van Batenburg

This my first column as Executive Editor of the Reservoir Engineering (RE) part of SPE Res Eval & Eng. I would like to start by thanking Anil Ambastha for his efforts as Executive Editor during the last 3 years. As RE Executive Editor of SPE Res Eval & Eng, Anil managed the review of more than 300 papers and reduced the average turnover time to 60 days per RE paper. I am happy that Anil has decided to continue as an Associate Editor for the journal.

This brings me to the peer-review process, which is an essential part of SPE’s mission to disseminate knowledge. The peer-review process aims to guarantee the quality of the published papers as well as a timely review of all submitted papers to expedite the sharing of new ideas and knowledge. Currently, SPE Res Eval & Eng has approximately 30 Associate Editors and a large pool of Technical Editors who do the actual reviewing. However, to maintain the quality and timely delivery of reviews, we need more qualified people who want to commit to conduct paper reviews. If you are interested, please look at http://www.spe.org/authors/docs/pr_process.pdf.

This issue brings you 10 papers that reflect areas of current activity in the industry. Two papers on formation evaluation discuss new, better, and faster ways to collect data during drilling and also during injection processes. There are three papers that provide improved understanding of tight-gas-development schemes and resource quantification. Three other papers cover aspects of different enhanced-oil-recovery processes.

Formation Evaluation

Characterization of Sampling-While-Drilling Operations presents the results of a study that compares the quality of sampling-while-drilling operations with conventional wireline-formation-sampling techniques. High-Resolution Reservoir Monitoring Using Crosswell Seismic provides a brief description of the measurement theory and its capabilities and illustrates the application of the technique with two case histories.

Tight Gas

Impacts of the Number of Perforation Clusters and Cluster Spacing on Production Performance of Horizontal Shale-Gas Wells presents the results of a simulation study that aims to quantify the geomechanical effects of fracture spacing in horizontal wells used in tight gas developments on the production performance of such wells. Probabilistic Production Forecasting for Unconventional Reservoirs With Stretched Exponential Production Decline Model presents a probabilistic performance forecasting method for stimulated wells in unconventional gas reservoirs with and without production histories. A New Analytical Method for Analyzing Linear Flow in Tight/Shale Gas Reservoirs: Constant-Rate Boundary Condition presents an analytical method for analyzing pressure responses in tight gas reservoirs completed with wells with multiple fractures.

Enhanced Oil Recovery

The Role of Diffusion for Nonequilibrium Gas Injection Into a Fractured Reservoir contains a study that illustrates how the oil production from a fractured dolomite field that has been produced for 50 years could benefit from using the same reservoir for gas storage. The increase in oil production is governed by the diffusion of gas components into the oil. Validation of Toe-to-Heel Air-Injection Bitumen Recovery Using 3D Combustion Cell Results presents simulation results that demonstrate that laboratory results of air-injection experiments with an unconventional injector/producer geometry can be reproduced numerically. Thermally Active Polymer To Improve Sweep Efficiency of Waterfloods: Simulation and Pilot Design Approaches presents a workflow for the evaluation of the technical feasibility of in-depth conformance treatments, which may improve the sweep efficiency of waterfloods.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Storage of CO2 as Hydrate in Depleted Gas Reservoirs presents results of a simulation study that evaluates the technical feasibility of CO₂ storage as hydrate in depleted methane gas reservoirs.

Reservoir Simulation

Gas Lift Optimization Using Proxy Functions in Reservoir Simulation the paper describes an efficient gas lift optimization scheme that combines single well type analysis with surface network analysis depending on the interaction between the wells.

The above papers were all reviewed and ultimately approved in the peer-review process. However, the conclusions presented in these papers are not cast in stone. As sharing of knowledge and experiences is essential, SPE welcomes further "discussion" of any paper published in any SPE journal. Therefore, please feel free to submit a discussion of a paper to SPE. I look forward to receiving such discussion letters.

Diederik van Batenburg
Shell