PRESSURE TRANSIENT

TESTING [WELL TEST

A N A LY S I S A N D
I N T E R P R E TAT I O N ]
LECTURE 1

INTRODUCTION TO WELL
TEST INTERPRETATION
 OUTLINE
• Applications of Well Testing
• Alternatives to Conventional Well Testing
• Forward and Inverse Problems
• Well Test Interpretation Methods
• Rock and Fluid Properties
• Graph Scales
• Summary
 P E R S E N TA S E N I L A I
• Kehadiran 10%
• Tugas 30%
• Kuis 5%
• UTS 25%
• UAS 30%

• A >80
• D >= 35
 INTRODUCTION
Well Test
Interpretation?

Change in
Production Examine & Analyze
Rate (Q)
Information
about
reservoir

Response from Formation

Pressure
 INTRODUCTION

Identification of the presence and Qualitative

nature of a no-flow boundary; Information
Presence down-dip aquifer; etc

Reservoir
Management
Decisions

Estimate distance to the boundary;

Quantitative
Reservoir permeability; Information
Skin;
Average Pressure; etc
A P P L I C AT I O N O F W E L L
TESTING
 TEST TYPES
Deliverability To obtain fluid samples

Tests vs
Transient
Deliverability To determine well deliverability

Tests Tests To determine the well potential

To develop IPR curve for system analysis

To estimate formation permeability

Transient To estimate average drainage area pressure

Tests To evaluate stimulation treatment effectiveness

To estimate drainage area and/or fluid in place

 TEST TYPES

Multiwell The rate is changed at one well (active well), the pressure

Multiwell
response is measured at one or more offset (observation)
wells;

Tests vs Usually run to quantify the degree of communication

Single-
between wells;

Well Tests Tests To estimate directional permeability

The rate is changed and the pressure response is measured at

Single-
the well being tested;
To quantify the degree of damage or stimulation;

To estimate formation permeability;

Well Tests To estimate the drainage area or fluids in place;

To estimate the average drainage area pressure

 TEST TYPES
Buildup The well is shut in/closed, then the
Tests vs
Drawdown
Buildup pressure response is measured
The pressure will increase during

Tests
the test
Tests

The well is opened for production,

Drawdown ideally at constant rate, then the

pressure response is measured

Tests
The pressure will decrease during
the test
 TEST TYPES
Exploration- Focus on the entire reservoir
Well Tests vs
Development-
Exploration To obtain fluid sampling

Well Tests Well Test Estimate initial reservoir pressure, distances to boundaries, and fluids
in place
Evaluate well productivity

Expensive

Focus on the individual well and the near-wellbore area

Development Estimate average drainage area pressure and reservoir

Well Tests permeability

Evaluating stimulation treatment effectiveness and
quantifying wellbore damage
Inexpensive relatively to Exploration Well Test
A P P L I C AT I O N A N D O B J E C T I V E S
O F W E L L T E S T I N T E R P R E TAT I O N

Exploration and Appraisal

• “How much oil or gas does this reservoir contain? ; “At what rate can wells in this
reservoir produce?”

Reservoir Engineering
• “What is the in-situ permeability?”; “What are the nature of and distances to
reservoir boundaries?”; “What is the average reservoir pressure?”

Production Engineering
• “Is the well damaged?”; “How effective was the stimulation treatment?”
A LT E R N AT I V E S T O
CONVENTIONAL WELL
TESTING
 W I R E L I N E - F O R M AT I O N T E S T I N G
• Small amount of fluid (a few liters) is
withdrawn from a short interval (1 m or
less).
• The pressure response is recorded during
both the withdrawal and the shut-in
period.
• Formation testing can provide multiple
small-scale measurements of in-situ
permeability and pressure across the
reservoir interval.
• Multiple downhole samples may also be
Tests can be conducted open hole or in collected at different depths.
cased hole
W I R E L I N E - F O R M AT I O N T E S T I N G

Limitation

• Limited depth of investigation

• Provides little or no information about lateral reservoir boundaries
• In high permeability formations, limited production volumes create
insufficient pressure response, lead to failure in estimating
permeability
• Small-scale permeability estimation must be scaled up before use in
forecasting well performance
• Limited used of skin factors obtained from the test
 W I R E L I N E - F O R M AT I O N T E S T I N G
Applications Collection of downhole fluid samples
of wireline
formation
testing
include: Estimation of formation pressure and permeability
as a function of depth
Identification of depleted zones

Estimation of vertical permeability

 PERMANENT MONITORING

Advantages

• Allow shut-in periods that occur as a result of normal

production operations to be analyzed as buildup tests 
eliminating the expense of loss or deferral of production
• Provide frequent tests allowing continual monitoring of skin
factor, reservoir permeability, and movement of fluid
contacts  allowing timely remedial action
 PERMANENT MONITORING
Disadvantages
Data quality is not as good as from conventional tests

Permanent monitoring must include both rate and

pressure measurements

Automated preprocessing and analysis are essential

due to the large quantity data acquired
 R AT E - T R A N S I E N T A N A LY S I S

Advantages Disadvantages

Lower cost of data collection Rate-transient data are typically noisier

Early time data are often inadequate to reliably

The ability to reach a much larger radius of investigation
distinguish between damaged and undamaged wells

Difficult to track changes in skin factor, effective

permeability, and drainage pressure over time
 R AT E - T R A N S I E N T A N A LY S I S
• Primary application is
• Estimate, for moderate to low permeability wells,:
• Permeability
• Stimulation effectiveness
• Drainage area or original hydrocarbons in place

• For estimating original hydrocarbons in place and reserves in low permeability reservoirs where it
is difficult (if not impossible) to estimate average reservoir pressures for material balance analysis
 LOG-DERIVED PERMEABILITY
E S T I M AT E S
• In many reservoirs, it may be possible to develop correlations
• Typically, core data will be used to identify two or more distinct rock types. Separate correlations
are developed for each rock type.
• The correlations are calibrated with permeability estimates from wireline-formation testing or
core analysis.
• Log permeability correlations have to be custom built for each rock type in each formation.
• Log-derived permeabilities must be scaled up to use in preformation forecasting or comparison
with permeability estimates from conventional pressure-transient tests.
 C O R E A N A LY S I S
• Conventional core analysis provides measurements of fluid saturations, porosity,
and absolute permeability.
• Special core analysis may provide measurements of capillary pressure, relative
permeability, and stress-dependent porosity and/or permeability.
• It is often difficult to relate laboratory-derived permeabilities to those obtained
from pressure-transient test interpretation or required for performance
forecasting.
 C O R E A N A LY S I S
• Some of the reasons for this difficulty include
Differences in scale
• Core plug sizes  centimeters or inches;
• pressure-transient testing measures permeabilities over distances of tens of feet to several hundred feet

Differences in conditions
• Conventional core analysis are conducted at room temperature and low confining pressures
• Pressure-transient testing provides estimates of permeability at in-situ temperature and stress conditions

Differences in fluid
• Conventional core are typically conducted using air under single-phase conditions
• Pressure-transient testing provides estimates of permeability to reservoir fluids with reservoir fluid saturations
 C O R E A N A LY S I S

Incomplete core recovery

• Incomplete core recovery may be particularly significant in
unconsolidated sands or in thick formations.

Fracture permeability not captured

• Virtually all of the bulk permeability in naturally fractured
reservoirs is provided by the fracture network.
• If the fractures are widely spaced, a core may not intersect a
representative sample of the fractures.
 C O R E A N A LY S I S

Improper lab technique

• The use of inappropriate lab technique may cause irreversible
changes in the core during cleaning and drying

Biased core plug sampling

• If lab personnel are inexperienced or lack adequate training,
core plugs may be preferentially selected from the more
permeable portions of the whole core.
F O R WA R D A N D I N V E R S E
PROBLEMS
F O R WA R D P R O B L E M

A forward (direct) problem has

a unique solution
INVERSE PROBLEM
Well test interpretation is an inverse problem.
An inverse problem does not have a
unique solution; many different
models can produce the same output
for a given input.

The two central problems of well testing are

1. To identify the unknown reservoir model,
2. To estimate the unknown parameters of
that model
WELL TEST
I N T E R P R E TAT I O N
METHODS
S T R A I G H T- L I N E M E T H O D S

Identify • Identify data that exhibit a specific type

of flow or flow regime, such as infinite-
data acting radial flow.

• The data are then graphed, after

Graphed the transforming pressure and time variables to
data account for non-ideal phenomena or flow
conditions.

Drawn • Finally, straight-line is drawn

through the data exhibiting the
straight-line desired flow regime.
 S T R A I G H T- L I N E M E T H O D S
Advantages:
1. Straight-line methods were historically the first
methods to be used in the petroleum industry.
Slope of
Straight- 2. Easy to perform by hand or implement in a spreadsheet.
line 3. When the desired flow regimes are present and can be
correctly identified, straight-line analysis methods give
Intercept
of
excellent results.
Straight-
line
Disadvantages:
1. Often require the pressure and time data be transformed.
2. Specific flow regimes must be present to determine certain
reservoir properties.
Reservoir properties 3. Because straight-line methods use only data within a single flow
(permeabilities and/or well regime, there is no guarantee that the resulting parameter
properties such as skin factor) estimates will be consistent with the rest of the pressure data.
 TYPE-CURVE METHODS

Graphs on a log-log Matched Estimate properties

scale

• The analyst • The field data • The shape and

graphs the graph is matched position of the
pressure and to the pressure field data
time data on a response from an relative to the
log-log scale. ideal reservoir type curve are
model. used to estimate
permeability,
skin factor,
wellbore storage,
etc.
 TYPE-CURVE METHODS
Advantages: Less likely to give inconsistent results, because type-curve consider more
data than straight-line methods.

On-screen matching with computer-generated type curves is fast and

flexible.

Disadvantages: The procedure of using type-curve manually with paper type-curves is

tedious and time-consuming. Paper type-curves are available for only a
limited number of different reservoir models.

Some commercial well test software packages have limited type-curve

matching capability.
 S I M U L AT I O N A N D H I S T O R Y
M AT C H I N G
Use an analytical or numerical model
• It is used to calculate the pressure response for known reservoir
properties and assumed values for unknown reservoir properties.

The values of the unknown properties are adjusted

• It is adjusted until the calculated pressure response matches the
observed field data.
• Matching may be conducted manually, or automatically using a
nonlinear regression algorithm.
 S I M U L AT I O N A N D H I S T O R Y
M AT C H I N G
Advantages:
• More phenomena can be incorporated in the analysis  ensuring consistency of the
interpretation with the entire data set.

Disadvantages:
• Very time-consuming, unless good initial estimates of the unknown reservoir
properties are available.

In practice;
• The best workflow is to begin with type-curve and straight-line methods to get
initial estimates of reservoir properties, then use simulation and history matching to
verify or to fine-tune those initial estimates.
ROCK AND FLUID
PROPERTIES
 ROCK AND FLUID PROPERTIES

A variety of rock and fluid property data are used as input data in well test
interpretation.

These data can be categorized as

Rock property data, usually obtained from openhole logs;

Fluid property data, usually obtained from correlations or lab measurements;
Other data
 ROCK PROPERTIES
• Porosity, Ф, is measured of the capacity of the reservoir rock to store
Typical porosity value for different
fluids. lithologies
• It defined as the ratio of the volume of the pore space to the total or
bulk volume of the reservoir rocks.

• When used in equations in well test interpretation, porosity is always

expressed as a fraction.
• Porosity may vary over a wide range, depending on the type of
reservoir.
• Porosity estimates from openhole logs typically have an uncertainty
of 5% to 15%.
 ROCK
PROPERTIES
• Saturation
• Defined as the fraction of pore space occupied by a particular fluid.
• Almost all reservoir rock have a nonzero water saturation.
• In well test interpretation, we usually assume that the water is
Typical water saturation values for
immobile. In this case, water saturation is referred to as connate or
different lithologies
irreducible water saturation.
• Generally, the lower the porosity the higher the irreducible water
saturation.
• Water saturations estimates from logs may have uncertainties of
10% to 40%.
 ROCK PROPERTIES

Permeability, k, is a measure of capacity of a porous medium to transmit fluid.

Permeability varies over an extremely wide range.

The permeability measured in the laboratory under single-phase conditions is called absolute permeability.

The permeability estimated from well test data is the effective permeability to the flowing fluid.
 ROCK PROPERTIES
• Pore-volume compressibility, cf ,or formation compressibility or rock compressibility is defined
as the fractional increase in pore volume corresponding to a unit increase in pore pressure.

• For limestones and consolidated sandstones, the pore-volume compressibility increases

significantly with decreasing initial sample porosity.
• For friable and unconsolidated sandstones, the pore-volume compressibility bears little
relationship to porosity.
• Errors in pore-volume compressibility may have a dramatic impact on estimates of original oil in
place obtained from pressure-transient tests.
 ROCK
PROPERTIES
• Pore-volume compressibility can be obtained from special core analysis measurements
of stress-dependent porosity from the slope of a graph of ln Ф vs. net overburden
pressure.
 ROCK
PROPERTIES
• Net Sand Thickness, h, is the thickness of the reservoir actually
contributing to flow of reservoir fluids.
• For purposes of well test interpretation, net sand thickness is measured
in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the upper and lower bed
boundaries.
• For deviated well producing from a horizontal reservoir (Fig. b),
measured depths on the logs must be converted to true vertical depths
(TVD) to estimate net pay.
• For a vertical well (Fig. c) or deviated well (Fig. d), intersecting a
dipping reservoir, neither the measured depth nor the TVD represents
the net sand thickness.
• In a horizontal well (Fig. e), the wellbore may not penetrate the full net
sand interval.
 ROCK PROPERTIES
• Even without having to make depth corrections for a deviated well or a dipping pay zone, net
sand thickness is one of the more difficult parameters to estimate accurately.
• Therefore, the results of well test interpretation are often presented as a permeability-thickness
product, kh, instead of a permeability, k.
• Net sand thickness is normally estimated from openhole logs by using porosity, clay content, and
water saturation cutoffs.
• Log-derived net sand estimates may have uncertainties from 15 to 50%.
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• Fluid properties may be estimated from correlations or obtained from laboratory measurements on
reservoir fluid samples.
• Formation volume factor, B, is defined as the volume of fluid at reservoir conditions necessary to
produce one unit of the same fluid at surface conditions.
• It is a measure of the change in volume of fluid as it is produced from the reservoir to the stock tank
or pipeline.
• The formation volume factor must account for
1. Decrease in volume because of the decrease in temperature from the reservoir to the surface,
2. Increase in volume because of the decrease in pressure from the reservoir to the surface,
3. For oil and water, decrease in volume because of the loss of dissolved gas.
 FLUID
PROPERTIES Bubblepoint pressure

• For oil at pressures above the bubblepoint pressure

(undersaturated oil), the formation volume factor
increases with decreasing pressure.
• For oil at pressures below the original bubblepoint
pressure, where the oil is in equilibrium with a free
gas phase (saturated oil), the formation-volume
factor decreases with decreasing pressure.
• This effect is most pronounced at low pressures.
 FLUID
PROPERTIES
• The gas formation volume factor, Bg, is the volume of gas at reservoir
conditions necessary to give 1 Mscf of gas from the separator and is
approximately inversely proportional to pressure.
• The water formation-volume factor is a monotonically decreasing
function of pressure. The slope is greater for undersaturated water than
for saturated water.
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• The coefficient of isothermal compressibility, c, or simply called compressibility, is the fractional
decreased in fluid volume corresponding to a unit increase in pore pressure.
• For gases, the compressibility may be defined as
• At pressures above the bubblepoint pressure, the oil and water compressibilities are defined as ;
• For undersaturated oil, the oil compressibility is typically only one-tenth () that of the same oil at
pressures below its original bubblepoint pressure.
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• For oil or water containing dissolved gas, the compressibility
includes the effects of gas coming out of solution as well as
expansion of the oil itself.
• At pressure above the bubblepoint pressure, the oil volume
actually decreases as gas comes out of solution.
• At pressure below the original bubblepoint pressure, the oil and
water compressibilities are defined as
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• The gas compressibility is approximately equal to 1/p at
low pressures (p < 1000 psi).
• At higher pressures, this approximation is not very good,
but it still provides a useful rule of thumb.
• For an ideal gas, the compressibility is exactly 1/p.
• The oil compressibility increases by a factor of ten as the
pressure drops below the bubblepoint pressure.
• A similar effect causes the water compressibility to increase
by a factor of perhaps two as the pressure drops below the
bubblepoint pressure.
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• Viscosity is a measure of the ability of a fluid to flow under an applied shear stress.
• For flow in porous media, the viscosity determines how easily the fluid flows through the porous media in the presence of a
pressure gradient.
• Oil viscosity may vary over an extremely wide range. In contrast, water and gas viscosities lie within rather narrow ranges.
• For gas, the viscosity is only a weak function of pressure. At low pressures,, where the gas behavior is similar to an ideal gas,
the viscosity is roughly independent of pressure. As the pressure increases, the gas viscosity increases somewhat.
• The water viscosity is a monotonically increasing function of pressure.
 FLUID PROPERTIES
• For undersaturated oil, the viscosity decreases with decreasing pressure.
• For saturated oil, the viscosity increases with decreasing pressure as gas comes out of solution in
the oil. This effect is most pronounced at low pressures.
 OTHER PROPERTIES
• The total compressibility reflects change of both pore volume and fluid volume with change in
pressure:

• Typically, for undersaturated oil reservoirs, the total compressibility will be close to that of the oil
alone.
• But this is not always the case; for a heavy oil, in a low porosity carbonate, for example, the pore-
volume compressibility may be as high as 100x10-6 psi-1, while the oil compressibility may be no
more than 2x10-6 psi-1 .
• For gas reservoirs, the gas compressibility usually dominates (especially for low-pressure gas
reservoirs), but occasionally, the pore-volume compressibility can be significant.
 OTHER
PROPERTIES
• The wellbore radius appears in many well testing equations.
• It is recommended that the wellbore radius be calculated
from the nominal bit size. This allows the performance of
the well to be compared to do that of a well drilled in gauge
through the formation, completed open hole, with neither
damage nor stimulation.
• Errors in wellbore radius have only a minor impact on well
test results.
GRAPH SCALES
 PROPERTIES OF SEMILOG AND
LOG-LOG SCALES
• In well testing, we often refer to the number of log cycles.
• On a logarithmic scale, one log cycle is equivalent to a change in value by a factor
of 10.
• The distance from 1 to 10, from 25 to 250, and from 0.0137 to 0.137 are all one log
cycle in length.
• One-half of a log cycle is one-half the distance between adjacent powers of ten,
equivalent to a change in value by a factor of .
• Similarly, one-third of a log cycle is equivalent to a change in value by a factor of .
 Logarithmic scale Cartesian Scale

PROPERTIES OF SEMILOG AND

LOG-LOG SCALES
• The logarithmic time axis of the semilog and log-log scales expands the early-time data.
• On a Cartesian scale, 90% of the data will occupy 90% of the scale. On a logarithmic scale, the
last log cycle will contain 90% of the data.
 PROPERTIES OF
SEMILOG AND
Perfect fit of field data, or is it? LOG-LOG SCALES
Cartesian scale
• When a specific graph scale is chosen to emphasize a
particular part of the data, another part of the data is
Field data not so perfectly fit when viewed o a different simultaneously de-emphasized.
scale
• This can cause important features or behavior of the
data to be overlooked unless the interpreter looks at
several different scales as routine practice.
• The analyst must always use multiple types of graphs
to ensure that unusual behavior is not overlooked.
Logarithmic scale
 PROPERTIES OF SEMILOG AND LOG-
LOG SCALES
Why does the log-derivative curve show spike
On this scale, this pressure data does not
when the pressure change curve is smooth? look smooth.
SUMMARY
 SUMMARY
• Well testing is an inverse problem.
• Alternatives to conventional well testing include wireline formation testing (WFTs), continuous monitoring with
permanent gauges, rate-transient analysis, log-derived permeability estimates, and core analysis.
• The two major task of well test interpretation are model identification and parameter estimation. Parameter estimates
are meaningless if an inappropriate model is selected for the interpretation.
• Well test parameter estimation methods may be grouped into one of three classes: straight-line methods, type-curve
methods, and simulation/history matching.
• The logarithmic scale compresses late-time data such that 90% of the data fall in the last log cycle of the graph. For data
in infinite-acting radial flow, the last log cycle also represents 90% of the reservoir volume investigated during the test.
• Relying on a single graph scale for interpretation may cause important behavior to be overlooked, leading to invalid
results.