Oil and Gas

Participants will learn to:

1. Operate more effectively, and work more collaboratively, with their Reservoir Engineering colleagues.
2. Interpret original fluid contacts, through analysis of logs and pressure vs. depth profiles, prior to production start-up; understand saturation vs height relationships and estimate original hydrocarbon in place volumes, for both oil and gas reservoirs.
3. Employ fluid sampling techniques. Differentiate the physical and chemical properties of hydrocarbons and their description through phase diagrams.
4. Examine the uses and importance of well tests and appraise how analysis is conducted. 
5. Examine the controls on fluid flow in the reservoir, the balance of viscous, capillary and gravity forces and the impact of reservoir drive mechanisms including depletion, water and gas drive.
6. Analyse production performance in the wellbore and debate artificial lift techniques. Compare production enhancement through stimulation, horizontal wells, and completion techniques. 
7. Examine the processes and interfaces of building both static and dynamic reservoir models. Show awareness of the principles, objectives, demands, and uses of reservoir numerical simulation techniques and its validation.
8. Analyse the importance of continued reservoir management for forecasting future production profiles and maximising economic hydrocarbon recovery from a producing field over the complete life cycle.
9. Compare the Enhanced Recovery techniques: steam and fire flooding; miscible and immiscible gas displacement.
10. Understand key reservoir engineering principles as applied to carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The material covered in this course is built around the reservoir model, which can be constructed using analytical (calculator) or numerical (simulation) processes. The process is in three parts:

1. Building a static reservoir model
2. Developing a dynamic model
3. Reservoir management during the producing life of a field

The following topics will be covered:

Introduction

Basic Reservoir Rock And Fluid Description

   Controls on fluid flow in the reservoir

• Rock permeability, and relationship with porosity
• Reservoir zonation; Darcy's Law and impact of permeability contrasts

Defining fluid contacts and estimating volumetrics

• Basic reservoir volumetrics
• Defining fluid contacts; RFT pressure measurements and Pressure vs Depth relationships
• Capillary pressures and saturation-height relationships

   Reservoir fluid properties

• Fluid sampling
• Analysis of fluid samples
  - Chemical properties of hydrocarbons
  - Physical properties of hydrocarbons
  - Phase diagrams
• Making use of the PVT report

   Well test analysis

• Uses of well testing
• Planning a well test
• Well testing operations
• Well test analysis – determining kh, skin, PI, boundary effects
   - Analysis principles
   - Analysis techniques – semi-log and log-log analysis
   - The components of total skin
   - Special test types

Dynamic Behaviour of Reservoir Fluids

   Material balance and fluid displacement

• Drive mechanisms; depletion, gas cap drive, water drive
• Material balance for oil reservoirs
• Material balance for gas reservoirs
• Fluid displacement on a macroscopic scale; sweep efficiency
• Fluid displacement on a microscopic scale; relative permeability
• Estimating recovery factors
• Diffuse and segregated flow regimes
• Buckley-Leverett displacement theory

   Dynamic well performance

• The inflow performance relationship
• Tubing performance curves
• Artificial lift
• Coning and cusping
• Well completions
• Horizontal wells
• Well stimulation; fracturing and acidisation

   Reservoir simulation

• Gridding and simulation principles
• Input, output and visualisation
• Upscaling static and dynamic model properties

Measuring Reservoir Performance And Reservoir Management

   Reservoir monitoring

• Overview of reservoir management
• Monitoring tools: pressure, PLT, TDT, RFT, MDT, XPT pressure data, production and injection data
• Well interventions and workovers

   Production

• Field analogues
• Decline curve analysis
• Analytical models
• Reservoir simulation and history matching
• Probabilistic production forecasting
• Reserves reporting

   Enhanced oil recovery techniques

• Defining the target oil
• Mobility control (polymer)
• Miscible and immiscible techniques (surfactants, gas flooding) 
• Thermal techniques (steam and fire flooding)

   Carbon capture and storage (CCS)

• Selecting the container (saline aquifer, depleted gas fields)
• Displacement in the reservoir and residual gas
• Capillary trapping

This course is aimed at Geoscientists and other subsurface professionals who interface with Reservoir Engineers in their regular work, or who wish to obtain a broad grounding in reservoir engineering principles. This course will also benefit new team leaders tasked with managing multi-disciplinary teams.