RESERVIOR

ENGINEERING
CHAPTER 4
 OIL RECOVERY MECHANISMS
 Each reservoir is composed of a unique combination of geometric
form, geological rock properties, fluid characteristics, and primary
drive mechanism.
 Although no two reservoirs are identical in all aspects, they can be
grouped according to the primary recovery mechanism by which they
produce. It has been observed that each drive mechanism has certain
typical performance characteristics in terms of:
• Ultimate recovery factor
• Pressure decline rate
• Gas-oil ratio
• Water production
 OIL RECOVERY MECHANISMS
1. Primary Oil Recovery: Primary oil recovery involves extracting oil using natural mechanisms or artificial
lift devices like pump jacks.
Process:
- Natural Rise: Some oil naturally rises to the surface due to hydrocarbon pressure.
- Artificial Lift: Pump jacks are used to extract oil that is accessible.
Extraction Potential: Only 5% - 15% of a well’s potential oil is recovered through primary methods
2. Secondary Oil Recovery: In secondary recovery, gas or water is injected into the reservoir to displace oil
and bring it to the surface.
Process:
-Injection: Gas or water pushes oil from its resting place.
Additional Recovery: Typically targets an additional 30% of the oil’s reserves
3. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR): EOR aims to alter oil properties for easier extraction.
Types of EOR:
- Thermal Recovery: Heat reduces oil viscosity, making it flow more easily. Steam injection is common.
- Gas Injection: Natural gas, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide are injected to increase oil viscosity and push it to
the surface.
- Chemical Injection: Rare method that frees trapped oil by lowering surface tension and enhancing water-
flooding efficiency.
 Primary recovery mechanisms
• The recovery of oil by any of the natural drive mechanisms is called
primary recovery.
• The term refers to the production of hydrocarbons from a reservoir
without the use of any process (such as fluid injection) to supplement
the natural energy of the reservoir.
• For a proper understanding of reservoir behavior and predicting
future performance, it is necessary to have knowledge of the driving
mechanisms that control the behavior of fluids within reservoirs.
• The overall performance of oil reservoirs is largely determined by the
nature of the energy, i.e., driving mechanism, available for moving the
oil to the wellbore.
 Primary recovery mechanisms
There are basically six driving mechanisms that provide the natural
energy necessary for oil recovery:
1. Rock and liquid expansion drive
2. Depletion drive
3. Gas-cap drive
4. Water drive
5. Gravity drainage drive
6. Combination drive
 1. Rock and Liquid Expansion
o When an oil reservoir initially exists at a pressure higher than its bubble-point pressure,
the reservoir is called an under-saturated-oil reservoir.
o At pressures above the bubble-point pressure, crude oil, connate-water, and rock are the
only materials present. As the reservoir pressure declines, the rock and fluids expand due
to their individual compressibilities.
o The reservoir rock compressibility is the result of two factors:
• Expansion of the individual rock grains
• Formation compaction
o Both of the above two factors are the results of a decrease of fluid pressure within the
pore spaces, and both tend to reduce the pore volume through the reduction of the
porosity. As the expansion of the fluids and reduction in the pore volume occur with
decreasing reservoir pressure, the crude oil and water will be forced out of the pore space
to the wellbore.
o Because liquids and rocks are only slightly compressible, the reservoir will experience a
rapid pressure decline. The oil reservoir under this driving mechanism is characterized by a
constant gas-oil ratio that is equal to the gas solubility at the bubble point pressure. This
driving mechanism is considered the least efficient driving force and usually results in the
recovery of only a small percentage of the total oil-in-place.
 2. The Depletion-Drive Mechanism
This driving form may also be referred to by the
following various terms: • Solution gas drive
• Dissolved gas drive • Internal gas drive
In this type of reservoir, the principal source of
energy is a result of gas liberation from the crude oil
and the subsequent expansion of the solution gas as
the reservoir pressure is reduced.
As pressure falls below the bubble-point pressure,
gas bubbles are liberated within the microscopic
pore spaces.
These bubbles expand and force the crude oil out of
the pore space as shown conceptually in the Figure.
 3. Gas-Cap Drive
• Gas-cap-drive reservoirs can be identified by
the presence of a gas cap with little or no
water drive as shown in the Figure.
• Due to the ability of the gas cap to expand,
these reservoirs are characterized by a slow
decline in the reservoir pressure.
• The natural energy available to produce the
crude oil comes from the following two
sources:
Expansion of the gas-cap gas
Expansion of the solution gas as it is liberated
 4. The Water-Drive Mechanism
• Many reservoirs are bounded on a portion or all of their peripheries by water bearing
rocks called aquifers. The aquifers may be so large compared to the reservoir they
adjoin as to appear infinite for all practical purposes, and they may range down to
those so small as to be negligible in their effects on the reservoir performance.
• The aquifer itself may be entirely bounded by impermeable rock so that the reservoir
and aquifer together form a closed (volumetric) unit.
• It is common to speak of edge water or bottom water in discussing water influx into a
reservoir. Bottom water occurs directly beneath the oil and edge water occurs off the
flanks of the structure at the edge of the oil as illustrated in the Figure.
• Regardless of the source of water, the water drive is the result of water moving into
the pore spaces originally occupied by oil, replacing the oil and displacing it to the
producing wells.
In a bottom water drive, the aquifer is present
below the entire reservoir and water influx
moves vertically upward into the oil zone.
In an edge water drive, the aquifer is located on
the flanks of the reservoir and the water moves
upward along the reservoir dip
 5. The Gravity-Drainage-Drive Mechanism
• The mechanism of gravity drainage occurs in petroleum reservoirs as a result
of differences in densities of the reservoir fluids.
• The effects of gravitational forces can be simply illustrated by placing a
quantity of crude oil and a quantity of water in a jar and agitating the
contents. After agitation, the jar is placed at rest, and the denser fluid
(normally water) will settle to the bottom of the jar, while the less dense fluid
(normally oil) will rest on top of the denser fluid. The fluids have separated as
a result of the gravitational forces acting on them.
• The fluids in petroleum reservoirs have all been subjected to the forces of
gravity, as evidenced by the relative positions of the fluids, i.e., gas on top, oil
underlying the gas, and water underlying oil.
• Due to the long periods of time involved in the petroleum accumulation-and-
migration process, it is generally assumed that the reservoir fluids are in
equilibrium. If the reservoir fluids are in equilibrium, then the gas-oil and oil-
water contacts should be essentially horizontal.
• Gravity segregation of fluids is probably present to some degree in all
petroleum reservoirs, but it may contribute substantially to oil production in
some reservoirs.
6. The Combination-Drive Mechanism
• The driving mechanism most commonly
encountered is one in which both water and
free gas are available in some degree to
displace the oil toward the producing wells.
• The most common type of drive encountered,
therefore, is a combination-drive mechanism as
illustrated in the Figure.
• Two combinations of driving forces can be
present in combination drive reservoirs. These
are (1) depletion drive and a weak water drive
and; (2) depletion drive with a small gas cap
and a weak water drive.
• Then, of course, gravity segregation can play an
important role in any of the aforementioned
drives.
 RESERVES
• Reserves are those quantities of petroleum which are anticipated to
be commercially recovered from known accumulations from a given
date forward.
• All reserve estimates involve some degree of uncertainty. The
uncertainty depends chiefly on the amount of reliable geologic and
engineering data available at the time of the estimate and the
interpretation of these data.
• The relative degree of uncertainty may be conveyed by placing
reserves into one of two principal classifications, either proved or
unproved.
• Unproved reserves are less certain to be recovered than proved
reserves and may be further sub-classified as probable and possible
reserves to denote progressively increasing uncertainty in their
recoverability.
 Proven Reserves
• Proven reserves are those reserves claimed to have a reasonable certainty
(normally at least 90% confidence) of being recoverable under existing
economic and political conditions, with existing technology.
• Industry specialists refer to this as P90 i.e., having a 90% certainty of being
produced. These reserves are also referred to in the industry as 1P
• Proven reserves are further subdivided into "proven developed" (PD) and
"proven undeveloped" (PUD).
• PD reserves are reserves that can be produced with existing wells and
perforations, or from additional reservoirs where minimal additional
investment (operating expense) is required.
• PUD reserves require additional capital investment e.g., drilling new wells
to bring the oil to the surface.
• Developed reserves may be subcategorized as producing or non-producing.
• Producing: Reserves subcategorized as producing are expected to be
recovered from completion intervals which are open and producing at the
time of the estimate.
• Non-producing: Reserves subcategorized as non-producing include shut-in
and behind-pipe reserves.
• Shut-in reserves are expected to be recovered from (1)completion intervals
which are open at the time of the estimate but which have not started
producing, (2)wells which were shut-in for market conditions or pipeline
connections, or (3)wells not capable of production for mechanical reasons.
• Behind-pipe reserves are expected to be recovered from zones in existing
wells, which will require additional completion work or future recompletion
prior to the start of production.
Unproven Reserves
• Unproven reserves are based on geological and/or engineering data similar to
that used in estimates of proven reserves, but technical, contractual, or
regulatory uncertainties make such reserves being classified as unproven.
• Unproven reserves may be used internally by oil companies and government
agencies for future planning purposes but are not routinely compiled.
• They are sub-classified as probable and possible Probable:
• Probable reserves are attributed to known accumulations and claim a 50%
confidence level of recovery. Industry specialists refer to them as P50 i.e.,
having a 50% certainty of being produced. These reserves are also referred to
in the industry as 2P (proven plus probable).
• Possible reserves are attributed to known accumulations that have a less
likely chance of being recovered than probable reserves. This term is often
used for reserves which are claimed to have at least a 10% certainty of being
produced (P10). They are referred to in the industry as 3P (proven plus
probable plus possible).
 Estimation of Reserves
• The amount of oil in a subsurface reservoir is called oil initial in place
(OIIP)
• There are a number of different methods of calculating oil reserves.
• These methods can be grouped into four general categories:
A. Volumetric
B. Material balance
C. Production performance
D. Comparative methods where comparison is made with those of
offset properties of other fields having same geologic and other
reservoir conditions.
Volumetric Estimation
• Volumetric estimation is the only means available to assess
hydrocarbons in place prior to acquiring sufficient pressure and
production information.
• Volumetric methods are primarily used to evaluate the in- place
hydrocarbons in new, non-producing wells and pools and new
petroleum basins. But even after pressure and production data
exists, volumetric estimates provide a valuable check on the
estimates derived from material balance and decline analysis
methods.
• Volumetric estimation is also known as the “geologist’s method”
as it is based on cores, analysis of wireline logs, and geological
maps.
 Volumetric Estimation
Volumetric estimation requires determination of following
reservoir parameters.
a)Estimation of volume of sub surface rock that contains
hydrocarbons. The volume is calculated from the thickness of the
rock containing oil or gas and the areal extent of the
accumulation.
b)Determination of a weighted average effective porosity.
c)Obtaining a reasonable water resistivity value to calculate water
saturation.
With these reservoir rock properties and utilizing the hydrocarbon
fluid properties, original oil-in-place or original gas-in-place
volumes can be calculated.