCLUDES A STUDY OF ALL THE FACTORS AFFECTING THEIR RECOVERY.
ULTIMATELY RESERVOIR ENGINEERING IS OF CONCERN TO ALL PETROLEUM
ENGINEERS, FROM THE DRILLING ENGINEER WHO IS PLANNING THE MUD
PROGRAM TO THE CORROSION ENGINEER WHO MUST DESIGN THE TUBING
STRING FOR THE PRODUCING LIFE OF THE WELL", Craft and Hawkins (5).

- Reservoir engineering is that "SEGMENT OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERING WHICH IS

CONCERNED PRIMARILY WITH THE RESERVOIRS. RESERVOIR ENGINEERING
PRINCIPLES ARE CLOSELY RELATED TO DRILLING AND PRODUCTION
PRACTICES AND IN ORDER TO TAKE MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE OF THESE
PRINCIPLES IT IS NECESSARY TO CLOSELY COORDINATE RESERVOIR
ENGINEERING, DRILLING ENGINEERING AND PRODUCTION ENGINEERING
PRACTICES. THE PRINCIPLE FUNCTION OF A RESERVOIR ENGINEER IS TO
PREDICT THE FURTHER BEHAVIOR OF A PETROLEUM RESERVOIR UNDER THE
VARIOUS PRODUCING MECHANISMS WHICH ARE, OR MAY BECOME, AVAIL-
ABLE", Cole (6).

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Using the definition of reservoir engineering made by L.P. Dake(4), reservoir engineering;

1. Estimates the original oil in place

Equation 1 is used to estimate the original oil in place.

OOIP = Vb (1 - Swc ) (1)
where ;
OOIP = original oil in place, rbbl.
 = porosity, fraction
Swc = connate water saturation, fraction
Vb = bulk volume of the reservoir, bbl.

The areal extent and thickness of the producing zone should be known in order to estimate the
bulk volume of the reservoir. The extent of reservoir can be obtained by drilling new wells in
the field in a geometric pattern. Petrographic information and the water-oil saturations will
give us information about the extension of the reservoir. In order to estimate the thickness of
the producing zone, depths of Gas-Oil Contact (GOC) and Water-Oil Contact (WOC) must
be determined. Fluid pressures are used to estimate the GOC and WOC.
Other variables of Equation 1 (Swc, ) can be obtained from log and core data.
2. Estimates recovery factor

(Amount of hydrocarbon produced)

rOOIP (%) =  100 (2)
OOIP

OOIP  (1 - Swc)

(Amount of hydrocarbon produced)

rROIP (%) =  100 (3)
ROIP

ROIP  (1 - Swc - Sor)

where;
r = recovery factor, %
ROIP = recoverable oil in place, rbbl
Sor = residual oil saturation, fraction

The recovery mechanism affects Sor. During depletion periods drive mechanisms are gas cap
pressure and water table rising. Above bubble point pressure the drive mechanism is due to
the expansion of reservoir fluids and rock itself (compressibility), below bubble point pressure
gas comes out the solution and expansion of gas creates required energy. This is called as

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solution gas drive mechanism. In water table rising, the mechanism may be the expansion of
water due to the compressibility of water. It is called as a water drive reservoir. The most
efficient drive mechanism is the gravity drainage, which is due to the density differences, but
it is very slow. The common values for the efficiencies of different drive mechanisms are
shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Efficiencies of different drive mechanisms

Drive mechanism Efficiency (%)

Solution gas drive 20
Water drive 40 - 60
Gas cap drive 40 - 60
Gravity drainage 75

3. Attaches a time scale to recovery

- Pressure versus time relationship must be estimated.

- Pressure in well changes with production.
- To estimate the pressure in reservoir, the reservoir has to be modeled.
- Modeling means to write the events in the reservoir in a mathematical way.

The economics of various operating plans is an integral part of any reservoir engineering
study. A study of the recovery to be expected from various operating plans along with an
economic analysis of these plans, will determine the need for pressure maintenance, secondary
recovery, cyclic or other operations. From his/her studies, the reservoir engineer must
recommend an operating plan, which will yield the maximum net income, usually expressed
in terms of worth. Since the oil company is in business to make a profit on its investments, the
usual objective in oil-producing operations is the realization of the maximum profit, and not
necessarily the maximum recovery of oil from a reservoir. Fortunately, maximum recovery of
oil from a reservoir will usually result in maximum profit.

PETROLEUM RESERVOIRS

Oil and gas accumulations occur in underground traps formed by structural and/or
stratigraphic features. Fortunately they usually occur in the more porous and permeable
portions of beds, which are mainly sand, sandstones, limestones, and dolomites, in the
intergranular openings, or in pore spaces due to joints, fractures, and solution activity.
A reservoir is that portion of a trap, which contains oil and/or gas as a single hydraulically
connected system. Many hydrocarbon reservoirs are hydraulically connected to various
volumes of water bearing rock called aquifers. Many reservoirs are located in large
sedimentary basins and share a common aquifer. In this case the production of fluid from one
reservoir will cause the pressure to decline in other reservoirs by fluid communication through
the aquifer. In some cases the entire trap is filled with oil or gas, in this case the trap and the
reservoir are the same.

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Under the temperatures and pressures encountered in modern deep wells, reservoir fluids
behave in strange and unexpected ways. A prerequisite to good reservoir performance
forecasting is a dependable knowledge of reservoir temperature and pressure in addition to
precise information on the physical behavior of gas, oil, and water under reservoir conditions.
In general, hydrocarbons may be found in the reservoir in one of the following physical states:
- Undersaturated petroleum
- Saturated petroleum
- Condensate petroleum, and
- Dry gas
Under initial reservoir conditions the hydrocarbon fluids are in either a single-phase or a two-
phase state. The single phase may be a liquid phase in which all the gas present is dissolved in
the oil. There is therefore dissolved gas as well as oil reserves to be estimated. On the other
hand the single phase may be a gas phase. If there are hydrocarbons vaporized in this gas
phase, which are recoverable as liquids on the surface, the reservoir is called gas condensate.
In this case there are associated liquid reserves as well as the gas reserves to be estimated.
Where the accumulation is in a two-phase state, the vapor phase is called the gas cap and the
underlying liquid phase, the oil zone. In this case there will be four types of reserves to be
estimated: the free gas, the dissolved gas, the oil in the oil zone, and the recoverable liquid
from the gas cap. Although the hydrocarbons in place are fixed quantities, the reserves, that
is, the recoverable portion of the in place gas, condensate, and oil depend upon the method by
which the reservoir is produced.
From a technical point of view, the various types of reservoirs can be defined by the location
of the initial reservoir temperature and pressure on pressure-temperature phase diagrams.
Figure 1 is the pressure-temperature phase diagram of a particular reservoir fluid. The area
enclosed by the bubble-point and dew point lines to the lower left is the region where both gas
and liquid phase will exist. The curves within the two-phase region show the percentage of the
total hydrocarbon volume that is liquid for any temperature and pressure.
Consider a reservoir containing the fluid of Figure 1 initially at 300 oF and 3700 psia, point A.
Since this point lies outside the two-phase region, it is originally in a one-phase state,
commonly called gas as located at point A. Since the fluid remaining in the reservoir during
production remains at 300 oF, it is evident that it will remain in the single-phase or gaseous
state as the pressure declines along path AA1. Furthermore, the composition of the produced
well fluid will not change as the reservoir is depleted. This is true for any accumulation of this
composition where the reservoir temperature exceeds the Cricondentherm, or maximum two-
phase temperature. Although the fluid left in the reservoir remains in one phase, the fluid
produced through the wellbore and into surface separators may enter the two-phase region
owing to the temperature decline, as along line AA2. This accounts for the production of
condensate liquid at the surface from a gas in the reservoir. Of course, if the cricondentherm
of a fluid is below say 50 oF, then only gas will exist on the surface at usual ambient
temperatures, and the production will be called dry gas. Nevertheless, it may contain liquid
fractions that can be removed by low-temperature separation.
Next, consider a reservoir containing the same fluid of Figure 1 but at a temperature of 180 oF
and an initial pressure of 3300 psia, point B. Here the fluid is also initially in the one-phase

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state, commonly called gas, where the reservoir temperature exceeds the critical temperature.
As pressure declines because of production, the composition of the produced fluid will be the
same as for reservoir A and will remain constant until the dew-point pressure is reached at
2700 psia, point B1. Below this pressure a liquid condenses out of the reservoir fluid as for or
dew, and this type of reservoir is commonly called a dew-point reservoir. This condensation
leaves the gas phase with a lower liquid content. Because the condensed liquid adheres to the
walls of the pore spaces of the rock, it is immobile. Thus the gas produced at the surface will
have a lower liquid content, and the producing gas-oil ratio therefore rises. This process of
retrograde condensation continues until a point of maximum liquid volume is reached, 10 %
at 2250 psia, point B2. The term retrograde is used because generally vaporization, rather than
condensation, occurs during isothermal expansion. Actually, after the dew point is reached,
because the composition of the produced fluid changes, the composition of the remaining
reservoir fluid also changes, and the phase envelope begins to shift. The phase diagram of
Figure 2 represents one and only one hydrocarbon mixture. Unfortunately for maximum liquid
recovery, this shift is toward the right, and this further aggravates the retrograde liquid loss
within the pores of the reservoir rock.
Neglecting for the moment this shift in the phase diagram, for qualitative purposes
vaporization of the retrograde liquid occurs from B2 to the abandonment pressure B3. This
vaporization aids liquid recovery and may be evidenced by decreasing gas-oil ratios on the
surface. The retrograde liquid in the reservoir at any time is composed to a large extent of
methane and ethane by volume, and so it is much larger than the volume of stable liquid that
could be obtained from it at atmospheric pressure and temperature.
If the accumulation occurred at 2900 psia and 75 oF, point C, the reservoir would be in a one-
phase state, now called liquid, because the temperature is below the critical temperature. This
type is called a bubble-point reservoir; as pressure declines, the bubble point is reached, in this
case at 2550 psia, point C1. Below this point, bubbles, or a free-gas phase, will appear.
Eventually the free gas evolved begins to flow to the well bore, and in ever increasing
quantities. Conversely, the oil flows in ever decreasing quantities, and at depletion much
unrecovered oil remains in the reservoir. Other names for this type of liquid reservoir are
depletion, dissolved gas, solution gas drive, expansion, and internal gas drive.
Finally, if this same hydrocarbon mixture occurred at 2000 psia and 150 oF, point D, it would
be a two-phase reservoir, consisting of a liquid or oil zone overlain by a gas zone or cap.
Because the composition of the gas and oil zones are entirely different from each other, they
may be represented separately by individual phase diagrams that bear little relation to each
other or to the composite. The liquid or oil zone will be at its bubble point and will be
produced as a bubble-point reservoir modified by the presence of the gas cap.

DRIVING MECHANISMS
The question that arises, what forces the petroleum hydrocarbons to the wellbore so that they
can be produced at the surface?
The expulsive energy operating on the fluids in a primary reservoir is essentially confined to
four sources, namely;

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 1. External driving fluid energy under hydrostatic head, usually edge and bottom waters.
Gas cap expansion may also be considered as driving its energy from an external
source. (water drive, gas-cap drive).
2. Internal driving energy, from gases in solution at reservoir pressure (solution gas drive
or depletion drive).
3. Potential energy, or energy of position owing to the action of body forces, usually
gravitational pull because of density differences in the reservoir fluids. (gravity
segregation).
4. Surface energy of reservoir fluids as a result of capillary forces (capillary pressure).
Production from most reservoirs is accomplished as a result of a combination of one or more
of the previously mentioned forces. Thus a reservoir will be referred to as a combination drive
reservoir when two or more of these driving forces are largely responsible for the oil
production.
However, when the reservoir is producing predominantly under only one driving force, and
where other forces may contribute in only a small way to production, the reservoir, for
convenience, is usually referred to as operating under a single driving force.

DISTRIBUTION OF HYDROCARBON FLUIDS IN RESERVOIRS

Porous rocks are fluid permeated containing oil, gas, or water. Gravitational and Capillary
forces largely control the distribution of these fluids in petroleum accumulations.
The gravitational forces cause the less dense fluids to seek the higher positions in the
reservoir. Capillary forces tend to cause a wetting fluid to rise into pore space containing a
non-wetting fluid. Water, in general is a wetting fluid with respect to oil and gas, and oil is a
wetting phase with respect to gas. Capillary tends to counteract the force of gravity in
segregating the fluids. Prior to the disturbance of the accumulation, equilibrium exists
between the capillary and gravitational forces.
Typical fluid distributions resulting from the equilibrium of these forces are shown
schematically by sectional views of a domal trap in Figure 2. Also illustrated in the figure are
possible modes of occurrence of gas: (a) solution gas, (b) associated free gas, (c) non-
associated free gas.
The accumulation of crude oil is shown in Figure 2.a. At conditions of pressure and
temperature existing in the trap only oil and water are present. The oil is accumulated in top of
the trap and is underlain by water. Between the oil zone and water zone, an oil-water
transitional zone exists. The pore space of the rock in the oil zone contains a small amount of
water (commonly called CONNATE WATER). The fraction of the pore space occupied by
water increases with depth in the transitional zone so that the base of the transitional zone is
delineated by completely water saturated pore space. Natural gas initially occurs in such a
reservoir only as solution gas.
An accumulation in which both crude oil and natural gas occur at the conditions of pressure
and temperature existing in the trap is shown in Figure 2.b. The natural gas occupies the

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highest position of the trap and forms a gas cap. The crude oil occupies an intermediate
position and is underlain by water. Transitional zones are shown both between the gas and oil
and between the oil and water. These are zones of variable saturation in the wetting and non-
wetting fluids. Connate water exists in the gas cap as well as in the oil zone. The natural gas
occurring in such an accumulation is comprised of the associated free gas in the gas cap and
the solution gas dissolved in the crude oil.
An accumulation of only natural gas is shown in Figure 2.c. The gas zone is underlain by a
gas-water transitional zone and water. The gas zone contains connate water saturation, which
increases with depth in the transitional zone. The gas in this accumulation is non-associated
gas, as no crude oil exists in the accumulation.
REFERENCES
1. Pirson, S.J., (1958) Elements of Oil Reservoir Engineering, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, New York.
2. Calhoun, J.C., (1960) Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering, University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman.
3. Amyx, J.W., Bass, D.M.Jr., Whiting, R.L., (1960) Petroleum Reservoir Engineering-
Physical Properties, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
4. Dake,L.P., (1978) Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering, Elsevier Scientific
Publishing Company, Amsterdam.
5. Craft, B.C., Hawkins, M.F., (1961) Applied Petroleum Reservoir Engineering,
Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey.
6. Cole, F.W., (1961) Reservoir Engineering Manual, Gulf Publishing Company,
Houston, Texas.

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 Figure 1. Pressure-temperature phase diagram of a reservoir fluid(5)

Figure 2. Sketch showing typical fluid distributions in hydrocarbon reservoirs:

(a) Oil reservoir, (b) associated oil-gas reservoir, (c) non-associated gas reservoir(3).