Pressure Buildup Behavior in a Two-Well Gas-Oil System
Authors: Earlougher R.C. , Miller F.G. , Mueller T.D. 
Published: December 2007

In analyzing pressure buildup tests for field wells producing both oil and gas, the common practice is to use a modification of single-phase flow theory. Validity of such an approximation has been demonstrated for single-well solution-gas-drive systems. This paper indicates that such approximations are also valid for two-well solution-gas-drive systems, which infers that the technique can be used for multiple-well systems. A computer was used to simulate the behavior of a two-well solution-gas-drive reservoir to test the validity of the above type of analysis. Simulation results indicate that pressure buildup tests in such a system can be analyzed within engineering accuracy for formation permeability and pressure. A rule of thumb is given for estimating the length of time a well must be shut in for the pressure in a nearby producing well to increase significantly. To observe such an increase, the shut-in well would have to be left shut in much longer than normal.

INTRODUCTION

An important technique for obtaining data concerning a producing petroleum reservoir is the pressure buildup test. Such a test, when properly conducted and analyzed, provides information on the average reservoir pressure and the permeability in the major drainage area of a well. The theory upon which the analysis of a pressure buildup test is based assumes that the behavior of the fluid in the reservoir is adequately described by the diffusivity equation.1 Use of the diffusivity equation implies that a single fluid of small and constant compressibility is flowing. To analyze a pressure buildup test in situations which involve more than one fluid phase, the single-fluid analysis is extended. This paper verifies the extension of pressure buildup analyses to two-phase, two-well systems.

Miller, Dyes and Hutchinson1 have presented a technique for analyzing pressure buildup tests in circular bounded reservoirs. Their method requires that the reservoir be producing at pseudo-steady state (constant pressure-gradients) prior to shutin. An alternate reservoir model, presented by Horner,2 assumes that the reservoir is infinite. The Homer model does not assume a pseudosteady state prior to shut-in, but the assumption that the reservoir is infinite implies that the average pressure can be determined only if the total production prior to shut-in is small compared to the total fluid originally present.

Limitations imposed by the pseudo-steady state and infinite reservoir assumptions are avoided by the technique proposed by Matthews, Brons and Hazebroek.3 Their method can be used to calculate both the permeability and the average pressure in bounded single-well systems which are not necessarily at steady state. They also suggested determining the average pressure of a multi-well reservoir producing from pseudo-steady state by volumetrically averaging the static pressures of the individual wells. Matthews and Lefkovits4 used numerical simulation techniques to verify that this method does produce adequate results for single-phase, multiple-well systems.

Perrine5 proposed modifications to the single-phase theory so that pressure buildup tests in multiple-phase systems could be analyzed. He suggested replacing the single-phase mobility (k/µ) by the sum of the mobilities of the individual phases, and replacing the fluid compressibility by an average compressibility weighted by the saturations of the separate phases. By using numerical techniques to solve the two-phase flow problem for a single-well system, he concluded that this approximation gives results within engineering accuracy. More recently, Weller6 has shown that, for a gas-oil system with a single well at the center of a circular reservoir, pressure buildup tests can be analyzed adequately by using the modification proposed by Perrine. Weller's results also indicate that, as the gas saturation increases, this analysis becomes less accurate.