Introduction to Reservoir Engineering

Reservoir Engineering Basics 

• Overview of Reservoir Engineering
• Reservoir life cycle
• Reservoir formation properties
• Identification of fluid contacts and pressure gradients

The first day of this class will introduce students to some of the fundamentals of reservoir engineering. Participants will learn about the role of reservoir engineering in exploration and production as well as how reservoir engineers interact with other engineering disciplines. Reservoir environment and formation properties will also be discussed to include, structure and properties of rocks, porosity, permeability, compressibility, wettability, and capillary pressure. Participants will learn about the identification of contacts as well as effective and relative permeability and how to measure relative permeability. The definition of reservoir pressure and the determination of pressure gradients will also be discussed.

Reservoir Conditions 

• Fundamentals of reservoir fluids phase behavior
• Darcy’s Law and fundamentals of fluid flow in porous media

The day will start with learning the fundamentals of fluid phase behavior . And PVT properties of crude oil and natural gas. Participants will discuss the conventional experimental procedures used to generate PVT data such as constant composition expansion and differential liberation. The day will end with participants learning about the Darcy’s law and the fundamentals of fluid flow in porous media.

Understanding Reservoir and its Production Capacity

• Principles of Well Testing in reservoir characterization
• Oil and Gas Well Inflow Performance Analysis

Day three will introduce participants to the application of diffusivity equation and the application of line source solution.  The participants will also learn about the use of well testing in determining average reservoir pressure, productivity index, permeability, and skin effect. The day will end with the participants learning inflow performance in oil and gas wells and nodal analysis.

Reservoir Drive 

• Reservoir Drive Mechanisms
• Principles of Material Balance Analysis
• Immiscible displacement concepts

On day four of this course, participants will learn about reservoir drive mechanisms and the concept of a reservoir as a single tank along with a reservoir drives limitations on the use of the material balance equation.  During this day, participants will examine the water injection and the use of fractional flow equations.  Participants will also discuss the recovery factors of different drive mechanisms.

Reserves

• Definition of Reserves and Volume Estimation Methods
• Decline Curves Analysis

On the last day, participants will discuss the definition of reserves and the recovery factor – API correlation by hands on exercises on RF estimations.  During this day, estimation of oil-in-place and gas-in-place concepts will be covered.  The day will end with use of production decline curves in reserves estimations.