Reservoir Limit Tests in a Naturally Fractured Reservoir - A Field Case Study Using Type Curves
Authors: Strobel C.J. , Gulati M.S. , Ramey H.J. 
Published: December 2007

Pressure buildup, interference, and pulse tests in a naturally fractured Pressure buildup, interference, and pulse tests in a naturally fractured dry gas reservoir are influenced by reservoir limits. Type curves are matched to test data to estimate drainage area and to compute porosity and permeability. Calculated porosity and permeability values compare well permeability. Calculated porosity and permeability values compare well with published data for natural fracture systems.

Introduction

The case studied is a dry gas reservoir in which three wells are completed. The wells are spaced 2 and 8 miles apart in a 10-mile line along the crest of an anticline with about 100 sq miles of closure (Fig. 1). The dashed contour in Fig. 1 is the drainage boundary that was initially estimated from geologic and production test data assuming a uniform gas-water contact. This drainage area is about 18 miles long and 3 miles wide. Only one productive stratigraphic unit is common to all three productive stratigraphic unit is common to all three wells. This is a naturally fractured zone of thinly bedded, clean orthoquartzites that accounts for 90 percent of deliverability at Well 1, 95 percent at Well 2, and 100 percent at Well 3. Type of completion, fractured zone thickness, and other reservoir data are presented in Table 1. No cores were taken directly from the naturally fractured orthoquartzite zone, but cores from other orthoquartzites had 2.5-percent average porosity and less. than 0.1-md permeability to air.

Test data studied in this field case history have two chronological groupings:data recorded when Well 2 was completed, consisting of one pressure drawdown and four pressure buildup tests at Well 2; anddata obtained 4 years later, consisting of pressure interference at Wells 3 and 1 caused by flowing Well 2 for 450 hours, pressure buildup at Well 2 immediately following the interference test, and pulse response at Well 3 caused by pulsing Well 2. The field was never on production except to conduct pressure transient and production except to conduct pressure transient and deliverability tests.

Analysis of the field tests data is organized into four sections:(1)general discussion of the pressure drawdown and buildup behavior in light of recently published well-test theory;(2)computation of porosity and published well-test theory;(2)computation of porosity and estimation of drainage area by matching the buildup data to type curves;(3)computation of porosity, permeability, and drainage area by matching the permeability, and drainage area by matching the interference data to type curves; and(4)analysis of pulse behavior in the presence of reservoir limits.

General Pressure-Buildup Behavior

Buildup Tests 1 through 4, recorded at completion of Well 2, are presented in Tables 2 through 5. The pressure drawdown corresponding to Buildup Test 4 is also pressure drawdown corresponding to Buildup Test 4 is also shown in Table 5. Fig. 2 is a graph of pressure as a function of the logarithm of time for the drawdown test. All four buildup tests are plotted in Fig. 3, using the technique of Horner.

Pressure buildup during Test 1 becomes a linear function of the logarithm of the Horner time ratio, and extrapolates to initial pressure at infinite shut-in time. Each of the other tests plotted in Fig. 3 has an early period in which pressure is a linear function of the period in which pressure is a linear function of the logarithm of the Horner time ratio and a late period in which pressure bends upward.

JPT

P. 1097