Mass Balance-Based Quality Control of PVT Results of Reservoir Oil DL Studies

Panagiotis Papanikolaou, Eirini Maria Kanakaki, Stefanos Lempesis and Vassilis Gaganis ()
Additional contact information
Panagiotis Papanikolaou: School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece
Eirini Maria Kanakaki: School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece
Stefanos Lempesis: School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece
Vassilis Gaganis: School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 13, 1-29

Abstract: Fluid properties live at the heart of hydrocarbon reservoir engineering as it is related to the behavior of fluids under reservoir pressure depletion. To obtain their values, PVT experimental work needs to be performed. Although the experimental workflow is strictly defined, the accuracy of the measurements often suffers from significant errors which in turn affect severely all the following engineering calculations as well as the following equation of state (EoS) tuning step. In this work, a systematic methodology is developed to apply quality control (QC) on the PVT values reported in a typical lab report. Firstly, the equations expressing mass balance are developed to calculate the missing closing data, such as the residual oil density and the composition of oil collected at each stage of the depletion study. Subsequently, computational tools are developed to evaluate the physical soundness of the received results and provide insight as to whether the quality of the experimental data is sufficient. To demonstrate the proposed workflow, it is applied to a selection of representative reservoir fluids of varying volatility. We demonstrate that depending on the reservoir fluid properties, calculations may yield highly unrealistic results, which engineers should avoid using unless corrected. Specifically, differential liberation (DL) test properties reported for low-volatility oils are generally reliable. However, for high-volatility oils, particularly during the final depletion stages, the test outcomes often become unrealistic. Finally, instructions to fluid and reservoir engineers on how to handle those issues and protect the reliability of their calculations are provided.

Keywords: reservoir oils; differential liberation; PVT; quality control; mass balance; EoS model tuning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/13/3301/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/13/3301/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:13:p:3301-:d:1429434

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().