WELL BORE AND RESERVOIR PROBLEMS AFFECTING THE WELL PERFORMANCE:

Introduction:
The engineering work for sustaining and enhancing oil and gas production rates starts from identifying problems that cause low production rates of wells, quick decline of the desirable production fluid, or rapid increase in the undesirable fluids. Following are the factors that put influences on wellbore and reservoir performances:

1)
a)

For oil wells, these problems include, Low productivity (Excessive gas production, Excessive water production or Sand Production)

2)

For gas wells, the problems include:

b)

a) Low productivity Excessive water production, Liquid loading c) Sand production and production logging are frequently needed to identify the causes of other well

Although sand production is easy to identify, well testing problems.

A) Low Productivity:
The lower than expected productivity of oil or gas well is found on the basis of comparison of the wells actual production rate and the production rate that is predicted by Nodal analysis. If the reservoir inflow model used in the Nodal analysis is correct (which is often questionable), the lower than expected well productivity can be attributed to one or more of the following reasons: 1) Overestimate of reservoir pressure 2) Overestimate of reservoir permeability (absolute and relative permeabilitys) 3) Formation damage (mechanical and pseudo skins) 4) Reservoir heterogeneity (faults, stratification, etc.) 5) Completion ineffectiveness (limited entry, shallow per forations, low perforation density, etc.) 6) Restrictions in wellbore (paraffin, asphalting, scale, gas hydrates, sand, etc.) Note: The first five factors affect reservoir inflow performance, basis of pressure transient data analyses. that is, deliverability of reservoir and can be evaluated on the

B) Excessive Water Production:

Excessive water production is usually from water zones, not from the connate water in the pay zone. Water enters the wellbore due to channeling behind the casing (Fig. 15.14), preferential flow through high-permeability zones (Fig.1), water coning (Fig. 2), hydraulic fracturing into water zones, and casing leaks.

Figure1: Water production due to channeling behind the casing

Figure 2: Preferential water flow through

high-permeability zone

C) Excessive Gas Production:

Excessive gas production is usually due to channeling be- hind the casing (Fig. 15.9), preferential flow through high- permeability zones (Fig. 3), gas coning (Fig. 4), and casing leaks ( figure: 5)(Clark and Schultz, 1956).

Figure: 3

Gas production due to channeling behind the casing (Clark and Schultz, 1956).

Figure:4

Gp due to preferential flow through high-permeability zones (Clark and Schultz, 1956).

Figure:5

Gas production due to gas coning (Clark and Schultz, 1956)

D) Liquid Loading of Gas Wells:

Gas wells usually produce natural gas-carrying liquid water and/or condensate in the form of mist. As the gas flow velocity in the well drops because of reservoir pres sure depletion, the carrying capacity of the gas decreases. When the gas velocity drops to a critical level, liquids begin to accumulate in the well and the well flow can undergo an annular flow regime followed by a slug flow regime. The accumulation of liquids (liquid loading) increases the bottom-hole pressure, which reduces gas production rate. A low gas production rate will cause gas velocity to drop further. Eventually, the well will undergo a bubbly flow regime and cease producing

E) Sand Production:
The production of formation sand with oil and or gas from sandstone formation creates a number of potentially dangerous and costly problems. Losses in production an occur as result of sand partially fill up inside the wellbore if flow velocities cannot transmit the produced sand on the surface; this may cause shut of production entirely.

Formation Damage is another problem is associated with both gas and oil wells that produced sand unchecked. The possible creation of void space behind the casing can leave the casing and any shale streaks in the reservoir unsupported. Specifically, casing the casing is subjected to heavy (compressive) load causing collapse or bulking. The much less permeable shaley streaks that remain can collapse around the perforated casing causing sever irreparable restriction to production. Failure to prevent a casing from sand production at early stage may cause devastating effect on tubing and casing in shape of corrosion.

Evaluation Technique Of Well Performance:

The well performance can be evaluated by Productivity index (P.I). Defined by symbol j. Productivity is the ratio of the total liquid flow rate to the pressure drawdown. For water free oil Production, the productivity index is given by:

--------------1)
Where Q0= oil flow rate , STB/day J= Productivity Index Pwf= Bottom hole Pressure P=draw Down, Psi The Productivity index generally measured during a production of test on the well. The well is shut in until the static pressure pressure is reached. Then well is allowed to produce at a constant flow rate of Pwf. Since a stabilized pressure at a surface does not necessarily indicate a stabilized Pwf, the bottom hole flowing pressure should be recorded continuously from the above equation (1). It is important to measure P.I when well is reached to Pseudo steady state, as shown in figure

Figure 6:

P.I during Flow regimes.

Productivity index numerically can be find from :

-----------------2)
The above equation is combined with Equation 1):

---------------3)
The Kro (Oil relative Permeability) concept can conventionally introduced into Equation:

Since the most of the life well is spent in a flow regime that is approximately the pseudo state, the Productivity is a valuable methodology for predicting the future performance of wells. The Specific Productivity index can be calculated as:

------------4) Or

------------5)

Figure:7

Q0

Vs

P relationship

Alternatively Equation 1) can be further modified as:

----------6)
The above expression show that plot Pwf against Qo is straight line with a slope of (1/-J), as Show below figure:

Figure 8:

Inflow Performance curve

Then AOFP can Calculated form:

--------7)

Hydraulic Fracture:
Many reservoirs must be hydraulically fractured to become economically productive. Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting a large volume of proppant-laden fluid at a pressure sufficiently high to fracture the formation. After the fracturing fluid leaks off into the formation, the remaining proppant keeps the fracture open. Although a hydraulic fracture is narrow (a fraction of an inch in most cases), the presence of this high-permeability channel significantly enhances the productivity of the well. The presence of a fracture alters the flow regime inside the formation as the fluid flows into the fracture and then through the fracture into the wellbore, with very little or no fluid flowing directly from the formation into the wellbore. The presence of a Hydraulic fracture adds another dimension to the fluid flow in porous media and to well test design and analysis. Three types of fractures have been presented in the literature: infinite conductivity, uniform flux, and finite conductivity. These fractures are discussed below.

1) Infinite-Conductivity Fracture:
In this case, the fracture permeability is significantly higher than the formation permeability, causing the pressure drop inside the fracture to be negligible compared to the pressure drop in the formation. Practically, this situation is achieved when dimensionless fracture conductivity is higher than 100. As the presence of the infinite-conductivity fracture , fluid in the porous medium immediately surrounding the fracture and start to flow into the fracture as soon as the well is put on production. Since the stream lines are perpendicular to the fracture face, the flow pattern during this early time period is linear. The dimensionless pressure is given by the following equation:

---------8) As more volume of the reservoir starts contributing to production, the flow pattern becomes elliptical. After a long time period, this elliptical flow may be approximated by a radial flow pattern. This period is usually referred to as pseudo radial flow:

---------10) Figure (9)is the log-log type curve of a well intersecting an infinite-conductivity fracture. The early-time period is a line with a slope of one-half, indicating the presence of linear flow in the formation.

Figure 9):

Type curve for a well intercepting an infinite-conductivity fracture

The fracture length may be calculated from the skin factor using:

-----------11)

2) Uniform-Flux Fracture:
In this case, it is assumed that the flow rate from the formation into the fracture is uniformly distributed across the fracture face. This solution was initially used to approximate fluid flow in naturally fractured formations. The use of this model for that purpose has significantly declined in recent years, in favor of the dual-porosity models. However, we have found that many of the acidized, naturally fractured reservoirs tend to follow this model, especially reservoirs located in the Middle East. As in the case of the infinite-conductivity fracture, the fracture length may be is slightly different: calculated from the skin factor. However, the equation

----------12)

3) Finite-Conductivity Fracture:
It is more realistic to assume that a hydraulic fracture will have a finite conductivity. In this case, the pressure drop inside the fracture is not negligible when compared to the total pressure drop in the system. The flow regime in a reservoir that has a finite-conductivity fracture is significantly more complex than in the case of infinite-conductivity fractures. The flow regimes experienced during producing or testing a finite-conductivity fracture are represented by:

Figure:10

Fracture flow regimes

At very early time, fluid inside the fracture expands and starts flowing towards the wellbore, forming an early linear flow inside the fracture. This period is controlled by both the conductivity and diffusivity of the fracture. This flow period will appear as a one-half slope, straight line on the type curve for a fractured well. This flow period is at very early time, and it would probably not be recorded or it would be masked by the presence of wellbore storage. Therefore, although this flow period may be of technical interest, it does not have much significance from a practical point of view.

Fractures with Changing Conductivity:

During the creation of a hydraulic fracture, the conductivity may vary from one place in the fracture to another. Several works have studied this effect (Bennet et al., 1983; Soliman, 1986a; Soliman et al., 1987). Using both analytical and numerical simulators, Soliman (1986b) showed the choking effect of having low fracture conductivity near the wellbore as well as the effect of using a tail-in of better proppant near the end of the fracturing treatment. It was concluded that the effect of fracture conductivity distribution is more complex than was thought at the time. Soliman (1986b) has also calculated the optimum conductivity distribution inside the fracture.

Figure: 11

Optimum conductivity distributions inside a hydraulic fracture

This optimum conductivity distribution indicates that if conductivity within the fracture follows a certain distribution pattern, a fracture may behave as if it had uniform conductivity equal to the one at the wellbore. Poulsen and Soliman (1987) presented a procedure to convert the curves in Fig. 11 into an optimum proppant distribution, thereby producing an optimum fracture design. This procedure could lead to the use of less proppant and to a lower chance of sand-out. At the same time, it does not compromise the performance of the designed fracture.

Effect of Low Fracture Conductivity:

As the fracture conductivity declines, the fracture becomes less efficient. Parts has studied this problem analytically, producing Fig. 12-12. Before we discuss this figure, we need to define the conductivity term used by Parts:

-----------13)
and thus,

----------14)