SELECTION OF PVT PROPERTIES FOR BLACK OIL

SIMULATION
R.A.W. SMITH T.B. TAN

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Selection of PVT Properties for Black Oil Simulation R.A.W. Smith Wascana Energy Inc. T.B. Tan T.T. & Associates Inc. Abstract It is generally accepted that the reservoir depletion process is a differential liberation process where the gas is removed from contact with the oil as soon as it is formed, and the production of fluids through tubing and separators is a flash liberation process where the gas liberated from solution remains in contact with the oil. Laboratories commonly perform differential liberation and separator tests on the reservoir fluid and then use a correlation described by
Amyx et al.(1) to arrive at a composite liberation curve for an optimum separator pressure. Engineers are often confused as to which of the two sets of PVT data, i.e., differential or composite, should be used in a black oil simulation of the reservoir. The differences between the two sets of data become more substantial as the API gravity of the oil increases. The black oil simulator used in this report has a compositional formulation and has the ability to rigorously model the PVT behaviour by entering differential liberation data for reservoir conditions and using a surface separator
option for the surface flash process. This paper describes a critical comparison of the three methods to enter PVT properties in a black oil simulator. The results of using the simulator in three ways: a)
differential liberation at reservoir, surface separator for flash, b)
composite liberation data, c)
differential liberation data, are described in this paper for a medium gravity crude. It is shown that the composite liberation data most closely represents the rigorous
representation of phase behaviour as in (a). Use of inappropriate liberation data could result in significant error in estimates of oil-in-place as in (c). The paper compares the differences between composite liberation (b) and the rigorous representation (a), such as different initial pressure and saturation gradients due to initial density differences. Introduction When studying reservoirs with moderately high API gravity and gas-oil-ratio values, it becomes more important to incorporate both the differential and flash components of the PVT behaviour. In order to demonstrate the differences
between using only the differential data as opposed to including the effects of the flash data, actual PVT data from a model study which is referred to as reservoir A, with an API gravity value of 34, is incorporated into the SPE Second Comparative Solution Project(2). The data of the Second Comparative Project remains the same except that the original PVT data set was replaced by the PVT data from reservoir A as shown in Table 1. Note that the differential solution gas (Rs) value of reservoir A was significantly higher than the separator flash data. Problem Statement Potential loss of
intermediates, number of stages in the compressor design and an accurate forecast of oil and gas production are among the major concerns of any simulation study with PVT properties similar to reservoir A. To accommodate these requirements, it would be necessary to accurately model the PVT behaviour of the fluids from the reservoir to the tanks. The black oil model that was used to represent the PVT behaviour of reservoir A was a compositional simulator that transforms black oil properties into equivalent compositional properties. This approach allows the user to enter the conventional black
oil PVT data and also have the ability to model a surface separator. This separator option can only be incorporated into black oil models that are internally compositional.

'TABLE 1: Adjustmeht of P\rr d~ta"foseparator conditions.

=
= .

PRESSURE
(kPag)

I
I

I,
,
!

It
I,
I

I
I
I'
I
I

kPag
kPag

m3/m 3

m3/m 3
m 3/m3
m3/m3
m3/m 3 ... '
m3/m 3

DIFFERENTIAL
R .
s
3
(m /m 3 ),

DIFFERENTIAL

COMPOSITE

Bo

Bo

(using VNsat)

(m3/m3)

~1

1.386
1.467
1.541
. 1.61,
1.681
1.753
1.844 .
1.94' .
1.93728
1.93360
1.92991
1.92623 '
1.91827
1.89965
1.88432
1.87055
1.85755
1.85301
.1.84533

1.155238
1.222752
1.284431
1.341943.
1.401122
1.461135
1.536984
1.617000
,1.614736
1.611664
1.608592
1.605519
1.598890
1.583366
1.570592
1.559111
1.548278
1.544494
J.538090

1,951
4,137
6,895
9,653
12,411
15,169
17,927
20,230
20,685
21,375
22,064
22,754
24,133
27,580 .
31,028
34,475
37,923
39,364
41,370

106
39,364
20,230
1.852
1.940
'1.617
173 .
235,
1.544

Reservoir temperature =
Initial pressure =
Initial bubble point pressure =
Differential Bo at the initial pressure
Differential Bo at the bubble point pressure
Flash Bo at the bubble point pressure
Flash Rs at the bubble point pressure =
Differential Rs at the bubble point pressure =
. Composite Bo at initial pressure

" 90
119
143.
167
191
215
'235
235
235
235
235
".235'
235.
.235
235
235
235
.235.
--~-

'0.99860
0.99670
0.99480
0.99290
0.9888Q
0.97920
. ".0.97130
0.96420
,0.95750
0.95516
.0.95120

250

200

150

;g
~

100

"
50

.o~---+----~--------~--------~----~---5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

Pr."'UnllkPal

FIGURE 1: GOR field performance of reservoir A compared to

lab measured gas in solution.

Composite PVT Data

ll'"

.. Fundamentally, the lower gas-oil ratios, as measured in the

field, can.be explained by the fact that, as the gas and oil flow to
surface and experience a significant drop in-temperature, the intermediates in the gas condense back into the oil, thus reducing the
produced gas and increasing the oil production. This process continues until the oil and gas are separated at surface. The PVT relationship that the hydrocarbons follow as they migrate from reservoir to tank is a combination of flash and differential.
.In order to obtain this composite (or combination) behaviour in
the lab; in the most rigorous way, the process would start with
several-identical, representative oil samples at the bubble point
pressure (Pbp) and reservoir temperature. The first sample would
46

COMPOSITE
Rs

(m3/m3)
28.0
52.1
76.3
96.3
116.3
136.3
156.3
' 173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0 .
173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0
173.0 .

-.---'"--

- -.--

.:

..

be allowed to drop some small increment of pressure and then the

liberated gas (differential process) would be removed. Then this
remaining oil (after the gas is removed) is cooled to the separator
temperature and flashed all the way down to the separator pressure and then the gas is removed. The resulting eqUilibrium oil is
flashed a final time to atmospheric pressure, which represents a
second stage separation often represented in the field by the oil
flashing in the tanks. Then, this composite process would be
repeated by using another representative sample at the initial Pbp
and reservoir temperature, and dropping to the same previous
pressure, expelling the gas, and then dropping to the next equilibrium pressure. After removing the free gas, the oil sample is again
subjected to the two-stage flash process. Thus, by repeating this
cycle, with additional representative samples all the way down to
abandonment pressure, a composite PVT table of data is generated. The data acquired would then represent the combination
process tagged to some separator pressure. To investigate the optimum operating pressure for the separator, the entire process
would have to be repeated but at a different separator pressure.
This technique of generating composite PVT curves (known as
the Dodson's(3) PVT analysis technique) is quite time consuming,
expensive, and requires large volumes of reservoir oil, especially
if three or more different separator pressures are required. To
reduce lab costs and at the same time accommodate the need for
composite PVT data, standard practice is to generate the differential data and then, using another representative sample of bubble
point oil, produce flash separation data for different separator
pressures. This, unfortunately, represents only one point on the
composite PVT curves, i.e., at the initial bubble point. To generate
the entire composite Bo and Rs curves, empirical calculations(4)
were performed to adjust the differential curves using the appropriate separator flash data. The justification of this technique is its
accuracy for low and moderately volatile oils. If the oil is critical
or near critical, then the Dodson technique should be considered
to generate an appropriate composite data set. In the case of reserThe Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology