IPA13-E-189

PROCEEDINGS, INDONESIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

Thirty-Seventh Annual Convention & Exhibition, May 2013

INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF CONDENSATE BLOCKAGE ON WELL

PRODUCTIVITY IN A TIGHT GAS CONDENSATE RESERVOIR – CASE STUDY OF TAWES
FIELD

Agung Ertanto*
Lukman Hidayat*
Imaduddin Kartoatmodjo*
Ludy Andria*

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the use of numerical

The Tawes Gas field in Block B, South Natuna Sea
was discovered in 1988 by the Tawes-1 exploration
well and appraised by the Tawes-2 well in 1999.
The primary reservoir is the Gabus-3B sandstone.
Economic development of the field is challenging
due to its poor quality reservoir and fluid properties.
simulation to investigate the condensate blockage
phenomena in the reservoir and also to examine if
hydraulic fracturing could still be beneficial to
increase the productivity of a gas reservoir with
condensate blockage.
INTRODUCTION

In low permeability reservoirs, rich gas produced
below the dew point has a negative effect on
permeability in the near wellbore area. For tight gas
reservoirs such as the Gabus 3B, high drawdown
pressure is needed to flow gas, consequently
condensate saturation banking will occur near the
wellbore as the pressure drops below dew point
pressure. The buildup of condensate saturation is
called condensate blockage. This effect causes a
significant drop in gas relative permeability, which
reduces the productivity of the well.
To investigate and to model the condensate
blockage phenomena in a numerical reservoir
simulation, a radial single well model was first
used. For a sector or full-field model with a coarser
Cartesian grid, Generalized Pseudo-Pressure (GPP)
was found to be the best method to capture the
phenomena without the need to use fine grid
simulation.
Hydraulic fracturing was evaluated as a method to
enhance productivity. In an earlier initial
assessment, a study using a mechanistic model was
performed and concluded that hydraulic fracturing
could increase the well deliverability and the total
recovery of the field. However, the potential effect
of condensate blockage was not taken into account
in that study.
* ConocoPhillips Indonesia Inc. Ltd
In a gas condensate reservoir a condensate bank will
be built around the wellbore when the flowing
bottom hole pressure falls below dew point
pressure. The condensate bank can reduce the well
productivity index. This effect is most severe in a
low permeability gas reservoir when high
drawdown is needed to flow gas from reservoir into
the wellbore. Condensate blockage is important if
the pressure drop from the reservoir to the wellbore
is a significant percentage of the total pressure drop
from reservoir to delivery point (e.g. a surface
separator) from the time a well goes on decline.
Reservoirs with low-to-moderate permeability (<10
– 50 md) are often “problem” wells where
condensate blockage must be handled properly.
Wells with high kh products (>1,000-10,000 md-ft)
are typically not affected by reservoir pressure drop
because the well’s deliverability is constrained
almost entirely by the tubing. In this case,
condensate blockage is a non-issue (Whitson et al.
1999).
To accurately forecast gas condensate well
productivity, a fine-grid simulation is required to
model the formation of the condensate banking. In
a single well simulation a very fine-grid may be
used but, a full-field model using fine-grid
simulation would require long run times.
According to Fevang and Whitson (1995), when a
well is being depleted, three regions form around
the well bore:

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 Region 1: An inner near-wellbore region where
both gas and oil/condensate flow
simultaneously at different velocities.
 Region 2: A region of condensate buildup
where only gas is flowing.
 Region 3: A region containing single-phase
(original) reservoir gas.
Fevang and Whitson show that the loss in well
deliverability in gas condensate wells is
underpredicted in full-field simulation models when
using the traditional method to calculate rate. They
proposed a new method, called the Generalized
Pseudo Pressure (GPP) method based on
observations of the three flow regions for gas
condensate systems.
This method has been implemented in some
commercial reservoir simulators. Barker (2005)
discussed his experience with simulation of
condensate banking effects in various gas
condensate reservoirs using the GPP method. He
found that the GPP method is not always valid. In
this paper we evaluate the application of the GPP
method for modeling condensate blockage in a
coarse model using data from the Tawes field (West
Natuna basin, Block B, Indonesia).
In tight sandstone reservoirs, hydraulic fracturing is
frequently required to improve productivity. In a
gas condensate reservoir, fracture stimulation
reduces pressure drawdown and thus leads to less
liquid dropout in the reservoir. In a fractured well
simulation, the size and aspect ratio of the grid cells
have a strong influence on our ability to correctly
predict the flow behavior for different well types,
fluid compositions and recovery processes. Several
methods are available for modeling hydraulic
fracturing using reservoir simulation including:
negative skin, equivalent effective well radius,
transmissibility multiplier and Local Grid
Refinement (LGR). Negative skin can provide an
approximation of flow due to the increased fracture
permeability within the coarse grid, but cannot
model condensate banking effects. Furthermore,
using a large negative skin results in errors in the
mathematical calculation that can abort the
simulation run due to convergence issues. The
coarse grid model was not suitable as it is unable to
correctly capture the condensate blockage process
in the reservoir. LGR around explicit fractures was
therefore considered the most suitable approach to
examine the effect of hydraulic fracturing on
production enhancement at the Tawes field.
TAWES FIELD OVERVIEW
The Tawes Field is located in the West Natuna
Basin of the South China Sea, Indonesia. It lies in
water depths of approximately 300 feet and is
located approximately 10 km Northeast of the
Belanak Field and 12 km southwest of the Kerisi-
Hiu Field (figure 1). The field was discovered in
1988 by the Tawes-1 exploration well which
encountered gas-bearing sands within the Upper
Gabus Massive and Gabus Zone-3B in the East fault
block. The hydrocarbon accumulation is trapped in
a southwest-northeast trending 4-way dip closed
anticline cut by two northwest-southeast trending
normal faults and sealed by a thick Barat shale top
seal. The two major normal faults divide the
structure into 3 fault blocks (figure 1). Gross sand
thickness varies from 50 to 520 ft. Two DST’s were
conducted at Tawes-1: DST-1 over the Gabus Zone-
3B and DST-2 over the Upper Gabus Massive. Only
DST-1 was succesful and flowed 0.785 mmscfd at a
combined rate.
Following acquistion of 3D seismic acquisition in
1997 the Tawes-2 well was drilled in 1999 3 km
west of Tawes-1 to appraise the Tawes field west
fault block. Tawes-2 encountered gas-bearing sands
within the Upper Gabus Massive and Gabus Zone-
3B. Gross sand thickness varies from 50 to 800 ft.
Two DST’s were conducted: DST-1 over the Lower
Gabus sands and DST-2 over the Gabus Zone-3B.
Only DST-2 was successful and flowed gas at a rate
of 2.7 mmscfd.
In 2012, Tawes-3 was drilled to appraise the central
block. Gas bearing sands were again encountered in
Gabus Zone-3B. Unlike the two offset wells,
Tawes-3 was perforated underbalanced to minimize
the formation damage. A DST was conducted and
flowed gas at rate of 4.6 mmscfd.
The hydrocarbon reservoirs are relatively deeply
buried (approximately -9,500ft TVDSS) which has
negatively impacted reservoir quality. The reservoir
exhibits tight sand properties, the average porosity
is 12%, average permeability 0.1 - 2 mD, and
average NTG 47%. The reservoir is normally
pressured at around 4400 psia with high formation
temperatures (approximately 320 deg F). The
observed condensate yield is approximately 40 - 70
bbls/mmscf. Up to 40 ppm H2S and 10% CO2 were
measured during the well test.
Overall the Gabus Formation is interpreted to have
been deposited as a sand prone interval in a
distributary channel system to more distal
lacustrinal fluvio-deltaic system. The sediment
transport direction is interpreted to be from the
southwest. The retrogradational stacking pattern in
the Gabus Formation is probably due to regional
subsidence and a rise in the lake base level which
reached its peak during deposition of lacustrine
shales of the extensive Barat Lake, the main sealing
facies in this area.
METHODOLOGY
To study the effect of condensate blockage in a
reservoir, different methods have been proposed by
various authors. In this study, the Fevang and
Whitson method was used (Fevang and Whitson
1995).
A fine grid radial model can accurately describe
pressure and saturations in the reservoir around the
wellbore and can therefore be used to model well
deliverability changes due to liquid banking in the
near wellbore area. All proposed methods to model
the condensate accumulation are compared to the
fine grid radial model. The radial grid was built
using constant ratio of 1.5.
Fluid properties were taken from Tawes-2 PVT
analysis results. The initial reservoir pressure is 200
psi above the dew point pressure. Condensate yield
is 40-70 stb/mmscf, hence the fluid is classified as a
lean gas condensate. The components were lumped
into 9 pseudo components.
Initial Assessment.
The first question was would the condensate
blockage effect have an impact on the well
deliverability? As a best practice, an initial
assessment should be performed before a more
detailed resource intensive evaluation is conducted.
For this purpose, two fine grid radial models were
built to assess the importance of condensate
blockage with respect to production performance.
The fine grid models contain 20 x 1 x 1 grid cells,
with an inner grid cell size of 0.13 ft and an outer
radius of 432 ft. A single numerical layer with a
thickness of 80 ft was used. The porosity and
permeability were set at 12% and 1 md,
respectively. No Special Core Analysis (SCAL)
data were available for this study; hence a relative
permeability curve from the analogue North Belut
field was used. A vertical lift curve was also
required for this step. A grid schematic is shown in
figure 2. The maximum gas production was
constrained to 2.5 mmscfd to provide a plateau
period for comparison purposes. In the first model,
the rock relative permeability was used; while in the
second model a straight line relative permeability
relationship was incorporated as representative of a
miscible curve. The results from the two models
were then compared. If the end of the plateau
periods are similar, condensate blockage will have
only a minor impact on the deliverability. If a larger
difference is seen, a more detailed evaluation is
required.
A comparison of the Tawes models using rock and
miscible relative permeability curves is shown in
figure 3. The plateau period of the first model is 10
months whereas in the second model it is 6.2 years.
It clearly shows that condensate blockage occurs
and will impact the productivity of the Tawes field.
In order to investigate condensate accumulation
around the wellbore, condensate banking
development is plotted against radial distance from
the wellbore (figure 4). It is clearly seen that
condensate accumulation increases with time. As
the dew point is close to the initial pressure, the
condensate bank forms immediately after the
commencement of production. DST results in
Tawes-2 showed that a very high pressure
drawdown (3500 psi) is needed to flow gas at a rate
of 2.7 mmscfd. This high drawdown results in a
flowing bottom hole pressure which is much lower
than the dew point pressure.
In late 2012 the Tawes-3 appraisal well was drilled
with the objective of assessing commerciality of the
tight reservoir including data gathering to assess the
impact of fracture stimulation. The data acquisition
program was intensive, and included pressure
points, bottom hole sampling, whole core, side wall
core, saturation log, vertical seismic profile, image
log, DST, PLT and Pin Point Injection tests. At the
time of writing data evaluation and laboratory
analysis were in progress. However, the preliminary
results of pressure transient analysis are shown in
figure 5. An analytical approach was conducted.
Three radial stabilizations were observed (figure 5).
The first stabilization shows a zone in the vicinity
of the well with high capillary number which
increases the gas relative permeability. The second
stabilization shows a zone near to the well with
increased condensate saturation and lower gas
mobility. The third stabilization shows a zone away
from the well with the initial liquid condensation
saturation. It indicates that condensate blockage is
likely near the wellbore. A radial composite
reservoir model with three regions best matches the
results. However, the software only permitted use of
a dual radial composite model. Consequently, it is
difficult to match the third stabilization.
Sector Model.
A coarse grid cell size of 100 m x 100 m is
normally standard for planning purposes during
early phase development, and works well for dry
gas reservoirs. However, for a gas condensate
reservoir special well treatment is required to get a
more correct production forecast.
A coarse grid model containing a grid of 20 x 20 x 1
was employed for comparison with a benchmark
model. The fine grid radial model from the initial
assessment was used as the benchmark. Both radial
and Cartesian models had the same reservoir
volume and rock and fluid properties. A maximum
gas rate of 3 mmscfd and a minimum bottom hole
pressure of 1000 psia were used as constraints.
Figure 6 shows the gas rate comparison from fine
grid radial and coarse grid Cartesian models. The
coarse grid model overestimates the gas production
because the bottom hole pressure (BHP) in the
coarse grid is higher than the radial model (figure
7). Furthermore, the coarse grid cannot account for
the reduction in gas phase relative permeability near
the wellbore and therefore cannot model the
production loss correctly. Figure 8 shows the
comparison of cumulative gas production.
The generalized pseudo pressure (GPP) method was
tested using rock and fluid data from the Tawes
field to see if it is accurate enough to be used in a
coarse model to forecast gas production and thereby
eliminate the need of a fine grid model. The
accuracy of the GPP method is somewhat
dependent on the well grid size, generally requiring:
dx = dy = 50 – 100 m for lean gas condensates; and
dx = dy = 100 – 200 m for rich gas condensates
(Singh 2008). The number of grid cells in the coarse
model is a sensitivity parameter evaluated to find
the optimum grid size giving similar results to the
fine grid model.
The coarse grid with GPP is compared to the
benchmark model (figure 9, 10 and 11). Both
models have an initial gas in place of 3.5 BCF. The
results show that the gas performance is in very
close agreement between the two models. To
evaluate the effect of reservoir volume, gas in place
was increased to 11 BCF. The results are quite
similar (figure 12), but the fit is not as good as for
the models using lower volumes. Figure 12 shows
the comparison assessing sensitivity to different
grid sizes: 52 m, 75 m and 95 m. In the models with
GPP, grid size does not have a significant effect on
the results. Therefore, a grid size of 95 ft was
considered sufficient for the future full field model
provided GPP is included.
Tawes field consists of stacked independent sands
separated by shale stringers. In order to evaluate the
GPP method in a multi layered reservoir, the
models were divided into 8 equal layers of 10 ft
thicknesses in the z-direction. The permeability in
the z-direction varied from 0.5 to 2 md. The
petrophysical properties for each layer were held
constant. Figure 13 shows the simulated gas
performance of fine grid and coarse grid models.
Figure 14 and 15 show the BHP and cumulative gas
of the two models. The results are similar, which
indicates that the GPP method with multi layered
reservoirs works well for forecasting the gas
performance in a coarse model.
Hydraulic Fracturing.
In order to model the effect of hydraulic fracturing
on production at Tawes field in the presence of
condensate blockage, a cartesian grid with LGR
around the wellbore was used. The grids around the
wellbore and fracture tips had to be fine enough to
capture the pressure and saturation distributions.
The grid chosen therefore consisted of 9 x 27 x 6
grid cells with very small grid cells at the center
(figure 16). The thickness and matrix permeability
of each layer are shown in table 1. The drainage
area was assumed to be 320 acre. The representative
fracture width in the model was defined based on
the formula:
kf w = kG wG.
where, kf and w are fracture permeability and
fracture width, respectively; wG is grid block size
representing fracture width in the model.
A fracture permeability of 50,000 md and fracture
width of 0.2 in was used. The grid size in the
fracture region was 2.5 ft giving a corresponding
fracture permeability of 332 md. A straight line
relative permeability relationship was used for
fracture regions. A single vertical well located in
the centre of the reservoir was modeled. The well
was modeled to produce for 10 years with bottom
hole pressure constant at 1000 psi. The fracture half
length was assumed to be 250 ft. For comparative
purposes, an unfractured vertical well was
compared to a fractured vertical well. Figure 17 and
figure 18 show the comparison of gas rate and
cumulative gas between the two wells. It is
observed that the fracture stimulation could improve
the initial production about 4 times that of an
unfractured well. Gas recovery of the fractured well
was 14 BCF, about double the recovery of the
unfractured well.
Fracture Half Length Sensitivity.
Fracture length and fracture conductivity control the
effectiveness of hydraulic fractures. In order to
evaluate the effect of fracture half length on the
well productivity, simulation runs with different
fracture half lengths were performed. Fracture half
lengths used were 250 ft, 350 ft and 500 ft. The
simulations show that increasing fracture half length
results in production improvements and increased
recovery (figure 19 and 20).
CONCLUSIONS
1. A fine grid radial model shows that condensate
blockage occurs in Tawes field and results in
reduced well deliverability.
2. A GPP model is required for future evaluations
of the Tawes full field development scenarios in
order to take into account the effects of
condensate banking.
3. Hydraulic fracturing can improve production
performance at Tawes field
4. Tawes full-field models should incorporate
condensate blockage and hydraulic fracturing
effects.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank ConocoPhillips
Indonesia Inc. Ltd, MIGAS and Block B Partners
(Chevron and Inpex) for permission to publish this
paper.
REFERENCES
Barker, J.W.: “Experience with Simulation of
Condensate Banking Effects in Various
Gas/Condensate Reservoirs” paper IPTC 10382
presented at the 2005 International Petroleum
Technology Conference, Doha, Nov. 21 – 23
Fevang, Ø., Whitson, C.F.: “Modeling gas
Condensate Well Deliverability”, paper SPE 30714
presented at the 1995 SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, Oct. 22 – 25.
Singh, K., Whitson, C.F.: “Gas Condensate
Pseudopressure in Layered Reservoirs, paper SPE
117930 presented at the 2008 Abu Dhabi
International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference,
Abu Dhabi Nov. 3 – 6
Whitson, C.F., Fevang, Ø., Sævareid, A.: “Gas
Condensate Relative Permeability for Well
Calculations”, paper SPE 56476 presented at the
1999 SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, Houston, Oct. 3 – 6.
The information contained herein is for
presentation and discussion purposes only.
ConocoPhillips does not make any representations
or warranties regarding content accuracy.
 TABLE 1

THICKNESS AND MATRIX PERMEABILITY OF EACH LAYER FOR MODELING

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

Layer Thickness ( ft) Permeability (md)

1 16 0.35
2 11 0.79
3 8 1.08
4 27 0.61
5 10 0.57
6 34 0.76  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Figure 1 - Tawes field location in Block-B PSC area.

Figure 2 - Schematic of fine grid radial model (top view).

 Figure 3 - Gas rate of radial model with rock and miscible curves.

Condensate Banking Development

0.35

1 month
0.3
3 month
7 month
Condensate Saturation

0.25 1 year
2 year
0.2 5 year
10 year
0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000

Distance from wellbore (ft)

Figure 4 - Condensate banking development in the near wellbore.

Figure 5 - Tawes-3 log-log derivative plot of main Pressure Build Up (PBU).

Figure 6 - Gas rate of radial and Cartesian models.

 Figure 7 - BHP of radial and Cartesian models.

Figure 8 - Cumulative gas of radial and Cartesian models.

Figure 9 - Gas rate of single layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models.

Figure 10 - BHP of single layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models.

 Figure 11 - Cumulative gas of single layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models.

Figure 12 - Gas rate of single layer radial, Cartesian coarse grid, Cartesian – GPP models with more
gas in place.
Figure 13 - Gas rate of multi layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models.

Figure 14 - BHP of multi layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models.

 Figure 15 - Cumulative gas of multi layer radial and Cartesian – GPP models .

Figure 16 - Schematic of Cartesian grid with LGR to model hydraulic fracturing (top view).

 
 Figure 17 - Gas rate of unfractured and fractured wells.

Figure 18 - Cumulative gas of unfractured and fractured wells.

 Figure 19 - Gas rate of fracture half length sensitivity.

Figure 20 - Cumulative gas of fracture half length sensitivity.