Well Deliverability
in Gas Condensate Reservoirs

Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (CPGE)
The University of Texas at Austin

Objectives

The main objectives of our current work are:

• To develop strategies for remediation of productivity impairment
• To more accurately predict the productivity of gas condensate wells
• To develop tools and methods for optimal gas reservoir performance

Tasks

• Amine and epoxide injection tests including retention measurements
• Explore the possibility of applying new chemicals to water blocking problems
• Apply chemicals to the volatile oil problem
• In-situ treatment of fractures using epoxides and amines
• Optimization of surfactant concentration and solvent in treatment solution, shut in time and other design variables
• Tests at higher temperature (250 °F or higher)
• Test low permeability (0.1 md or less) sandstones
• Tests on new reservoir rocks and fluids
• Tests with different reservoir brines
• Mechanistic simulations of treatments using UTCOMP to evaluate alternative solvents and optimize treatments
• Compare UTCOMP and GEM simulation results
• Interpret field data when it becomes available
• Simulate the injection of chemicals and flowback in hydraulic fracture treatments including effect of non-Darcy flow
• Simulate unsteady-state behavior of wellbores loading with liquids

Recent Accomplishments

1. Developed a new chemical treatment to improve the gas relative permeability of sandstone reservoirs by a factor of two for a sustained period of time.
2. Several field trials of the technology have been implemented and several more are in the planning stages.
3. Developed a method to treat proppants with a fluorochemical surfactant that increases the gas permeability of the proppant pack by a factor of 2.
4. Developed a new method for the treatment of carbonate rocks to improve the gas relative permeability of limestones by a factor of 1.8 over a long period of time.
5. Showed that the method developed for treating condensate blocking can also be applied to remove water blocks in gas wells.
6. Developed a new computationally efficient method to simulate condensate buildup around gas condensate wells.
7. Tested the new method and ran comparisons with other reservoir simulators. Our method was found to significantly improve predictions of gas condensate well deliverability when compared with traditional simulation results.

Additional details and program results are available in a restricted area (password required) that can be accessed by joining the program and contacting Dr. Sharma or Dr. Pope (contact information below).

Sponsors

How to Join

To become a sponsor of the Well Deliverability in Gas Condensate Reservoirs research project, notify one of us, stating your interest or intent. We will then send you a research participation agreement to be executed by your company and The University of Texas. You can contact us by mail, phone, fax, or e-mail as follows:

Gary A. Pope (gpope@mail.utexas.edu) or
Mukul M. Sharma (msharma@mail.utexas.edu)
Center for Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station C0304
Austin, Texas 78712

Phone: (512) 471-3161

Fax: (512) 471-9605

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URL: http://www.cpge.utexas.edu/gc/
Page maintained by Joanna L. Castillo (jlc@mail.utexas.edu)