OTC-28468-MS

Optimizing Well Test Design Using Integrated Rate and Pressure Transient
Analysis in Fracture Basement Reservoirs

Mohammad Ebrahim Yazdi, Eghbal Motaei, and Nader Ghadami, Petronas

Copyright 2018, Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Offshore Technology Conference Asia held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 20-23 March 2018.

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Abstract
Production data analysis is the key to provide pertinent reservoir information in-terms of reservoir container
volume, depletion mechanism, reservoir connectivity and well performances. This study focused on the
analytical methods such as Rate Transient Analysis (RTA), Flowing Material Balance (FMB), Pressure
Transient Analysis (PTA) and analytical simulation as an integrated approach toward enhanced production
data analysis in the oil fields. The idea of FMB has been introduced by Mattar (1997) and it is generally
applied to determine the oil or gas in-place volumes using flowing pressure data (Mattar and Anderson,
2005). The main objective of this study was to establish a standardized methodology for production data
analysis, illustrate its added value to reservoir performance monitoring as well as its advantages for well
test design and how it would help for cost optimization during an expensive Extended Well Test (EWT)
for an exploration well.
In this paper, the above mentioned methods and workflow is elaborated and a case study using this
integrated approach is discussed for better understanding of the methodology.

Methodology
One of the first prerequistit for applying RTA is to reach Pseudo-Steady State (PSS) dominated flow regim,
where pressure waves as a result of production reached to all boundaries. One of the simple cross plot where
can be used as diagnostic is p-q plot (Kabir et al, 2006). p-q plot or Kabir plot helps to differentiate between
transient flow regime and boundary-dominated flow. This diagnostic plot demonstrates the variation of
bottom-hole pressure versus well flow rate. As depicted in Figure 1, the flowing pressure will drop with
increase in rate while well flows in steady state in infinite reservoir. Once the pressure wave touched the
boundary the flowing pressure at same rate will drop and trend of flowing pressure becomes positive slope
in the Pseudo-Steady State (PSS) flow regime. So simply a plot of flow rate versus flowing pressure (either
well head or bottom-hole, preferably BHP) provides a good understanding of the dominant flow regime. In
other words, Kabir diagnostic plot delivers useful data for well potential evaluation, performance monitoring
and similarly, reservoir connectivity across the wells.
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Figure 1—Typical Diagnostic Kabir Plot

The time span of production data is very important, the bigger the reservoir, the longer production data is
required to see the decline in the measured senses such as well head pressure and decline in the rate as well.
In conventional clastic and carbonate reservoirs, observing the decline will take months or even years to
see the decline, while in unconventional reservoirs such as fractured basement reservoirs and gas reservoirs
the connected volume to the wellbore is very limited so the PSS regime establishes in few days or weeks
depends upon reservoir and fluids properties. Therefore, it allows to implement RTA in early days of
production period for reservoir characterization and calculating minimum connected volume.
In this study, the following procedure were applied:
– Data quality control (QC): The pressure pitfalls such as measurement errors, production allocation
induced errors, and lack of synchronization between pressure and production rate were filtered from
further investigation.
– RTA techniques were conducted to characterize well and reservoir properties (permeability, skin
factor) and distinguish wells connectivity. In addition, type curve analysis such as Fetkovich (1980),
Blasingame (Palacio and Blasingame, 1993), and Agarwal (1999) were conducted and results
compared and checked for consistency.
– FMB utilizes the concept of conventional material balance and Darcy flow. However, the flowing
pressures were utilized in this approach instead of shut-in pressures.
– RTA techniques merely use the flowing pressure data while PTA is capable of incorporating the shut-
in data as well.
– In this work, deconvolution and analytical simulation were implemented to corroborate the RTA
outcomes. Moreover, it helps to understand the geometry of the reservoir and drainage area of the
well with respect to connected volume.
Authors published the application of RTA in the conventional gas fields for reservoir characterization
(Ataei et al 2017) and approved its capability and value creation. The below is the highlight of production
data analysis benefits:

• Simple, only use Rate and Flowing Pressure

• Fast, can replace a lengthy modelling

• Accurate, as it based on fundamental RE equations

• Unique information, on Reservoir Characterization and Forecasting

• Bring Basic Knowledge / Less Simulation dependence

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• Integrate surveillance and study team together in one platform

• Extremely useful when it combines with PTA, and MBAL

• Proved to be effective in understurated Oil and Gas reservoirs

As a proved methodology, the RTA methodology has been applied on fractured basement oil.

Case Study
A fractured basement reservoirs is selected for this study to demonstrate the proposed approach. The
presented case is under-saturated oil reservoirs. The field is located in offshore Malaysia. The following
workflows were applied.
– As the most important part of RTA, input data QC was accomplished and unreliable pressure points
discarded.
– Figure 2 exhibits Agarwal-Gardner type curve as a RTA application. As shown in this figure, the
pressure points fall in the pseudo-steady state (PSS) regime (late straight line of normalized rate
versus material balance time). Connected volume was estimated using these portion of data. Besides,
skin and formation permeability were determined after matching data on the type curve.
– Blasingame type curve also has been utilized to confirm the derived properties in step 2 (Figure-3).
Properties which are derived from single phase part of the data, can be used for reservoir property
determination. It is noted that BDF stem falls below typecurve once multiphase phase flow condition
in the reservoir is established (i.e. GOR increase, pwf falls below pb). This effect is very similar to
interference effects on typecurve and should be taken into account when doing multiwall analysis.
– For FMB, the data were subjected to QC and selected points are plotted as shown in Figure 4 (the grey-
shaded data were filtered out). Straight line of the oil normalized rate versus normalized cumulative
production indicated the PSS flow regime and the connected volume was obtained by extrapolation
to zero oil rate. As can be seen, once GOR starts to increase, data are deviating from straight line.
As gas releases and its saturation increases in the reservoir, oil relative permeability will be affected.
This could be the cause of beding down of data on FMB plot.
– Analytical model was constructed to validate the estimated reservoir properties from type curves and
FMB. Figure 5 presents the results of analytical simulation model. The pressure history of the build-
up section was matched practically with radial composite model which was confirmed by geological
environment of the reservoir.
– Deconvolution showed in Figure 6 reveals the PSS flow regime in the derivative plot. In addition,
it gives the average formation permeability of the drained area which is comparable with derived
permeabilities from Agarwal-Gardner and Blasingame typcurves.
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Figure 2—Agarwal Type curve

Figure 3—Blasingame Type curve

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Figure 4—Connected volume estimation using FMB in pseudo-steady state flow regime and Multiphase flow Impact

Figure 5—Analytical simulation for reservoir characterization using PTA

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Figure 6—Deconvolution analysis for identification of reservoir features

Optimizing Well Test Design by Applying RTA/FMB Techniques

The connected volume from deconvolution method (PTA) is estimated to be about 18 Kstb using whole
test period which is almost 400 hour. The same results is derived by FMB and RTA techniques using
production period interval within 120 hours excluding long shut-in period. In other words, the well potential,
reservoir permeability within under-depletion radius and reservoir extension could be addressed by applying
production data analysis without shu-in well for such a long time.
Extended Well Test (EWT) is conventional way of well test approach in fractured basement reservoirs
to appraise the fracture extension, well potential and its sustainability and also reservoir properties. The
cost element of the extended well test in the basement fields as marginal fields is very high compare to
the drilling well cost itself. Besed on HSE requirements and company policies with regards to no-flaring
during flow period which is ususally weeks for EWT, storage requirement for produced oil in a rental vessel
increase the well cost even more. Considering all mentioned operational and logistics requirements and high
associated costs for an exploration well, buildup period can be optimized by continuous monitoring of the
flow period. Value leakage as a results of optimization using RTA concept will be minimized.

Recommendations on Well Test implementation and Interpretation

On top of well test design relied on RTA, implementation of RTA to collect all necessary data is very
critical. Missing puzzle pieces will put not allow to paint a right picture or will disturb it. Below is the
recommendations for EWT optimization in fractured basement reservoirs to collect all the required data to
be acquired and analysed:
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1. Consider Surface Read Out (SRO) for down-whole in the well test to grant access to the pressure
online.
2. Perform early flow (2-3 hours) to get fresh reservoir fluid into wellbore and surface.
3. Perform early build up (3-4 hours) to measure initial reservoir pressure. This is due to lack of chance
of measuring intitial reservoir pressure using wireline formation tester.
4. Proceed with well clean up.
5. Use fixed choke size after clean up period and maintain it to monitor rate decline, the higher choke
size, the better chance of reliable flow period for RTA to avoid back pressure and establish the decline
in rate as long as GOR remain quite stable.
6. Optimize flow period by continuous analysis of the data during operation.
7. Once the test objectives such as minimum connected volume, well potential and reservoir extension
is met, stop the test.
8. Monitoring gas oil ratio and the water production is recommended.
9. Tubing head pressure consistency with flowing bottom-hole pressure should be checked.
Above points are referring to the operational aspects that could be considered in the EWT design as well
to optimize the flow period to achieve the objectives.

Conclusion
In this study, a workflow was established for production data analysis in an oil reservoir. This methodology
is simple to apply but delivers valuable data for understanding of reservoir connectivity, connected volume
estimation, and well performance monitoring. As part of the workflow, the results of different methods were
compared. They were consistent and delivered the same features and properties. Moreover, it is functional
to be implemented as a reservoir surveillance and reservoir characterization tool.
The fast-track examination of the data indicated that the reservoirs with short period of data are generally
not eligible for type curve analysis but FMB offers reliable outcome even in this situation. RTA and PTA
should be integrated for full understanding of reservoir properties as PTA provides near wellbore and
reservoir features at a given period of time whereas RTA covers the full feature range across the time.
Considering the results of the studies, it was recognized that PTA requires longer time to reveal same level
of output (e.g. drainage radius) as RTA. Therefore, in the case of well testing in Exploration/Appraisal wells,
it is highly recommended to use RTA for cost optimization and maximizing data value. The results of these
analytical efforts were consistent with those of dynamic and tank models for all reservoir cases.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank PETRONAS and PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd (PCSB) management for
their support and permission to present and publish this paper. We also would like to thank iHS Company
for their valuable supports to complete the study.

References
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