Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology
Volume 50, Number 7/8, July/August 2011, pp. 14-23

Summary

Modern production-decline analysis is a robust technique for analysis of production data from a well under variable operating conditions. It uses production rates and flowing pressures to provide reliable estimates of recoverable reserves and fluid in place. The mathematics behind this technique is similar to that of pressure-transient theory; however, the focus is different. It deals with long-term variable production data instead of short-term constant-rate transient data.

Using modern decline analysis for two-phase-flow conditions (e.g., gas/condensate reservoirs) is under question because of the single-phase-flow assumption in the development of a "material-balance time" function. This is a time function that converts any decline (e.g., exponential decline) to harmonic decline to account for variable operating conditions. The purpose of this work is to develop a model to use the concepts of modern techniques for analyzing production data of single-porosity gas/condensate reservoirs. For this purpose, the governing flow equation is linearized, using appropriately defined pseudopressure and pseudotime functions. Then, the solution is obtained for constant-well-rate condition. This is followed by employing the superposition theorem to account for variable well pressure/rate conditions, resulting in definition of two-phase material-balance pseudotime. The solution developed here is coupled with an appropriate material-balance equation and used to estimate the average reservoir pressure and original gas in place from analyzing production data. The dependency of relative permeability on capillary number and non-Darcy flow is included in the formulation.

Verification of the proposed method is obtained with the analysis of synthetic production data using a series of fine-grid compositional numerical simulations over a typical range of gas/condensate-reservoir parameters.

© 2011. Society of Petroleum Engineers

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History

• Original manuscript received: 12 January 2011
• Revised manuscript received: 5 April 2011
• Manuscript approved: 13 May 2011
• Published online: 1 July 2011
• Version of record: 14 July 2011