IPTC 16565

Application of a New Method to Estimate Free Fluid Level and Recognition

of Compositional Grading Using Wireline Formation Testing Data
S.Khajooie, National Iranian Oil Company-Exploration Directorate, M.Qassamipour,National Iranian Oil Company-
Exploration Directorate, M.Farhani, National Iranian Oil Company-Exploration Directorate

Copyright 2013, International Petroleum Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference held in Beijing, China, 26–28 March 2013.

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Abstract
Determination of fluid contacts in a hydrocarbon reservoir is extremely important in calculation of initial hydrocarbon in
place and field development planning. The uncertainty in the present fluid type and fluid levels may have a significant impact
on the reserves estimation and well completion strategies. Wireline Formation Testing is widely used to discover fluid
contacts (or its generic term, Free Fluid Levels). Precise analysis of pressure data obtained from these tests is crucial in
defining the type of fluid and fluid contacts.
Although the traditional method of P-D Plot to determine a Free Fluid Level (FFL) is easy to implement, however it has the
disadvantage of lack of information on uncertainty of the analysis. It is often difficult to identify and remove noisy data
which may result in inaccurate estimation of contacts.
A method has been mentioned in the literature by which Fluid Level is discovered using formation pressure data that are
projected to a datum depth. With this method, it is very simple to find noisy data points which contribute to uncertainty in the
FFL estimates. Another benefit of applying such method is to authenticate compositional grading presence in the reservoir.
Also it can discriminate layers with different pressure behaviors in a multilayered reservoir.
In this paper, several wireline formation testing data such as data from MDT and RFT tools -in different fields in Middle
East- have been analyzed by previously mentioned method. A good agreement was observed between the results of this
method and other data like petrophysical interpretation, geological evidences, DST results and finally PVT analysis. Also a
correlation has been developed to confirm existence of compositional grading and a strategy has been proposed to calculate
the rate of density change with depth in those reservoirs where variation of density is not extremely nonlinear.

Introduction

Information about fluid contacts in a reservoir is crucial for reserve estimation in exploration wells and also for decisions
about well completion strategies and field production schedules in developing wells. The uncertainty in the location of the
fluid contacts has a significant impact on the reserves estimate and future decision on production wells.1-4
There are different Modern Wireline Formation Testing tools like Schlumberger's MDT/XPT which could measure reservoir
formation pressure with high accuracy. In a reservoir with considerable mobility, reservoir formation pressure is directly
proportional to in-situ fluid density. One of invaluable information which could be obtained from formation pressure is
determination of fluid contacts and fluid density in non-disturbed field by production operation.5-7 In addition, this
information is more beneficial in exploration fields, because there is no any other data such as PVT analysis, Well test and
production data to evaluate different zones of reservoir.
To interpret formation pressure data and evaluate fluids density and contacts, there is a traditional and graphical method
which plots measured pressure against depth. This plot is known as P-D plot and fluid contacts would be determined through
intersecting of two straight lines. But there are problems like supercharging, wettability effects and depth measurement errors
that can make it difficult to acquire representative pressure data and hence limit fluid gradient accuracy and reliability.8 Also
compositional grading, highly layering and other factors may lead to incorrect interpretation of pressure-depth data. Although
the implementation of P-D plot is easy; it is often difficult to distinguish normal and uncertain pretest data that can result in
incorrect fluid contacts and density estimation.
In this study, a method which has been mentioned in the literature was applied to field data. This approach involves data
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visualization and normalization procedures to evaluate the statistics of the Free Fluid Level estimate. Actually this formation
pressure interpretation method is a diagnostic tool which utilized information on the uncertainty analysis.
In this method pressure at datum depth which is the difference between the measured pressure and the pressure expected from
the weight of a fluid between the datum and the depth of the pressure measurement is plotted against depth using an arbitrary
fluid density, datum depth and measured pressure. This normalization of formation pressure data indentify uncertain data,
layering of formation reservoir and density variation of reservoir fluid which describe in the next section.

Methodology

The new method which has been mentioned before in the literature8 is reintroduced here. Through this method Free Fluid
Level could be estimated using pressure at datum depth defined as:

(1)

Where is the pressure at datum depth (psi), is the measured pressure (psi), is the pressure gradient of that phase
(psi/ft), is datum depth (ft), is depth of measured pressure (ft) and subscript refers to the phase which could be oil, gas
or water. It is noticeable that the datum depth should not be far from measured depths, since incorrect results will be attained.
Equation (1) can be reordered and resulted in the equation (2):

(2)

If the pressure gradient of reservoir fluid ( ) is estimated correctly, the above equation would reduce to following:

(3)

The above equation shows that the plot of pressure at a datum depth versus depth would be a horizontal line, provided that
pressure gradient ( ) has been estimated precisely.
In this procedure at first 3 graphs (Pdg, Pdo and Pdw) are plotted using equations 4, 5 and 6 for all three phases by defaulting
common values for gas, water and oil pressure gradients (e.g: )

Pd q  Pg   g (Dg  Dd) (4)

Pd o  Po   o (D o  Dd) (5)

Pd w  Pw   w (D w  Dd) (6)

A plot like that in Figure 1 will be obtained. Looking at Figure 1 will give us several points about the proposed method:
 The supercharge points will be discovered by a high peak relative to the other points. As it can be seen the
second point from right is a supercharged pretest in this example.
 We find out which ones of the pretest results will be useful for pressure gradient determination and fluid
contacts.
 If the pretest results do not follow the same pressure gradient at a desired depth interval, it will be characterized
through the difference in datum pressure. For example at depth interval of 2800-3200 m, the plot of datum
pressure against depth is horizontal line for water, which indicates presence of water at this zone. Also because
no horizontal line is attained for gas phase in whole interval, this tested interval does not have any gas bearing
zone.
IPTC 16565 3

Pd (psi) Gas

Oil

Depth
Figure 1: plot of synthetic datum pressure versus depth for three phase (oil, water and gas)

Since the proposed pressure gradients for each phase is on the range of their variations, it is expected to obtain near
horizontal line in that interval, if that phase is present in the reservoir. In Figure 1, since there is a near horizontal part in oil
and water graph, only two phases (oil and water) are present in this formation.

Then precise pressure gradient can be achieved by changing phase gravities to a value until horizontal line is obtained in
desired phase region. Figure 1 has been plotted with typical values of gas, oil and water gravities equal to 0.1, 0.3 and 0.45
psi/ft respectively. As it is obvious from graphs, water gravity has been selected correctly but oil gravity is not. The second
and fifth points from right in water and oil zone are pretest data points which contribute to uncertainty in FFL estimation and
are easily indentified through this method.

Another benefit of this method is to discover layering in a reservoir formation. Most of Iranian carbonate reservoirs have
different layers with separate hydraulic conditions. These differences cause reservoir fluid properties such as density to be
dissimilar. The discrepancy in fluid density and water salinity would affect the reservoir pressure and pressure gradient
consequently. Also it would be mentioned that the difference between fluid density and water salinity are not very high which
could be detected on typical P-D (pressure vs. depth) plot. This method is able to exaggerate differences between measured
pressure and it will lead us to discover layering of reservoir.

Sometimes it has been observed that with changing phase gravities, a horizontal line is never attained. This could be due to
the fact that fluid gravity is not constant with depth. Actually in this condition changing pressure gradient would not increase
or decrease slope of line, but the line is moved up and down with similar slope. Looking at equation (1) leads us to a fact that
is not constant for all data points which could be due to compositional grading in the reservoir.
In this case pressures are projected using following formula:

Pd p  Pp   ep (Dp  Dd) (7)


Where p denotes phase and ep is effective gravity which is changing with depth. In those reservoirs where gravity alteration
with depth is linear (which is not valid for near critical or gas condensates or in high temperature variations), following
relation for density change can be applied:

 ep   ref +  (Dp  Dref ) (8)


Where ref is the phase gravity in a reference depth (Dref) and α is a constant that is defined as slope of gravity variation with
depth. Combining equations (7) and (8) result in equation (9):
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Pd p  Pp   ref (Dp  D ref )- (D p  D ref ) 2 (9)

The above equation illustrates that datum pressure is a second order polynomial function of depth; but on the other hand, α
parameter is a very small value, so the graph of datum pressure vesus depth behaves linearly in intervals less than 200 m.
To find α, we can rearrange equation (9) to achieve equation (10):

Pd p  Pp (10)
  ref - (D p  D ref )
D p  D ref

Pd p  Pp
Then by plotting the term ( ) vs. (D p  D ref ) , slope of gravity variation (α) is obtained.
D p  D ref

Results and Discussions

In the first case, Modular Dynamic Tesing job has been carried out on a well to obtain fomarion pressure at some points of a
carbonate reservoir. The graphical P-D plot method was used to determine the pressure gradient (Figure 2).

Figure 2: P-D plot for the first case study.

As Figure 2 shows it is very difficult to distinguish normal and noisy pretest results. Also the overall trend line illustrates that
only water with 0.46 psi/ft pressure gradient is presented in the reservoir. At the next step formation pressure will be
projected to a datum depth of 2700 m using appropriate pressure gradient for each phase (e.g:
).
IPTC 16565 5

Pressure at Datum (psi)

Oil

Depth (m)

Figure 3: Projecting pressure to a datum depth for first case study.

Figure 3 shows that gas zone is not presented in this interval. The petrophysical interpretation is used to find probable
hydrocarbon and water zone and to help us having a good judgment about normal and noisy pretest data. Figure 4
demonstrates the results besides petrophysical log.

Figure 4: interpretation of datum pressure for first case study.

Based on the above interpretation, depth interval of 2782-2791 m was suggested for Full-bore DST which recovered oil with
0.8243 g/cc density (pressure gradient=0.357 psi/ ft).
Now it is possible to determine water-oil contact by intersecting of oil and water thrend line in a P-D plot (Figure 5), after
removing nosiy data.
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Figure 5: P-D plot of first case study after removing noisy data.

In this case study WOC was stablished at 2815 m.

Second example is a reservoir formation with large number of data points acquired from RFT tools. These data are plotted in
a traditional P-D plot as shown in Figure 6:

Figure 6: P-D plot for the second case study.

As Figure 6 illustrates, the data are propagated expansively and noisy points are not discernible. Also if we use a linear trend
line passing through all data points, pressure gradient of about 0.44 psi/ft is achieved showing that present fluid is water with
low salinity. Now we apply new method to gain more accurate information. At first all data points are projected to a datum
depth of 2400 meters, as is described by Figure 7:
IPTC 16565 7

Figure 7: Projecting pressure to a datum depth for second case study.

This Figure demonstrates that gas phase is not present in this interval. Now we remove uncertain pretest results to get Figure
8. Also Petrophysical log is attached to top of the plot to confirm the results.

Figure 8: interpretation of datum pressure for second case study.

Based on datum pressure, uncertain pretests were detected and eliminated. Therefore three sets of horizontal lines are
acquired; two water zones with pressure gradient of 0.48 psi/ft and one oil with gradient of 0.35 psi/ft. It is noticeable that in
depth interval 2765-2778 meter, a Full-bore DST has been performed and a sample was collected. PVT experiments released
the oil ample gradient of 0.36 psi/ft which is in good agreement with what has been concluded from RFT data analysis. Also
this layer is an example of a layered reservoir, as shown by Figure 8.
At the moment, we can plot a traditional P-D plot with confident set of pretests to determine fluid contact. In this example as
Figure 9 reveals, water oil contact is 2822 m:
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Figure 9: P-D plot of second case study after removing noisy data.

Finally a good example is introduced showing how we can discover information about layering in an extremely-layered
reservoir. This layer is geologically divided into 8 layers in which only the middle layers (layers 4 to 7) has been tested by
RFT tools. This reservoir is an exploration one which lacks more valuable information. If we just do the interpretation of
RFT data by traditional P-D plot method, information about layering will not be obvious, as shown in Figure 10:

Figure 10: P-D plot of third case study after removing noisy data.

By utilizing new method, precious information has been gained. Firstly it is achieved that this formation is a layered one (on
the basis of pressure communication) which confirms with geological layering (on the basis of lithological aspects) with
acceptable accuracy. This can be shown in Figure 11 (Petrophysical log is attached to top of plot).
IPTC 16565 9

Figure 11: interpretation of datum pressure for third case study.

In this Figure, vertical dashed lines show reservoir sub-layers’ limits and solid lines represent geological limits of each sub-
layer. Also realization of fluid type validates the petrophysical logs data.

Conclusions
 Traditional P-D plot method is not able to interprate pretest results correctly when noisy data are in data set.
 Aftyer removing uncertain pretest results, precise estimation of fluid pressure gradient and fluid contacts will be
concluded.
 The new method is a diagnostic tool to control pretest results and disclose formation pressure data which contribute
to uncertain analysis.
 An important advantage of datum pressure method is discovering of sub-layers in a layered reservoir.
 The new method could detect compositional grading in a reservoir, but for calculation of density variation parameter
at least information about fluid density at two points are needed.

Future Works
Pressure datum method can be applied on reservoir with compositional grading behavior when enough information about
reservoir fluid is available.

References

1. Pelissier-Combescure, J., Pollock, D., and Wittman, M.: “Application of Repeat Formation Tester Measurements in the
Middle East,” paper SPE 7775 Prepared for presentation at the Middle East Oil Technical Conference held in Manama,
Bahrain, 25- 29 March 1979.
2. Stewart, G., and Wittman, M.: “Interpretation of the Pressure Response of the Repeat Formation Tester,” paper SPE 8362
presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Las Vegas, USA, 23-26 September 1979.
3. Stewart, G., and Ayestaran, L.: “The Interpretation of Vertical Pressure Gradients Measured at Observation Wells in
Development Reservoirs,” paper SPE 11132 prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, New Orleans, USA, 26-29 September 1982.
4. R.R. Jackson, A. Carnegie, and F.X. Dubost, “Pressure Measurement and Pressure Gradient Analysis: How Reliable for
Determining Fluid Density and Compositional Gradients?” SPE 111911, 2007
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5. Tarek Ahmed, “Equation f States and PVT analysis; Applied for improved reservoir modeling”, Gulf publishing company,
2007
6. Wireline Formation Testing and Sampling, Schlumberger Educational Services, SMP-7058, Houston, USA, 1996.
7. Badry R., Head E., Morris C. and Traboulay I., “New Wireline Formation Tester Techniques and Applications” Paper ZZ,
Presented at Society of Profesional Well Log Analysysts Annual Logging Symposium, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1993
8. Henderson Petrophysics- Consulting Reservoir Evalution, “Statistical Determination of Reservoir Fluid Contacts Using
Formation Pressure Data”,
9. Hoier, L. and Whitson, C.: “Compositional Grading –Theory and Practice,” paper SPE 63085 prepared for presentation at
the 2000 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, Texas, 1-4 October 2000.