Diagnosis of reservoir compartmentalization from measured pressure/rate data during primary depletion

Abstract

This paper presents a simple diagnostic tool to identify reservoir flow behavior from a Cartesian pressure/rate graph during primary production. Some of the benefits of the proposed tool are its simplicity without requiring any calculations, leading to understanding of reservoir compartmentalization and application of an appropriate material-balance technique. Data diagnosis entails graphing pressure with rate and discerning trends; positive slope signifies the pseudosteady-state (PSS) flow period, whereas the negative slope implies infinite-acting (IA) flow. Constant-rate production exhibits infinite slope whereas constant-pressure production produces zero slope. Mathematical justifications for these diagnostic signatures are presented. During PSS flow, wells belonging to the same container will exhibit the same slope. Differences in slope are an indication of reservoir compartmentalization, lateral or vertical. Equally important we provide mathematical proof of why different wells in a multiwell reservoir system should have the same slope. Field examples from multiple gas and gas/condensate systems show how the proposed tool works in practice.