JOT Spring2014 PDF

Spring 2014
Saudi Aramco
A quarterly publication of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company
Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix Acidizing Technology Boosts Well

Production in the Worlds Fourth Largest Gas Reserves
see page 2
Development of Mature Fields Using the Reservoir Opportunity Index: A
Case Study from a Saudi Field
see page 37
Journal of Technology
THE SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY
On the Cover
Mohammed A. Al-Ghazal, a Saudi Aramco engineer, runs a highprofile acidizing operation using high-pressure/high temperature
(HP/HT) equipment to enhance the deliverability of a deep, deviated
gas producer.
A stage of the limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing

technology, as designed by the Ghawar gas production engineering
team at Saudi Aramco. The stage was specifically customized to
address the special needs of the candidate well.
This technology effectively places the designed treatment at an
optimal rate and pressure along the stage length, maximizing the
development of complex conductive flow channels, also known as
wormholes, throughout the entire stimulated reservoir length.
The green color signifies the stimulation treatment fluids and their
uniform distribution across the rock matrix of the target zones of the
formation.
It was necessary to develop this tool to address the more prolific
zones of the Khuff-C formation, where efficient matrix acidizing was
sought as an alternative to acid fracturing.
AT T E N T I O N ! M O R E S A U D I A R A M C O J O U R N A L O F T E C H N O L O G Y
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Spring 2014
Saudi Aramco
A quarterly publication of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company
Contents
Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix Acidizing

Technology Boosts Well Production in the Worlds Fourth
Largest Gas Reserves
Mohammed A. Al-Ghazal, Saad M. Al-Driweesh, Mustafa R. Al-Zaid

and Fadel A. Al-Ghurairi
A New Real-Time Analysis Method for Pressure Tests in

Low Permeability Reservoirs
10
Mohammed F. Al-Zayer, Amer H. AbuHassoun, Dr. Sami Eyuboglu,

Amir Anwar, Nacer Guergueb and Mark Proett
Improved Reservoir Surveillance through Injected Tracers

16
in a Saudi Arabian Oil Field: Case Study
Muhanad A. Al-Mosa, Husain A. Zaberi and Dr. Olaf Huseby
Quantifying the Intelligent Field Added Values
29
Zaki B. Husain and Muhammad A. Al-Hajri
Development of Mature Fields Using the Reservoir

Opportunity Index: A Case Study from a Saudi Field
37
Alfonso Varela-Pineda, Dr. Ahmed H. Alhutheli and

Dr. Saad M. Al-Mutairi
Comprehensive Reservoir Vertical Interference Testing

to Optimize Horizontal Well Placement Strategy in a
Giant Carbonate Field
44
Mabkhout A. Al-Harthi, Cesar H. Pardo, Khaled A. Kilany,

Majid H. Al-Otaibi, Dr. Murat M. Zeybek and Asif Amin
Quantifying Gas Saturation with Pulsed Neutron

Logging An Innovative Approach
53
Mamdouh N. Al-Nasser, Dr. Shouxiang M. (Mark) Ma,

Nedhal M. Al-Mushrafi, Ahmed S. Al-Muthana, Steve W. Riley and
Abel I. Geevarghese
Insight into SmartWater Recovery Mechanism through

Detailed History Matching of Coreflood Experiments
Dr. Abdulkareem M. AlSofi and Dr. Ali A. Yousef
60
Journal of Technology
THE SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY
Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix

Acidizing Technology Boosts Well
Production in the Worlds Fourth Largest
Gas Reserves
Authors: Mohammed A. Al-Ghazal, Saad M. Al-Driweesh, Mustafa R. Al-Zaid and Fadel A. Al-Ghurairi
ABSTRACT
Acid fracturing or matrix acidizing is often required for increased
hydrocarbon production and long-term well deliverability from
the massive Khuff carbonate gas reservoir in Saudi Arabia, the
holder of the worlds fourth largest gas reserves. Open hole
multistage technologies have demonstrated superior performance in maximizing reservoir contact and productivity through
better distribution of acid across the formation matrix, full interval matrix contribution and efficient propagation of fracture
networks to bypass formation damage and optimize near wellbore conductivity.
The Khuff structure is a late Permian age heterogeneous carbonate sequence that underlies the massive Ghawar field in the
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The Khuff reservoir is subdivided into four separate intervals (A through D), with production
coming mainly from the B and C intervals. Since its initial appraisal in the late 1970s, the majority of Khuff development has
been focused in the relatively more prolific Khuff-C formation,
where coiled tubing acid wash and single-stage acid treatments
were repeatedly performed and evaluated. Over the past five
years, multistage acid fracturing has been implemented in Saudi
Arabias Khuff-C development. The results were carefully evaluated for each trial, and this is now the predominant Khuff-C
stimulation technique.
Up until the middle of 2011, the vast majority of Saudi Arabias horizontal Khuff carbonate gas wells were drilled along
the direction of maximum horizontal in situ stress (max). This
was primarily to enhance wellbore stability and achieve the best
possible penetration rates. Early multistage fracturing treatments in the Khuff generated mostly longitudinal fractures
propagating parallel to the wellbore or in the max direction.
Since then, a holistic approach toward the application of open
hole multistage technology for tight reservoir development has
been adopted.
The complex workflow of this approach calls for, among
other requirements, changing the lateral section placement
strategy and planning the horizontal section to be drilled along
the minimum horizontal in situ stress (min) direction as opposed
to the previous mode of planning along the max direction. Accordingly, understanding the reservoir stress profile, orienting
the horizontal wellbore with respect to the dominant horizontal
2
SPRING 2014
SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY
stress component and calibrating the stress profiles against actual open hole logs became the most important highlights of the
new workflow. Radical improvement of stage integrity, multiple
fracture signatures and enhanced well productivity were among
the most important results achieved in developing the deep,
tight gas-bearing zones of the Khuff carbonate reservoir.
Still, an innovative approach was required to address the
more prolific zones of the Khuff-C formation where efficient
matrix acidizing was sought as an alternative to acid fracturing
in wells that could only be drilled in the max direction. Therefore, a purpose built open hole multistage technology system
one that was developed around the idea of distributed limited
entry for placement of matrix acidizing treatments was identified and carefully evaluated.
This article presents the details of the successful application
of this new limited entry, multiple injection technology for optimized matrix acidizing of carbonate horizontal wells, including
trial testing qualification, candidate selection, system design,
functionality, operation and ultimate production profiling.
INTRODUCTION
Tight gas, low permeability reservoirs present a tremendous
challenge with respect to effectively completing and draining
a target reservoir. Cased hole and open hole completions in
horizontal wells offer a cost-effective means of accessing the
entire lateral section, assuming the target pay can be effectively
stimulated. While most open hole completions possess more
advantages than cased hole completions, the challenge with
open hole completions, compared to more conventional cased,
cemented and perforated completions, is understanding and
controlling the fracturing fluid flow into the near wellbore area
of the reservoir.
The Khuff reservoir development has offered opportunities
for a wide array of completion techniques to be implemented and
evaluated, ranging from single stage vertical wells through multilateral wells to multistage horizontal wells. As the focus gradually shifted to tighter parts of the reservoir, the well completions
underwent a process of increased complexity, from verticals to
multilaterals and finally to horizontal multistage fracturing
completions, which are also gaining popularity at the world
scale as the industry taps more unconventional resources.
Early applications of open hole multistage completion technology in Saudi Arabia started in 2007 when the specified number
of stages were run with a typical configuration of a single fracturing port between each two mechanical open hole isolation
packers1-5. Acid fracturing was conducted in the multiple stages
through selective activation of the fracturing ports. It was observed
that in wells drilled in the maximum horizontal in situ stress
(max) direction, the first stage fracture will grow longitudinally,
along the wellbore, parallel to max, causing the potential risk
of overlap with subsequent induced fractures due to natural
fractures and formation fissures. Initiation of the second and
third fractures therefore became a challenge, due to possible
pressure communication across the first induced fracture. To
avoid this fracture overlap, it was decided that wells needed to
be drilled in the minimum horizontal in situ stress (min) direction, allowing transverse fracture initiation perpendicular to the
wellbore. The results from wells with open hole multistage
completions showed increased initial production and less departure from the theoretical hyperbolic decline curves6.
For wells designated for matrix acidizing stimulation, an issue
rose regarding the ability of the single fracture port per stage to
achieve uniform and effective stimulation of the entire stage
length. To maximize the stimulated reservoir volume and reduce
the likelihood of localized treatment of more prolific sections, it
was necessary to think of a better way to address the specific
needs for ensuring efficient stimulation and guaranteeing homogeneous distribution of the acid treatment across the stage
length. This article discusses the first successful application of
an innovative matrix acidizing technology in the more prolific
zones of the Kuff carbonate gas reservoir.
TRIAL TESTING QUALIFICATION

There is often debate regarding the best approach for completing
tight gas, low permeability reservoirs. This debate stems from
the fact that tight gas reservoirs are more challenging to develop
than traditional gas reservoirs and are relatively new in the
industry due to previously existing technology and economic
restrictions. One such debate involves the viability of the open
hole packers with the fracture sleeves completion method to effectively stimulate long horizontal intervals of a targeted tight
gas formation. The argument in favor of this completion approach is that a large area between the packers is exposed to
the treatment fluid, providing the opportunity to create multiple
fracture initiation points for the fracturing fluid and proppant
to enter the target formation. This approach also has the advantage of being minimally influenced by near wellbore fluid
friction constraints, such as perforation friction and/or perforation tunnel induced tortuosity, because the production casing or
liner is not cemented. It is worth mentioning here that attempting to verify actual points of fracturing fluid entry and how
many points of entry exist without advanced diagnostics is
challenging, and fluid entry cannot effectively be modeled with
conventional fracture modeling approaches.
The Permian Khuff-C carbonate formation is generally a

prolific, nonassociated gas and condensate producing member
of the giant Khuff reservoir in the Ghawar structure of Saudi
Arabia. Extensive heterogeneity in stress profile, reservoir quality
and reservoir fluids throughout the field, combined with the deep
and extremely hot nature of the reservoir, makes uniform and
effective stimulation of all layers a challenging task7, 8. In this
region, acid stimulation is required in the form of either matrix
acidizing or acid fracturing to obtain high production rates and
to add tie-in wells to the production facilities, all to meet the
ever-growing demand for natural gas products. Matrix acidizing
allows the removal of near wellbore damage induced during the
drilling phase, while acid fracturing opens up channels beyond
the near wellbore; both improve well productivity.
In matrix acidizing of prolific carbonate reservoirs, accurate
acid placement is a major challenge as the acid tends to flow preferentially towards the highest permeability zones of the target
interval (negative pressure effect), further increasing local permeability at these intervals and leaving the lower permeability
regions of the formation untapped and untreated. To select the
packer setting depths so that the packers are placed in competent
formations and to refine the fracture stage interval lengths to target discrete pay intervals, the wells local structure information and
open hole log data should be carefully analyzed and reviewed.
In most cases, the open hole multistage tool layout is designed
with uniform interval spacing. The spacing of packers and fracture sleeves is typically identical from stage to stage, with little
regard to local geology and potential production units. For the
design of this trial, the local structure information and open hole
log data were used to position the packer setting depths so packers were in competent formations and to refine the fracture stage
interval lengths and sizes to target discrete pay intervals. The
intent of placing packers with varied spacing was to isolate
fracture intervals with a similar log signature, which possibly
indicates specific hydraulic flow units and discrete intervals
with a propensity for production. This allowed the number of
fracture intervals and stages, as well as the overall completion
costs, to be optimized. Stimulation designs were prepared and
tailored for each of the individual intervals.
It is also important to note that in this trial the geomechanical
properties of the formation were predisposed to creating or tapping into a natural fracture network. Consequently, the formation
had the potential to create a well-connected simulated reservoir
volume, as opposed to discrete planar-type transverse hydraulic
fractures. Therefore, a further goal of this particular trial test was
to integrate that geomechanical information with the treatment
data and the fully processed open hole logs. This resulted in more
robust conclusions and recommendations for improving stimulation effectiveness when using this particular completion strategy.
LIMITED ENTRY, MULTIPLE INJECTION MATRIX

ACIDIZING TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
The limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing assembly
SPRING 2014
is best suited for matrix acid treatments in prolific and naturally fractured carbonate formations. Unlike standard open hole
multistage completion systems9-12, where there is only one
fracture port per stage, the limited entry system features multiple jet nozzles placed in a single interval to create a strong matrix acidizing effect throughout the entire open hole interval13,
Fig. 1.
Stages are created using multiple shear-activated stimulation
jets that are spaced out in the sections of interest and isolated
by hydraulically set mechanical open hole packers, Fig. 2. The
jet nozzles are adjusted and placed according to the reservoir
characteristics determined from open hole logs, enabling controlled injection and leak off for effective flow of the acid treatment into the entire section of the interval. This effectively
places the designed treatment at an optimal rate and pressure
along the stage length, maximizing the development of complex
conductive flow channels, also known as wormholes, throughout the entire stimulated reservoir length.
Each stage consists of a drillable cutter assembly pinned into
a shear housing assembly. Downhole of the shear housing are
shear-activated stimulation jet assemblies, spaced out with casing/liner at predetermined depths. Above the lowermost packer
in each stage is the locking/landing sub. The locking/landing
sub provides isolation of this stage from lower stages and locks
the drillable cutter to prevent it from rotating during milling
operations. For effective setup of the system in the reservoir
section, the liner and the annulus are isolated.
The liner isolation is achieved by the activation balls as they
land on their respective seats in the cutter assembly, closing off
the stages below. Multiple stages can be run, starting with the
smallest activation ball and ending with the biggest ball size at the
top. This mechanical diversion, combined with an advanced
chemical diversion system, allows uniform, precise fluid placement.
Isolation of the annulus is achieved using open hole packers.
The criteria for selecting a packer is to identify which packer
will ensure efficient annular isolation between stages, cope with

temperature cooling effects or the shrinkage phenomenon as
cooler treatment fluids are pumped from the surface, and withstand high differential pressure cycles during fracturing so as to
maintain the stability and pressure integrity of the completion
system. Hydraulically set, mechanical, dual-element open hole
packers are designed to withstand high differential pressures
(up to 10,000 psi) during treatment cycles at reservoir temperature, Fig. 3a. Such dual-element packers provide the long-term
isolation required to separate adjacent fractured intervals and so
help ensure independent fracture propagation. These packers are
equipped with a dynamic setting mechanism, which uses the
elevated treatment pressures to continuously deliver additional
pack off forces to the elements as the treatment pressures increase
over the initial setting pressure inside the liner a criterion
that allows the packer to cope with the sudden downhole temperature decrease as colder treatment fluids are pumped from
the surface14.
Swellable packers, sometimes referred to as swellable element packers and/or reactive element packers, with swelling
elastomer systems can also be combined with this assembly, yet
they will remain passive, making no response to the dynamic
temperature changes during pumping, Fig. 3b. Depending on
the type of packer element, the design temperature and wellbore
fluids, the elastomers can swell when exposed to the formations
hydrocarbon or water.
In a limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing system,
as acid is pumped from the surface, it is distributed evenly
through the jets, where it interacts with the formation directly
in front of the nozzles, Fig. 4. Therefore, it is prudent to place
the jets in front of the sections that need to be treated first. The
other sections of the reservoir will be treated as more and more
Fig. 3a. Hydraulically set, mechanical, dual-element open hole packer.

Fig. 3b. Swellable packer.
Fig. 1. Limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing technology utilizes

multiple jet nozzles to achieve complete matrix interval contribution.
Fig. 4. Acid stimulation through a limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
system for effective wormhole creation.
Fig. 2. Shear-activated stimulation jets and packers in the limited entry, multiple
injection matrix acidizing system; open hole log data are used to position the
packers and refine the fracture stage interval lengths.
SPRING 2014
Fig. 5a. First stage treatment from a single port at the bottom.
Fig. 5b. Second and third stage treatments through multiple stimulation jets.
acid is dispensed and spread along the wellbore in the open

hole section.
CANDIDATE WELL
The candidate well, Well-A, was a flank well drilled parallel to
the max direction. After analysis of the open hole log, a threestage limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing system
was specified with a hydraulic fracture port for the first stage
and six limited entry stimulation jets for each of the second
and third stages, Figs. 5a and 5b. The system was successfully
deployed to total depth in the 4,000 ft thick gross pay, and
matrix acidizing was pumped as per schedule for the three
stages. As shown in Fig. 6, the opening and closing of each interval and the pumping of the acid treatment went as per design without any operational issues. Table 1 presents some of
the main treatment parameters15.
Figure 7 presents the wellbore layouts as well as the stress
and porosity profiles of Well-A and three offset wells in the
Khuff reservoir. The three offset wells Well-B, Well-C and
Well-D are dual-lateral, deviated and vertical wells, respectively. The candidate well, Well-A, has a 1,300 ft net reservoir
contact, laterally drilled in the max direction. Table 2 presents
some of the reservoir and well characteristics as well as stimulation parameters for all wells. Each of the wells has been drilled
and stimulated with different techniques; however, the reservoir
flow capacity and permeability thickness product (kh) of the
wells are comparable.
Fig. 6. Pumping pressure and rate chart for the Well-A acid treatment.
Stage-1
Stage-2
Stage-3
8,022
8,910
8,210
Max. Rate (bpm)
35
39
41
Avg. Rate (bpm)
23
30
30
Max. Pressure (psi)
Table 1. Limited entry treatment parameters for Well-A
PRODUCTION DATA ANALYSIS
Fig. 7. Bottom-hole location and trajectory of Well-A and the three offset wells in
the Khuff reservoir.
Open hole multistage technology has been implemented in various fields across Ghawar field to enhance productivity from
moderate to tight reservoirs and to assess the technical and
economic feasibility of this enabling technology in each field
and each reservoir. Figure 8a highlights the distribution of
open hole multistage technology applications in various deep
Well Name
Well Type
Treatment Type
Reservoir Net
Height (Reservoir
Contact) ft
kh
md-ft
Number of
Stages
Average
Pump Rate
(bbl/min)
Acid
Volume
(kgal)
Well-A
Horizontal
Open Hole
Limited Entry,
Multiple Injection Matrix
Acidizing
70 (1,300)
55
25
125
Well-B
2 Laterals
Horizontal
Open Hole
Coiled Tubing
Matrix
70 (1,550)
60
126
Well-C
60 Cased Hole
Perforation
Acid Fracturing
+ Diverter
70
55
34
45
Well-D
Vertical Cased
Hole
Perforation
Acid Fracturing
65
60
34
65
Table 2. Pumping and reservoir parameters for candidate Well-A and its offset wells
SPRING 2014
Fig. 10a. Fold increase in PI between conventional and open hole multistage
completed wells.
Fig. 8a. Distribution of open hole multistage stimulation technology applications
in the deep gas development program in Saudi Arabia.
Fig. 10b. Fold increase in PI of limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
over standard matrix acidizing.
Fig. 8b. Sustained post-multistage fracturing well production rates showing

improved productivity.
Fig. 9. Normalized PI comparison between Well-A and three offset wells.
gas development fields in Saudi Arabia. This spans carbonate

and clastic reservoirs, and the treatments include both acid and
proppant fracturing.
Figure 8b illustrates the sustained gas rate achieved from
these different fields by applying open hole multistage technology.
The total number of stages included in the evaluation is about
120. The number of fracture stages and the amount of acid or
proppant pumped are dependent on reservoir properties and
development. For the reservoirs that are currently being developed, five to eight treatment stages provide excellent coverage
and production rates.
Most wells went through successful stimulation treatments
as per design. The wells were subsequently cleaned up, flowed
back, tested to confirm economic gas production rate and flowing
6
SPRING 2014
pressure, and put on production. Figure 9 presents the normalized productivity index (PI) for the candidate Well-A and the
three offset wells, showing the higher gas contribution from
Well-A.
With the appropriate selection of candidate wells, treatments
with both open hole multistage fracturing and limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing completions showed successful
results, and each method contributed to high well productivity.
Figure 10a presents the fold increase in well PI from the application of multistage fracturing over single-stage vertical fracture
treatments. Figure 10b presents acidizing treatments where the
application of limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
has superseded the standard multistage matrix acidizing.
CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions are drawn from the work performed in the Khuff reservoir:
1. For this operation, the limited entry, multiple injection
matrix acidizing technology components of stages 2 and 3
functioned successfully, as demonstrated by the pressure
signatures of launching the cutter assemblies of these stages
from the shear housings upon dropping the respective
activation balls.
2. The limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
technology activation balls must be chased down the frac
string with much higher pumping rates 25 bbl/min to
35 bbl/min as compared to the normal open hole
multistage fracturing balls 5 bbl/min to 7 bbl/min.
The resultant higher fluid momentum creates a complex
downhole hydraulic scenario, which usually alters the

shape and profile of the pressure signatures on the
pumping plot. This may not allow the various cutter
releasing and landing steps to be captured on the plot
and/or may actually translate into pressure responses on
the surface.
3. The limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
technique:
Evenly distributes the treatment across the interval by
diverting acid to the entire isolated section of the open
hole.
Is a superior quality treatment over the conventional
bullheading or coiled tubing acidizing.
Is readily applicable to wells that have moderate to good
reservoir permeability with reservoir heterogeneity and
that require near wellbore stimulation and optimal acid
dispersion along the treated interval.
Is not a replacement for traditional multistage fracturing
where discrete fractures and deep penetration are
required, particularly in the moderate to tight gas
reservoirs.
4. Both open hole multistage fracturing completion systems
and the limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing
technique have been successful in their own areas of
application and have proven benefits when the proper
well candidates are selected and treatment assemblies are
successfully deployed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the management of Saudi
Aramco for their permission to publish this article. Also, special
thanks go to the stimulation team at Saudi Aramco. Furthermore, the authors would like to express a very warm and sincere
appreciation to Wael El-Mofty of Packers Plus Energy Services
for providing valuable information with regard to the technology
development and design. In addition, the authors are very
thankful for the field operational crew and their continued
dedication.
The authors would also like to extend special recognition to
Professor George V. Chilingar for his significant contributions
in advancing the knowledge about carbonate rocks.
This article was presented at the SPE Kuwait Oil and Gas
Show and Conference, Mishref, Kuwait, October 7-10, 2013.
NOMENCLATURE
max maximum horizontal in situ stress
min minimum horizontal in situ stress
kh
permeability-thickness product, md-ft
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SPRING 2014
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Multilayered Tight Gas Carbonate Formations in Saudi
Arabia, SPE paper 130894, presented at the SPE Deep
Gas Conference and Exhibition, Manama, Bahrain,
January 24-26, 2010.
11. Rahim, Z., Al-Kanaan, A.A., Johnston, B., Wilson, S.,
Al-Anazi, H. and Kalinin, D.: Success Criteria for
Multistage Fracturing of Tight Gas in Saudi Arabia, SPE
paper 149064, presented at the SPE/DGS Saudi Arabia
Section Technical Symposium and Exhibition, al-Khobar,
Saudi Arabia, May 15-18, 2011.
12. Seale, R.: An Efficient Horizontal Open Hole Multistage
Fracturing and Completion System, SPE paper 108712,
presented at the International Oil Conference and
Exhibition, Veracruz, Mexico, June 27-30, 2007.
13. Baumgarten, D. and Bobrosky, D.: Multistage Acid
Stimulation Improves Production Values in Carbonate
Formations in Western Canada, SPE paper 126058,
presented at the SPE Saudi Arabia Section Technical
Symposium, al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, May 9-11, 2009.
14. Rivenbark, M. and Dickenson, R.: New Open Hole
Technology Unlocks Unconventional Oil and Gas Reserves
Worldwide, SPE paper 147927, presented at the SPE Asia
Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta,
Indonesia, September 20-22, 2011.
15. Al-Ghazal, M.A.: First Successful Deployment of Rapid
STIM Technology, Saudi Aramco Ghawar Gas
Production Engineering Division Internal Documentation,
November 2012.
SPRING 2014
BIOGRAPHIES
Mohammed A. Al-Ghazal is a
Production Engineer at Saudi Aramco.
He is part of a team that is responsible
for gas production optimization in the
Southern Area gas reserves of Saudi
Arabia. During Mohammeds career
with Saudi Aramco, he has led and
participated in several upstream projects, including those
addressing pressure control valve optimization, cathodic
protection system performance, venturi meter calibration,
new stimulation technologies, innovative wireline
technology applications, upgrading of fracturing strategies,
petroleum computer-based applications enhancement and
safety management processes development.
In 2011, Mohammed assumed the position of Gas
Production HSE Advisor in addition to his production
engineering duties. He founded the People-Oriented HSE
culture, which has brought impressive benefits to Saudi
Arabia gas fields and resulted in improved operational
performance.
In early 2012, Mohammed went on assignment with the
Southern Area Well Completion Operations Department,
where he worked as a foreman leading a well completion
site in a remote area.
As a Production Engineer, Mohammed played a critical
role in the first successful application of several high-end
technologies in the Kingdoms gas reservoirs. Mohammeds
areas of interest include formation damage investigation
and mitigation, coiled tubing applications, wireline
operations, matrix acidizing, hydraulic fracturing and
organizational HSE performance.
In 2010, Mohammed received his B.S. degree with
honors in Petroleum Engineering from King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia.
He has also authored and coauthored several Society of
Petroleum Engineers (SPE) papers and technical journal
articles as well as numerous in-house technical reports.
Additionally, Mohammed served as a member of the
industry and student advisory board in the Petroleum
Engineering Department of KFUPM from 2009 to 2011.
As an active SPE member, he serves on the Production
and Operations Award Committee.
Recently, he won the best presentation award at the
production engineering session of the 2013 SPE Young
Professional Technical Symposium.
Mohammed is currently pursuing an M.S. degree in
Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, CA.
Saad M. Al-Driweesh is a General

Supervisor in the Southern Area
Production Engineering Department
(SAPED), where he is involved in gas
production engineering, well
completion, and fracturing and
stimulation activities.
Saad is an active member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE), where he has chaired several technical
sessions in local, regional and international conferences.
He is also the 2013 recipient of the SPE Production and
Operations Award for the Middle East, North Africa and
India region. In addition, Saad chaired the first
Unconventional Gas Technical Event and Exhibition in
Saudi Arabia.
He has published several technical articles addressing
innovation in science and technology. Saads main interest
is in the field of production engineering, including
production optimization, fracturing and stimulation, and
new well completion applications. He has 26 years of
experience in areas related to gas and oil production
engineering.
In 1988, he received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and
Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Mustafa R. Al-Zaid is a Gas
Production Engineer at Saudi Aramco
working for the Southern Area
Production Engineering Department
(SAPED).
In 2010, he received his B.S. degree
in Petroleum Engineering from the
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
Fadel A. Al-Ghurairi is a Petroleum
Engineering Consultant and Technical
Support Unit Supervisor working on
gas fields. He has 24 years of
experience in production and reservoir
engineering. In the last 12 years, Fadel
has specialized in stimulation and
fracturing of deep gas wells.
In 1988, he received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
SPRING 2014
A New Real-Time Analysis Method

for Pressure Tests in Low Permeability
Reservoirs
Authors: Mohammed F. Al-Zayer, Amer H. AbuHassoun, Dr. Sami Eyuboglu, Amir Anwar,
Nacer Guergueb and Mark Proett
ABSTRACT
Formation testing while drilling (FTWD) tools were introduced
as alternatives to wireline testing almost a decade ago. Interpretation of pressure tests conducted during drilling of horizontal
sections, however, is difficult because of the dynamic environment and unsteady hydrostatic pressure. One major challenge
related to pressure measurement while drilling is supercharging,
which is an increase of sandface pressure above the true reservoir
pressure. This is caused by mud filtrate invasion. The sandface
supercharge pressure can rise to greater than 1,000 psi and
cause unrealistic formation pressure estimates.
In this article, a new methodological approach has been
used to account for the effect of supercharging on formation
pressure estimations. The method begins by modeling fluid flow
within the filter cake and formation to estimate the amount of
supercharged pressure in real time. The corrected pressure is
calculated by subtracting the estimate of supercharged pressure
from the measured pressure. A new equivalent mud weight is
then calculated by using the corrected pressure. The formation
pressures obtained by the FTWD tools are taken under varying
downhole conditions to assess how forward modeling results
correlate with the analytical model results.
This new method was tested in one of Saudi Arabias fields
in real-time while drilling a horizontal section. Repeat pressure
tests were conducted a few days after the initial tests to verify
the accuracy of this mathematical model. This article discusses
the development of the supercharge pressure models, and the
results and observations from their testing.
INTRODUCTION
Wireline formation testers (WFTs) were introduced decades
ago, prompting an industry debate regarding the significance
of the tools pressure measurements. The primary questions
were how they compared to well testing results and if they
could be reliable for formation evaluation. After years of testing and continuous improvement to WFT technology, pressure
measurements from WFTs have proven to be the standard for
formation evaluation. With the introduction of formation testing while drilling (FTWD) tools, debate has arisen once more
with respect to the significance of the pressure measurements
10
SPRING 2014
of the tools. The primary concern relates to how FTWD pressure measurements compare to wireline measurements, and as
before, their reliability for formation evaluation. FTWD tools
are of interest because they can perform measurements much
sooner during the life of a well and in a potentially more
dynamic environment1.
Formation pressure measurements taken while drilling can
be affected by supercharging, which is defined as the increased pressure observed at the wellbore sandface2. Without
proper correction, supercharging can distort the pressure
readings, particularly in low permeability formations.
Pressure variations near the wellbore are primarily influenced by mud filtrate invasion and mud cake formation1. Considerable progress has been made toward understanding how
mud cakes form and influence near-wellbore pressure stability3-5.
Based on that research, miscible and immiscible multiphase
simulators have been developed to predict the filtrate invasion
for oil-based mud (OBM) and water-based mud (WBM)6. As a
result of research performed6, it is possible to make simplifying
assumptions about well conditions and still obtain a reasonable
estimate of near-wellbore pressures, although in reality the
near-wellbore is a complex environment. To control the production of formation fluids into the wellbore, wellbore pressure
is normally maintained at a pressure substantially greater than
the formation pore pressure. The wellbore sandface is exposed
to hydrostatic pressure, and the filtrate immediately invades
the near-wellbore region when a producing zone is penetrated.
Mud cake is formed when drilling fluid flows into the formation and solids are deposited on the surface of the wellbore.
This process is normally referred to as static filtration. As the
mud cake grows, it eventually stabilizes at a maximum thickness. Stabilization is a result of the shearing action of the mud
circulation in the annulus as well as the mechanical action of
the rotating drillpipe. This process is referred to as dynamic filtration. During these processes, a pressure gradient is established in the formation, Fig. 1. The pressure in the wellbore
near the surface of the mud cake is at hydrostatic (Pmh) levels,
but drops rapidly across the mud cake, and then gradually decreases across the formation, approaching formation pressure
(Pf) some distance from the wellbore. The supercharge pressure (Psc) can be defined as the difference between sandface
pressure (Pss) and Pf.
Fig. 1. Supercharging effect where hydrostatic pressure and filtration loss cause the
sandface pressure, Pss, to be elevated above the formation pressure, Pf.
SINGLE-PHASE SUPERCHARGE MODEL

Assuming single-phase Darcy flow, the supercharge pressure
can be predicted using the familiar radial flow equations for an
infinite homogeneous reservoir:
(1)
It can be assumed that the mud cake is relatively thin
compared to the wellbore diameter, i.e., lmc<<rw. So the flow
through the mud cake can be modeled as a linear Darcy
flow with the differential between the borehole mud hydrostatic pressure (Pmh) and the sandface pressure (Pss), creating the mud filtrate loss (qm):
(2)
Using Eqns. 1 and 2, we can determine an expression for
the supercharge pressure in terms of the hydrostatic pressure
and sandface supercharge pressure as well as the formation
and mud properties:
The dimensionless supercharge pressure, pDsc, is the relative

degree of supercharging normalized to the apparent overbalance. The apparent overbalance, Pob, is the difference between
hydrostatic mud pressure and the sandface pressure. The term
pDsc is the ratio of the actual supercharged pressure overbalance,
Psc to the apparent overbalance Pob, which can be measured
using a formation tester. Dimensionless time, tD, determines
the transient response of the supercharging. Its definition is the
same as that used for transient well testing.
The mud cake transmissibility ratio, t Dmc, is the most important dimensionless constant because it determines the overall
supercharging effect based on mud cake and formation properties. It is a measure of the relative resistance to filtrate invasion
from the mud cake vs. the formation resistance. If the transmissibility ratio is small, the mud cake dominates the filtrate
invasion, and supercharging is small. If the transmissibility ratio
is large, invasion is primarily influenced by the formation, and
supercharging is relatively high.
Dynamic Mud Cake Growth Model
Two primary models exist for predicting mud cake growth.

The most general model was developed for radial flow6:
(8)
The derivation of Eqn. 8 assumed that the mud cake differential, Pm, was constant, but it is not limited to this constraint. As a mud cake forms, the pressure differential changes.
In this case, the integral Pm(t)dt would simply appear in place
of Pmt. In this general form, Eqn. 8 can be used as a boundary
condition for a multiphase reservoir model where the mud
cake growth is coupled with the filtrate invasion1.
Now, by assuming the mud cake is small relative to the wellbore radius, i.e., lmc /rw 0, the following can be concluded:
(9)
(3)
Using the following non-dimensional parameters, we can
then reduce Eqn. 3 to a simpler form so that the effect of these
non-dimensional parameters can be studied.
(4)
(5)
This equation is the well-known lineal filtration model

where the filter cake grows with the square root of time. It can
be shown that the t approximation is quite satisfactory for
values of lmc/rw< 0.20; the error is less than 7%6. This conclusion
applies to radial and linear mud cake buildup, but does not apply to cake buildup on formations where the mud cake and
formation have comparable permeabilities.
The linear mud cake model can be incorporated into the general supercharge equation, Eqn. 7, by applying superposition to
the incremental time periods used to predict the mud cake growth:
(6)
(10)
Where:
(11)
(7)
SPRING 2014
11
This model assumes that the supercharged pressure is

loosely coupled to the mud cake growth.
Assuming that the formation pressure is known, the following relationship can be developed to predict supercharging:
(12)
Single-phase Supercharge Simulation
A base example was demonstrated through research1 to illustrate the supercharging effect with invasion time using the variables shown in Table 1. This example has an overbalance of
1,000 psi combined with a formation permeability of 1 md, resulting in significant dynamic supercharging effects, as demonstrated in Fig. 2. The supercharged pressure increases rapidly
Sensitivity Variable
Units
Base
Porosity (fraction)
0.25
Viscosity
(cp)
Flow Line Compressibility
cfl (1/psi)
3 x 10-6
Mud Cake Permeability
kmc (md)
0.0001
Mud Cake Max Thickness
lmc (cm)
0.5
Wellbore Radius
rw (cm)
10
Probe Radius
rp (cm)
0.56
Packer Element Radius
re (cm)
Formation Radius
rf (cm)
10,000
Formation Height
hz (cm)
10,000
Flow Line Volume
Vfl (cc)
35
Pretest Chamber Volume
Vpc (cc)
Table 1. Constants for simulations
Fig. 2. An example of supercharging effect using the variables from Table 1. The
dynamic mud cake growth model shows pressure increasing rapidly after exposure
to hydrostatic pressure, and as the mud cake grows, the pressure decreases. The
static model shown with the dashed line illustrates how the supercharge pressure
would increase if the mud cake were formed instantly.
12
SPRING 2014
during the very early time periods and then peaks as the mud
cake grows and chokes off the invasion. This early invasion
occurs less than a minute after the formation is exposed to the
mud hydrostatic pressure. Then the supercharge pressure
shows declination as the mud cake grows to its maximum
thickness of 0.5 cm (0.2). At this point, the pressure begins to
increase at a slow rate and approaches the dashed line showing
the results for the static mud cake model. The static mud cake
model assumes a mud cake of 0.5 cm was formed instantly
when the wellbore was exposed to hydrostatic pressure. This
research demonstrates that supercharged pressures predominately decrease when the mud cake is growing and increase at
a reduced rate when the mud cake has stabilized.
FIELD CASE STUDY

Supercharge analysis, as previously explained, was performed
in real-time during the execution of tests of formation pressure
using a logging while drilling (LWD) 4 tool in a 6.125 bit
size horizontal hole. Water-based drilling fluid was used in the
well. A total of 17 valid tests were performed in this well, and
1.5 md/cp of mobility was set as the threshold of a supercharge
analysis for this test.
The first test selected for supercharge analysis had an overbalance of 748 psi combined with mobility of 0.28 md/cp. The
constants to perform the supercharge model for each selected
point are shown in Table 2.
The estimated supercharged pressure of 243.46 psi was calculated for Test 1 by using the supercharge model. The formation
pressure determined from the LWD tool is shown with blue
color in Fig. 3, while the corrected formation pressure, which
is the result of subtracting the supercharged pressure from the
Units
Base
Porosity (fraction)
0.17
Viscosity
(cp)
cfl (1/psi)
1 x 10-5
kmc (md)
lmc (cm)
Wellbore Radius
rw (cm)
Probe Radius
rp (cm)
0.56
re (cm)
Formation Radius
rf (cm)
Formation Height
hz (cm)
Flow Line Volume
Vfl (cc)
35
Vpc (cc)
Total Invasion Time
(hours)
3.58
Table 2. Constants for simulations, Test 1

*Parameters were modified to match formation and drilling fluid properties.
determined formation pressure, is shown with red color.

The second test selected for supercharge analysis had an
overbalance of 911.5 psi combined with mobility of 1.21
md/cp. Table 3 shows the constants to perform the supercharge
model for each selected point.
The estimated supercharge pressure of 91.28 psi was calculated for Test 2 using the supercharge model. The formation
Fig. 4. The comparison of the LWD tool pressure and corrected formation
pressure after subtracting supercharge pressure during Test 2.
Fig. 3. The comparison of the LWD tool pressure and corrected formation
pressure after subtracting supercharge pressure during Test 1.
Units
Base
Porosity (fraction)
0.13
Viscosity
(cp)
cfl (1/psi)
1 x 10-5
kmc (md)
lmc (cm)
Wellbore Radius
rw (cm)
Probe Radius
rp (cm)
0.56
re (cm)
Formation Radius
rf (cm)
Formation Height
hz (cm)
Flow Line Volume
Vfl (cc)
35
Vpc (cc)
Total Invasion Time
(hours)
4.7
CONCLUSIONS
Supercharging is a result of increased sandface pressure caused
by an accumulation of mud filtrate in the wellbore region of
the formation, particularly when the permeability of a formation is low. The amount of supercharged pressure affecting the
sandface pressure measured during drilling was estimated by
using finite difference forward modeling. Corrected pressure
measurements were established by subtracting the calculated
supercharged pressure measurements from the estimated
Table 3. Constants for simulations, Test 2

*Parameters were modified to match formation and drilling fluid properties.
Test
TVD (ft)
Invasion
Time (hrs)
pressure determined from the LWD tool is shown with blue

color in Fig. 4, while the corrected formation pressure, which
is the result of subtracting the supercharged pressure from the
determined formation pressure, is shown with red color.
As mentioned earlier, one of the contributing factors to supercharge pressure is failure of the mud cake to fully form after
drilling because of formation permeability, overbalance and invasion time. Therefore, two pressure tests were repeated while
tripping out of the hole at the same depths as Test 1 and Test 2
to observe the changes in the pressure readings, helping to
demonstrate the accuracy of the supercharged model, Table 4.
The repeat test for Test 1 was performed with a determined
mobility of 0.37 md/cp; formation pressure was determined to
be R1 psi. The repeat test for Test 2 was performed with a
determined mobility of 1.22 md/cp; formation pressure was
determined to be R2 psi. The differences between the repeat
test pressures and corrected formation pressures are 30.13 psi
and 86.6 psi, respectively, for Tests 1 and 2.
Mobility
(md/cp)
Pstop
(psi)
Estimated
Supercharge
Pressure (psi)
Corrected
Formation
Pressure (psi)
Differences between
Repeat Test and
Corrected Formation
Pressure (psi) (Z-R)
Z1=X1-243.6
30.13
X,182.2
3.6
0.28
X1
243.6
1R
X,182.2
118
0.37
R1
R1
X,173.8
4.7
1.21
X2
91.28
Z2=X2-91.28
2R
X,173.8
87
1.22
R2
R2
86.6
Table 4. Geotap pressure tests during drilling and repeat tests while tripping out of the hole
SPRING 2014
13
formation pressure readings. Repeat tests from the same locations were performed at least 83 hours after the invasion time
of the first tests. Pressure readings showed similarity with corrected pressure readings after ignoring the supercharging effects. The most important point of this research is that new
equivalent mud weights were calculated using corrected pressures during drilling. The results proved successful for calculating new mud weight and helping accomplish optimized drilling
operations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Aramco and Halliburton for their permission to publish this
article. The authors also acknowledge the contribution of the
Saudi Aramco drilling team and Halliburton operations team
for making the field studies possible with their efforts. Special
thanks are extended to Mohammed Bayrakdar, Halliburton,
for his help with the field test and to Wael Soleiman, Halliburton, for the supercharged forward modeling described in this
research.
This article was presented at the ADIPEC 2013 Technical
Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 10-13, 2013.
REFERENCES
1. Proett, M., Chin, W.C., Lysen, S., Sands, P. and Seifert, D.:
Formation Testing in the Dynamic Drilling Environment,
paper 2004-N, presented at the SPWLA 45th Annual
Logging Symposium, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, June
6-9, 2004.
2. Wu, J., Meister, M. and Li, B.: New Method for
Supercharging Estimation, SPE paper 110389, presented
at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition,
Anaheim, California, November 11-14, 2007.
3. Wu, J., Torres-Verdn, C., Sepehrnoori, K. and Delshad,
M.: Numerical Simulation of Mud Filtrate Invasion in
Deviated Wells, SPE paper 71739, presented at the SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New
Orleans, Louisiana, September 30 - October 3, 2001.
4. Chenevert, M.E. and Dewan, J.T.: A Model for Filtration
of Water-based Mud during Drilling: Determination of
Mud Cake Parameters, Petrophysics, Vol. 42, No. 3,
May-June 2001.
5. Jiao, D. and Sharma, M.M.: Mechanism of Cake Buildup
in Cross Flow Filtration of Colloidal Suspension, Journal
of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol. 162, No. 2, February
1994, pp. 454-462.
6. Chin, W.C.: Quantitative Methods in Reservoir
Engineering, Amsterdam and Boston: Gulf Professional
Publishing, USA, with Elsevier Science, July 2002, 480 p.
14
SPRING 2014
BIOGRAPHIES
Mohammed F. Al-Zayer is a
Petrophysicist in the Reservoir
Description Division of Saudi Aramco.
Since joining Saudi Aramco in 2010,
he has been involved in several
technical petrophysical disciplines of
the Ghawar field. Mohammed is
mostly interested in advanced applications of wireline and
logging while drilling formation testers as well as advanced
tools.
In 2010, he received his B.S. degree (with honors) in
Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV. Currently, Mohammed is
pursuing his M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering at
Imperial College London, London, U.K.
Amer H. AbuHassoun joined Saudi
Aramco in 2001 as a Certified
Petroleum Engineer and has since then
gained hands-on experience focusing on
reservoir management, reservoir characterization, drilling and production
engineering in both sandstone and
carbonate reservoirs. He currently works in the Khurais Unit
of the Southern Reservoir Management Department as a
Senior Reservoir Management Engineer. Amers focus is on
managing the reservoir performance of the worlds largest
intelligent field: the Khurais complex. He has authored
several technical publications focusing on restoring
production utilizing an asset team approach, intelligent field
technology and enhancement of injection trends.
In 2001, Amer received his B.S. degree from King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia, and in 2007, he received his M.S. degree
from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, both in
Petroleum Engineering.
Dr. Sami Eyuboglu became a Program
Manager at the Halliburton Dhahran
Technology Center, Saudi Arabia, in
February 2012. He has been with
Halliburton Energy Services since April
2008. Sami specializes in both logging
while drilling and wireline pump-out
formation testers. Prior to this, he was a Research Professor
at Ohio State University, where he worked in developing
computer programs for surface geophysical methods and
numerical modeling of ground penetrating radar (GPR).
Their applications included national security issues (UXO
and tunnel detection) and the environment.
Sami received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mining
Engineering from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey,
and his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from the University
of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR.
Amir Anwar is a Senior Logging While

Drilling (LWD) Technical Professional
for Sperry Drilling-Halliburton,
located in Saudi Arabia. He has more
than 8 years of LWD experience. Amir
started as a LWD Field Engineer, then
after 4 years, he then joined the Realtime Operations Center (ROC) for 1 year as a Senior LWD
ROC professional. In his current role, Amir works on
delivering analysis and LWD solutions to Saudi Aramco
utilizing existing and emerging LWD technologies.
He received his B.S. degree in Mechatronics Engineering
from the Sixth October University, Cairo, Egypt. Amir is
member of the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log
Analysts (SPWLA) and the Society of Petroluem Engineers
(SPE).
Nacer Guergueb is the Formation and
Reservoir Solutions Senior Manager
for wireline and perforating in Saudi
Arabia. He has more than 18 years of
experience in wireline logging,
including open and cased hole
operations. For the last 12 years,
Nacer was the Lead in the Applied Formation Evaluation
Services Group, located in several different areas, including
West Africa, the Far East and the Middle East, where he
assisted in logging operations, developing log quality
processes, working on special projects and supporting
customers Geosciences asset teams.
In 1995, Nacer received his State Engineer degree in
Geophysics from the University of Sciences and Technology,
Algiers, Algeria. He is a member of Society of Exploration
Geophysicists (SEG), the Society of Petrophysicists and
Well Log Analysts (SPWLA) and the Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE).
Mark Proett is a Senior Petroleum

Engineering Consultant for the
Upstream Group of the Aramco
Services Company, Houston, TX. He
was previously with Halliburton
serving as the Global Technical
Advisor for Formation Testing and
Sampling. Mark is best known for his publications
advocating the viability of the formation testing while
drilling (FTWD) tool, introduced in 2002 with the Sperry
GeoTap service. He is also known for developing new
methods of pressure transient analysis and sampling probe
innovations, such as the oval probe and focused sampling
probes.
Mark has been awarded 50 U.S. patents and has
authored over 50 technical papers, most of which deal with
sampling and testing analysis methods. He has served on
technical committees for the Society of Petrophysicists and
Well Log Analysts (SPWLA) and Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE), and also as the Chairman for the SPE
Pressure Transient Testing Committee. Mark was a SPWLA
Distinguished Speaker in 2004/2005 and a SPE Distinguished Lecturer for 2006/2007. In 2008, he received the
SPWLA Distinguished Technical Achievement Award and
in 2013 the SPE Gulf Regional Formation Evaluation
Award.
Mark received his B.S. degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park,
MD, and his M.S. degree from Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD.
SPRING 2014
15
Improved Reservoir Surveillance through

Injected Tracers in a Saudi Arabian Oil
Field: Case Study
Authors: Muhanad A. Al-Mosa, Husain A. Zaberi and Dr. Olaf Huseby
ABSTRACT
High-quality reservoir characterization, improved reservoir dynamics, optimized water flooding and a better understanding
of fluid movements are some key factors for successful reservoir management. Interwell tracer test (IWTT) technology has
been recognized as an efficient tool to determine fluid pathways between wells and evaluate areal water breakthrough
between injectors and producers, along with estimating the velocities at which the injected water is breaking through. These
data can be integrated in the geological and reservoir models
of the field to reduce uncertainties attributed to fluid flow
mechanisms and interwell communication.
This article presents a case study of IWTT technology application in a heterogeneous reservoir in a Saudi Arabian oil field.
It shows how this characterization tool was utilized to investigate the reservoir flow mechanism and how the derived information facilitated better reservoir management through improved reservoir monitoring and enhanced understanding of
reservoir fluid dynamics. The project began in November 2007
by injecting unique chemical tracers into a set of injectors to
effectively monitor injected fluid movement in the reservoir,
after which the tracers were continuously monitored through
yearly sampling programs by collecting samples from adjacent
oil producers.
The results of the project have provided valuable insights by
identifying interwell pathways, estimating velocities at which
each tracer the injected water is traveling and optimizing
water injection volumes. These findings translated into optimized reservoir management, resulting in a tangible impact on
the offset wells productivity and sustainability.
INTRODUCTION
History
Field-X is considered one of the most challenging areas in

Saudi Arabia. This is due to the fields complexity, including
the existence of intense fractures and super permeable streaks
that have resulted in anomalous water encroachment patterns
in the field. Therefore, an interwell tracer test (IWTT) project
was proposed and commenced 52 months after putting this
16
SPRING 2014
waterflooded field on production to establish fluid pathways

between selected injectors and producers, and obtain information about the fluid flow mechanism in the reservoir. The result
of this project will improve understanding of reservoir fluid
flow and positively affect the reservoir management strategy to
improve sweep and enhance oil recovery in this field.
Objective
This IWTT project focused on delivering several key elements:

estimation of water breakthrough time between injectors and
producers, determination of fluid pathways between wells,
assessment of the traveling velocity of injected water and an
overall picture of water breakthrough in Field-X.
Concept
A tracer is an identifiable substance added to injected fluid.

When the tracer is detected and sampled at the producers, it
can provide valuable information on the path the fluid follows.
The IWTT technology is an extremely valuable tool for production optimization and understanding reservoir dynamics.
This technology is often used in the oil industry to estimate
residual oil saturation, assess volumetric sweep efficiency and
provide information on the location and orientation of fractures within naturally fractured reservoirs.
Procedure
The IWTT technology is based on information obtained

through well-to-well communication and tracer sampling collection. Tracers are injected in each injector well to monitor
the source of water breakthrough and verify communications
with all offset wells. Certain tracer types are selected for injection at specific injectors, and samples are then collected from
several offset wells and shipped to the Institute for Energy
Technology laboratories in Norway, where several analyses are
made. Each injector carries a distinctive type of chemical tracer
to easily trace back the water source after sampling in the production streamline detects a tracer presence. The collective results from all chemical tracers highlight all possible communication pathways between injectors and offset wells.
Injected
Amount (kg)
Injection
Well
Well Type
Injection Date
(D-M-Y)
Time Before First Observation

in a Producer Well (Months)
2-FBA
79
I-3
Horizontal
Nov. 5, 2007
18 (in P-1 and P-2)
4-FBA
79
I-4
Horizontal
Nov. 6, 2007
Not observed yet
2,6-DFBA
36
I-5
Vertical
Nov. 7, 2007
Not observed yet
3-TFMBA
13
I-1
Vertical
Nov. 3, 2007
Not observed yet
4-TFMBA
34
I-2
Vertical
Nov. 4, 2007
18 (in P-1)
Tracer Name
Table 1. Tracer injections in Field-X
METHODOLOGY
Operational Highlights
This IWTT project was carried out over a five-year period,

which provided adequate time to qualitatively and quantitatively capture the tracers different responses, and to distinguish
fluid movement for further reservoir heterogeneity and connectivity analysis. The project design was for a distinctive fluid
with a known concentration basically composed of a chemical tracer and water to be injected into the reservoir at an
injector for a certain period of time and then produced back
from the offset wells. At the injector, water accompanied by
the specified chemical tracer gets injected into the reservoir.
The assumption is that fluid carrying the tracer is mixed with
formation water and oil, and then gets pushed further into
the reservoir. Depending on the area, this fluid may travel
through the reservoirs rock matrix, which in turn provides
the needed pressure support and enhances sweep efficiency in
the area. On the other hand, this fluid may travel through high
permeability channels (fractures and super permeable layers)
that are connected through long pathways, which means
injected water is being directly produced without delivering
the desired efficient areal pressure support. A sampling program, initially developed with certain criteria regarding the
location and performance of the offset wells, is then flowed to
capture and analyze samples at the production streamline for
further investigation, comparing them with the original fluid
concentration.
Reservoir heterogeneities, such as super permeability, fracture intensity and the relatively flat structure of Field-X, play
major roles in the anomalous water arrival to these offset wells
compared to other areas. This IWTT project led to a better understanding of fluid dynamics, which paved the way to better
reservoir management optimization practices in this particular
anisotropic area with irregular water encroachment and pressure propagation. Taking into account that the distances
between the injectors and the producers are considerable,
breakthrough is greatly dependent on reservoir rock quality.
This part of the field is known to be heterogeneous, and breakthrough was, initially, anticipated to occur in the very early life
stage after the start-up of tracer injection.
Fig. 1. IWTT sampling programs since the startup of tracer injection.
Fig. 2. Tracer breakthrough at five offset wells since the startup of tracer injection.
Fig. 3. Bands of sampling frequency for IWTT 2012-2013 sampling programs.
Frequency
The IWTT project began in November 2007. Five different

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17
types of chemical fluorobenzoic acid (FBA) tracers were selected,

and each was injected into one of five injectors located along the
west flank of Field-X, Table 1 and Figs. 1 and 2. Until March
2008, samples were collected from 10 offset wells on a biweekly
basis. The assumption was that tracers would most likely reach
the offset wells very soon, however, no sign of any of the injected
tracers was noticed in any of the offset wells during the first six
months. Therefore, the sampling frequency was changed to a
monthly basis and broken down into a number of bands, Fig. 3.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Timeline
These five chemical tracers were injected into five injectors in

the field, one unique tracer per individual well, during a period
of five days in November 2007. Two of these tracers (2-FBA
and 4-TFMBA) have so far been observed at producers in the
field. Figures 4 to 6 show a comprehensive breakdown of the
IWTT projects timeline progress since initiation, displaying all
the main event occurrences where certain chemical tracers
were captured at several offset wells.
Fig. 4. Detection timeline since startup of tracer injection.
Fig. 5. IWTT detection timeline for I-2 and I-3.
18
SPRING 2014
Major Observations
1. Chemical tracers were first detected in water samples

collected at two offset wells (P-1 and P-2) after 18 months
of tracer injection, which began in November 2007. These
tracers were linked to only two injectors: I-2 and I-3.
2. 26 months after tracer injection start-up, tracers were seen
at offset wells P-1 and P-3. The tracers were linked to one
injector: I-3.
3. 44 months after tracer injection start-up, tracers were seen at
offset well P-5. The tracers were linked to one injector: I-2.
The fact that three out of five tracers have not been observed so far should not be misinterpreted as evidence of the
degradation, adsorption or other problems with the tracers.
The FBA tracers used in the field are among the best tested
chemical tracers and have all been proven to survive in carbonate
as well as sandstone reservoirs for more than six years at reservoir temperatures of 135 C. Moreover, the FBA tracers have
Fig. 6. IWTT detection timeline graph.
all been proven to behave as ideal water tracers, without adsorption to the rock in either carbonate or sandstone reservoirs. The fact that two of the five tracers have been observed
in the field provides an additional confirmation of the stability
of the tracers. The chemical properties of the five tracers injected into the field are equal, so if two of them have survived
through the field, the remaining three should also survive.
Two explanations are possible for the lack of tracer production from the I-1, I-4 and I-5 injectors. One possibility, which
has also been observed in other fields, is that the injected water
and the tracers go mainly into an aquifer, where the tracers are
diluted to levels below the detection limit of 50 parts per trillion (ppt). In any tracer study design, one must consider the
possibility of dilution in water either in the reservoir or in adjacent aquifers. If a large fraction goes into the aquifer, more
than expected for a given tracer injection well, the dilution
may be too large, preventing tracer detection at the producers.
The small concentration values observed in the producers that
do produce tracers in the field (with a maximum of 10 times
the detection limit) suggest that the tracers are being diluted
more than was originally assumed in the design phase of the
project.
Another possibility is that the injected water provides pressure support to the aquifer without inducing large enough flux
within the time span of the sample collection and analysis. The
fact that the residence times are fairly long in the wells producing tracers supports the latter explanation.
Integrating a Tracers Production Curve Analysis with
Analytical Tools
Tracer concentration response curves offer distinctive insights

into the reservoir characteristics, providing a means for rigorous
evaluation of reservoir heterogeneity. The results from such an
analysis were used to quantify all possible communications be-
tween the injectors and producers, to demonstrate flow patterns and to evaluate the sweep efficiency in this part of the
field. The curves provide significant information, such as recovered tracer mass, first tracer breakthrough and peak tracer
concentration. For instance, tracer concentration response
curves are indicative of a homogeneous reservoir if a tracer is
detected sometime after tracer injection and its detection concentration increases gradually with time. Conversely, if the
tracer concentration approaches a peak value and then decreases sharply to zero over a short period of time after the
injection start-up, it is an indication of fracture corridors or
super permeability streaks between the water injector and the
oil producer1.
As the flood front reaches an area characterized by fracture
networks, the tracer travels at a much higher velocity due to
the high-pressure differential across the fractured high permeability zone compared to that in the zone dominated with
matrix permeability. This, in turn, causes the tracer traveling
with the flood front to reach producers faster, which results in
a high tracer concentration at the offset wells. As a result, the
first tracer concentration peak can confirm the presence of a
high permeability feature connecting the injector and the
producer. An overview and analysis of the tracer response
curve for each well where tracers were detected are discussed
in detail.
Residence Time Distribution from Tracer Production Curves
Residence time distribution (RTD) analysis is a powerful tool

that can be used to assess several characteristic properties of
flow in a system. It was originally developed to describe flow
in chemical reactor systems2 and since then has been used to
interpret tracer data: several authors have extended RTD
methodology to estimate flow geometry and heterogeneity in a
reservoir from the data in tracer curves3, 4. Shook et al. (2009)5
shows how RTD methodology can be used to estimate oil saturation from partitioning interwell tracer test (PITT) data; the
methodology was used6 to analyze data from a pilot test of
new PITT tracers in the Lagrave field. The method was also
used to analyze tracer data to optimize a surfactant field trial
in the Minas field7.
RTD is the distribution of times used by a population of
tracer particles to travel through a medium. The tracers represent fluids that travel along different paths, and therefore, use
different amounts of time to pass through a medium. The distribution, E(t), of these times is called the exit age distribution,
or RTD of the fluid in the system. E(t) is defined from produced tracer concentrations, C(t), production rate, Qp(t), and
injected tracer amount, M, as
(1)
The unit of E is the inverse of the time unit. If a system has
one injector and multiple producers, j, with different production
SPRING 2014
19
rates, Qj, we can define the RTDs between each injector and j
as
(2)
tribution represents the initial tracer pulse injection. Setting

this into Eqn. 7 and using the definition of the Dirac distribution and the commutative property of convolution integrals,
we find
(8)
In a closed system, the normalization by injected tracer

amount ensures that
(3)
where the sum is over all producers. If reservoir boundaries are
open, significant amounts of tracer may be lost. The produced
tracer can nevertheless be analyzed, and the RTD will give information about the injector-producer pairs, though clearly a
lost tracer does not give information3.
Important information about the geometry and flow in a
system can be obtained from the RTDs two first moments.
They are given as
(4)
where the zero moment represents the relative amount of
tracer produced in production well j, and the first moment represents the average residence time for the tracers between the
injection well and j.
In 2005, a new method3, 4 was introduced to characterize
the flow and geometry of a system using RTD. In this method,
two functions, the flow capacity, F(t), and the storage capacity,
(t), can be defined as
This result states that at a given time, t, the true tracer

distribution from the delta pulse injection without reinjection
is given by the observed distribution Eout(t), minus the integral
up to t of the true distribution and the known reinjection
tracer distribution.
Extrapolation of Tracer Results to Infinite Times
Moment analysis of tracer curves requires that RTDs be integrated to infinity. This is not possible using measured data
alone, as any tracer campaign must be ended at some finite
time after injection. To compensate for this, integration to infinity must therefore be based on extrapolation of the tracer
curves. It has been shown4 that extrapolation of RTDs can be
done by fitting an exponential function to the tracer data for
large times. If large time data are unavailable, it may be difficult to use a log-linear fit. A different approach, based on
fitting a type curve function to the complete data set, was
therefore used6. Based on a solution to the convection-diffusion equation in known geometries9, 10, the type function with
three parameters, D0, t0 and M0, was defined and used to fit
data as:
(9)
(5)
and combined in a F diagram to quantify a measure of the
heterogeneity of the system. The swept reservoir volume as a
function of time can be estimated from F(t)5 as
(6)
Correcting Tracer Data for Reinjection
In cases where produced fluid is reinjected, any contribution in

the tracer curves due to reinjection must be removed prior to
RTD analysis. For completeness, we have summarized the
main steps in this correction6.
The correction can be done in a systematic and unambiguous manner using deconvolution. The RTD at the outlet can be
written as the convolution of the input signal and the injectorproducer well pairs RTD function8:
(7)
If we reinject tracer, with a normalized reinjection concentration
denoted by Er(t), the function that describes the total injected
tracer is given by Ein= (t)+Er(t) for t >0, where the Dirac dis20
SPRING 2014
Examples of these extrapolations are displayed in Figs. 7 and

8 showing the RTD analyses for tracers and wells where nonzero concentrations were observed. In the figures, the open circular symbols and light blue shaded area are E(t) from the
measured data. The curve used to extrapolate E(t), based on
Eqn. 9, is displayed as a black line. The actual extrapolated region is given as a red shaded area below the extrapolation curve.
It should be noted that for some of the tracers and wells, the
extrapolations are fragile as the tracers have not yet reached
their peaks. This is the case for the 2-FBA curves in P-3, P-4
and P-5, and for the 4-TFMBA curve in P-5. For these curves,
the RTD analysis should be treated with caution. For the 2FBA curves in P-1 and P-2, and for the 4-TFMBA curve in P-1,
the tracers seem to have reached their peak, and the RTD
analysis for these wells should be robust enough that sound
conclusions can be established.
Recovery of a Tracer
Recovery of a tracer in a well is given by the zero moment, as

previously illustrated by Eqn. 4, of the RTD. Due to the normalization, recovery of a tracer, summed over all producers,
Fig. 7. RTD analysis of the 2-FBA tracers, injected at I-3 and detected in P-1, P-2, P-3, P-4 and P-5. The open circular symbols are 2-FBA data, and the dashed line is the
corresponding type curve fit defined in Eqn. 9. The light blue area corresponds to the integral of the RTD for the measured data, and the red area corresponds to the
integral of the RTD for the extrapolation. The full RTD is assumed to be the combined blue and red areas
should sum to 100% for a closed system. For a given well, j, the
recovery quantifies how much of the injected tracer is produced
in that particular well. Table 2 summarizes the recovery of the
2-FBA and 4-TFMBA tracers.
From Table 2, we note that the recovered tracer is very

small on the order of 0.1% of the injected tracer mass. This
is very small compared to recoveries reported in other cases6, 7,
11. On the other hand, the tracer curves in Fig. 9 are distinct and
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21
Fig. 8. RTD analysis of the 4-TFMBA tracers, injected at I-2 and detected in P-1 and P-5. The open circular symbols are 4-TFMBA data, and the dashed line is the
corresponding type curve fit defined in Eqn. 9. The light blue area corresponds to the integral of the RTD for the measured data, and the red area corresponds to the
integral of the RTD for the extrapolation. The full RTD is assumed to be the combined blue and red areas.
P-1
P-2
P-3
P-4
P-5
Sum
Tracer
mO [%]
mO [%]
mO [%]
mO [%]
mO [%]
mO [%]
2-FBA
0.10
0.05
0.04
0.16
0.04
0.39
4-TFMBA
0.21
0.02
0.23
Table 2. Recovery of tracers 2-FBA and 4-TFMBA, obtained from the zero moment of the RTD
Fig. 9. Tracer concentrations in wells P-1, P-2, P-3, P-4 and P-5; (a) displays responses of the 2-FBA tracer injected at I-3, and (b) displays responses of the 4-TFMBA
tracer injected at I-2.
clear, and represent a breakthrough of water from the individual

injection wells albeit a small breakthrough. The small amount
recovered suggests that the water injection is effective and is
working as desired. The water is injected into the aquifer, below
22
SPRING 2014
the oil-water contact, and helps to maintain pressure ideally

without inducing significant water breakthrough at the producers.
We also note that these low concentrations could not have been
quantified without excellent detection limits. The measured
P-1
P-2
P-3
P-4
P-5
Tracer
T [days]
T [days]
T [days]
T [days]
T [days]
2-FBA
1,662
2,099
1,296
2,369
2,185
4-TFMBA
2,046
1,564
Table 3. Average tracer residence times for the injector-producer pairs in the field
concentrations represent the detection and quantification of

concentrations down to 50 ppt (1x10-12 kg/l). This is 1,000
times lower than values reported in other applications7.
As discussed in other work3, the RTD methodology works
well even for systems with open boundaries, such as this field.
Obviously, when reservoir boundaries are open and tracer remains in the reservoir, the unproduced portion of tracer cannot
provide information. The tracer that is recovered does contain
information on the pore space sampled by that tracer as it
traveled from injector to producer. Based on the clear tracer
curves in Fig. 9, we therefore decided to use the data for RTD
analysis to extract as much information as possible from the
tracers, despite the small recovery factors.
Average Residence Time
The residence times for the tracers are given by the normalized
first moment of the RTD, T = m1,j /m0,j. As these factors depend on an extrapolation to infinity, the caution for the 2-FBA
curves in P-3, P-4 and P-5, and for the 4-TFMBA curve in P-5
is considered, whereas the average residence times for the 2FBA curves in P-1 and P-2, and for the 4-TFMBA curve in P-1
are more robust.
Clearly, the average residence times, provided in Table 3, are
relatively long. The shortest one (1,296 days) corresponds to
3 years, and the longest one (2,185 days) corresponds to almost 6 years. The long residence times suggest that the injected
water moves fairly slowly through the reservoir from injector
to producer. This is indeed consistent with injection into the
aquifer and supports the observation of low recovery of tracer.
It indicates that the water injection is effective and is working
as planned.
Fig. 10. Flow capacity F vs. storage capacity based on the tracer data in P-1 and
P-2. The 2-FBA curve for P-1 characterizes the heterogeneity between I-3 (the 2FBA injector) and P-1. The 4-TFMBA curve for P-1 characterizes the
heterogeneity between I-2 (the 4-TFMBA injector) and P-1. The 2-FBA curve for
P-2 characterizes the heterogeneity between the I-3 injector and the P-2 producer.
The heterogeneity can be quantified by the normalized area between the F_ curve
and the diagonal (Lorenz coefficient).
cates the degree of heterogeneity of the reservoir. For a fractured rock, e.g., if large parts of the flow occur in a small fraction of the space, F would increase fast with increasing f .
The heterogeneity can be quantified by the Lorentz coefficient, defined by the area between the Ff curve and the diagonal, normalized by half5:
(10)
Quantification of Heterogeneity of the Flooded Region
The flow capacity, F(t), and the storage capacity, f (t), were estimated from the 2-FBA tracer data in P-1 and P-2 and the 4TFMBA tracer data in P-1, using Eqn. 5. These functions are
summarized in the Ff plots in Fig. 10. Generally, the Ff
curves can be used to quantify the flow between an injector
and producer. The storage capacity, f represents the volume accessible for flow, and the flow capacity, F, represents the flow.
The curves in Fig. 10 can be used to quantify how much of the
flow occurs in a certain part of the accessible space. For example, Fig. 10 shows that about 50% of the flow occurs in about
40% of the space. This is a useful correlation to have as it indi-
Lc is zero for a completely homogeneous flow and 1 for a

completely heterogeneous flow (all flow in infinitely narrow
channels). Shook et al. (2009)5 reports Lc = 0.18 for a homogeneous 5-spot and Lc = 0.7 for the fractured Beowawe geothermal
reservoir. For the well pairs considered in this case study, the 2FBA tracer yields Lc = 0.12 in P-1, the 4-TFMBA tracer yields
Lc = 0.16 in P-1, and the 2-FBA tracer yields Lc = 0.16 in P-2.
This indicates that the swept volume between I-3 (the 2-FBA
injector) and P-2 is similar, with respect to heterogeneity, to the
swept volume between I-2 (the 4-TFMBA injector) and P-1,
and that the swept volume between I-3 and P-1 is slightly less
heterogeneous. Note that similar plots and analysis can, in
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23
Tracer Breakthrough In
Tracer
Injected At
Tracer Brand Name
Volume of Injected Water Until

Breakthrough (MMBLS)
Time of Breakthrough Since

Tracer Injection Start-up in
Nov. 2007 (Months)
P-1
I-2
4-TFMBA
2.9
18
P-1
I-3
2-FBA
10
26
P-2
I-3
2-FBA
18
P-3
I-3
2-FBA
12.2
26
P-4
I-3
2-FBA
20.1
47
P-5
I-2
4-TFMBA
13.9
44
P-5
I-3
2-FBA
22.5
46
Table 4. Summary of tracer breakthrough times and volumetric sweep
Tracer Injected
At
Time of Water Breakthrough Since Producer Put on Production

(Months)
Time of Breakthrough
Since Tracer Injection
Startup in Nov. 2007
(Months)
Tracer Speed
(km/month)
Flood Front
Movement
(km)
P-1
I-2
18
0.2
3.6
P-1
I-3
26
0.14
3.6
18
0.194
3.5
P-2
I-3
P-3
I-3
26
0.154
P-4
I-3
47
0.096
4.5
P-5
I-2
44
0.11
5.5
P-5
I-3
46
0.11
5.5
Table 5. Summary of tracer breakthrough timeline and speed
principle, be generated based on the remaining well pairs. In

view of the somewhat uncertain extrapolation of these wells
tracer curves, this analysis was not performed for the remaining well pairs.
Volumetric Sweep
The volume of water injected in each power water injector to

estimate water breakthrough at the offset wells is indicative of
the volumetric sweep efficiency between injection and production
lines. The magnitude of the injected volume to breakthrough
can confirm the existence of conductive open fractures connecting an injector to a producer. Tracer velocities were calculated
based on the distance between injectors and offset wells and the
time it took the injected tracers to reach producers. Tables 4 to
6 show the details of the injected water volume to tracer breakthrough at each oil producer. The chemical tracer injected at I-2
was detected first in P-1 after I-2 had injected 2.9 million barrels
(MMBLS) of seawater over a period of 18 months. This minimal
volume of the total injected seawater from tracer injection to
tracer detection indicates the existence of an interwell open
fracture between the injector I-2 and the producer P-1; the volume provides both an idea about the degree of the connectivity
24
SPRING 2014
between the injector and the producer, and an indication of the

size of that fracture corridor. On the other hand, the tracer injected at I-3 took 50 months to be detected in P-5 after I-3 had
injected 22.5 MMBLS of seawater. This implies that the intensity, complexity and connectivity of the fracture corridors between that producer and injector are of varying magnitudes.
Therefore, realizing the magnitude and intensity of the fracture
is very crucial in optimizing injection and improving sweep
efficiency in this complex area.
Injectors Impacting Productivity and Sustainability
By associating the breakthrough of a specific tracer with the

point at which the tracer was injected, the project confirmed
that two injectors were in direct communication with five producers through fractures serving as conduits for premature
water breakthrough. Moreover, a fracture model was used to
confirm that I-3 was indeed intersecting major fractures.
Therefore, injection restriction was applied to improve sweep
and enhance injection effectiveness. Tables 7 and 8 summarize
the results achieved and major observations reported regarding
water breakthrough from several offset wells since the start-up
of the project.
Tracer
Injected At
Tracer Brand Name
Time of Breakthrough
Since Tracer Injection
Startup in Nov. 2007
(Months)
Time Until Tracer Reached Peak

Concentration Since Tracer
Injection Startup (Months)
P-1
I-2
4-TFMBA
18
35
P-1
I-3
2-FBA
26
38
P-2
I-3
2-FBA
18
38
P-3
I-3
2-FBA
26
36
P-4
I-3
2-FBA
47
44
P-5
I-2
4-TFMBA
44
49
P-5
I-3
2-FBA
46
47
Table 6. Summary of detection times and concentration peak times
Well
Name
Well Type
Tracers
Detected
From
Tracer Breakthrough Time
Tracer Peak
Concentration
Time
Loss of
Circulation
Geochemical
Analysis
P-1
Horizontal
Producer
I-2 and I-3
18 months (I-2)
26 months (I-3)
35 months (I-2)
38 months (I-3)
Encountered
Exhibits salinity of
injected seawater.
P-2
Horizontal
Producer
I-3
18 months
38 months
None
injected seawater.
P-3
Horizontal
Producer
I-3
26 months
36 months
None
injected seawater.
P-4
Horizontal
Producer
I-3
47 months
44 months
None
injected seawater
and aquifer water.
P-5
Horizontal
Producer
I-2 and I-3
44 months (I-2)
46 months (I-3)
49 months (I-2)
47 months (I-3)
Encountered
injected seawater.
Table 7. IWTT well-by-well analysis
CONCLUSIONS
1. The extent of the communication between injectors and
producers has been established in one confined area along
the west flank of Field-X. The IWTT project took over a
year before registering tracer breakthrough, which is a fair
enough time given the geological complexity and
heterogeneity of Field-X.
end of the west flank of Field-X, or that injected water

from these injectors travels primarily through the matrix or
along the flank and not directly into the field.
3. Tracers injected in I-3 reached P-1, P-2, P-3, P-4 and P-5
after a period ranging from 26 to 50 months and over a
distance ranging from 3 km to 5 km.
5. Samples of produced fluids were taken from all nearby

offset wells, following detailed and frequent sampling
programs over the years. The detection timeline, velocity
calculations and locations of wells where tracers were
detected suggest that water moves from east to west
through open conductive fractures featuring infinite
permeability and no storage capacity so that injected
water is directly produced without delivering efficient areal
support, therefore sweeping the fractures and leaving the
matrix inefficiently swept in this confined area. This in
turn causes the tracer traveling with the flood front to
reach offset wells faster at high tracer concentrations.
4. The tracers injected in I-1, I-4 and I-5 have not been
detected in any of the offset wells after almost a five-year
period. This suggests either that a sort of flow barrier lies
between the three injectors and the offset wells in the north
6. This IWTT project has optimized water injection and oil

production in the project area, with the injection strategy
curtailed in several power water injectors that were part of
this project.
2. Tracers injected in I-2 reached P-1 in 18 months, traveling

a distance of 3.6 km. Other wells close to P-1 did not
capture the tracer injected in I-2 with the exception of P-5,
which took almost 50 months before detecting the tracer.
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25
Well Name
Analysis
Tracer peak concentration time indicates that the size and intensity of the fractures
connecting P-1 to I-2 have a greater adverse impact than the fractures connecting P-1 to
I-3.
P-1
Results from the image log, geoseismic attributes as shown in the Field-X Petrel model
and loss of circulation data (complete mud loss was reported) prove that major
conductive open fractures are crossing I-3. According to the image log results, the
fractures tend to be dictated in the dolomitic lithofacies, and the fracture density is
highest in the upper zone of the reservoir.
There is no proof that I-2 is intersecting any fractures since water is injected into the
matrix, rapidly flows through nearby fracture networks and leaves the matrix unswept
in this specific area.
Unlike P-1, only one tracer injected at I-3 was confirmed to show in the sample collected
from P-2. This is proof of the existence of direct communication between P-2 and I-3.
I-3 tracer arrived in at P-2 after 18 months of tracer injection, taking the same time to
arrive at the well area as that the other tracer injected in I-2 took to arrive at its offset
well, P-1.
P-2
Based on tracer detections, there is no proof that P-2 is connected to the rest of the
injectors included in this interwell tracer test.
As mentioned earlier, several pieces of evidence have confirmed that injector I-3 is
intersecting major conductive fracture networks.
Sampling was not continued on this well due to operational reasons, and as a result
tracer peak concentration was not sustainable, but took place approximately after 38
months.
This tracer took 26 months to show in the sample collected from P-3, serving as proof of
direct communication between injector I-3 and this producer.
P-3
P-4
This tracer took 36 months since its injection in I-3 in November 2007 to reach peak
concentration in P-3. This duration is more or less equivalent to the peak concentration
times of the same tracer detected in P-1 and P-2. This means the fracture networks
located between I-3 and those three producers are having nearly the same adverse
impact on those producers.
Compared to the other wells, the concentration value of the first detection was relative
ly higher. This is because the well was not being sampled prior to that. In other words,
the tracer was detected in the first sample analyzed in the lab, and there is a possibility
that the tracer could have been detected at a lower concentration prior to that if the
well was part of the sampling plan.
The concentration plot shows stable concentration values indicating that water is not
moving as fast as with the other wells included in this interwell tracer test.
The tracers injected in I-2 and I-3 were detected at higher concentrations, initially due to
the fact that this producer was not part of the sampling list until late 2011.
P-5
The tracer response curves of both tracers do not show the same shape. The concen
tration plot of the tracer injected in I-2 exhibits a bell-shaped curve; the concentration
gradually increases to a peak point in December 2011, and then gradually decreases,
forming a bell shape. This behavior indicates a strong heterogeneous system with a high
permeability channel between injector I-2 and this producer. By comparison, it is clear
that the magnitude of permeability between injector I-2 and this producer is stronger
than the magnitude between the same well and injector I-3.
Based on the sharp declining trend in tracer concentration of the I-2 tracer, if sampling
had been continued on P-5, the concentration of the tracer would have decreased
greatly until it faded.
Table 8. Observations reported from IWTT well-by-well analysis
26
SPRING 2014
7. Injection needs to always be maintained at restricted rates

in this part of the field, particularly injection using I-2 and
I-3. This is to control premature water breakthrough at the
offset wells, which has an adverse impact on the wells
productivity and sustainability. Water breakthrough results
from the existence of major conductive open fracture
networks coupled with the fields unique structural
complexity. The I-2 and I-3 injectors act strongly in
creating nonuniform pressure propagation through
fractures instead of matrix flow, thereby pushing oil
southwards and eastwards in this quadrant of the field.
8. I-3 has been identified as intersecting major fractures. For
this reason, it needs to be worked over to isolate the thief
zone and redistribute the injected water uniformly through
the matrix instead of injecting it into fractures.
9. A tracer sampling plan has been generated and broken
down into bands. The intent is to examine the tracers
breakthrough in these wells based on their proximity to
where the tracers injection took place in the field.
NOMENCLATURE
a
b
C(t)
E(t)
F
M
Q
Qinj
Vp
(t)
exponent in the exponential decline equation (day-1)

coefficient in the exponential decline equation (day-1)
produced tracer concentration (kg/m3)
age distribution function of a tracer (day-1)
flow capacity of porous medium, derived from tracer test
mass of tracer
production rate (m3/day)
volumetric injection rate (m3/day)
pore volume swept by tracer (m3)
Dirac delta function
storage capacity of the medium derived from tracer test
flow capacity of the medium derived from tracer test
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Saudi Aramco management
for their permission to publish this article.
This article was presented at the SPE Reservoir Characterization and Simulation Conference and Exhibition, Abu Dhabi,
UAE, September 16-18, 2013.
3. Shook, G.M.: A Simple, Fast Method of Estimating

Fractured Reservoir Geometry from Tracer Tests,
Transactions of the Geothermal Resources Council, Vol.
27, September 2003.
4. Shook, G.M. and Forsmann, J.H.: Tracer Interpretation
Using Temporal Moments on a Spreadsheet, I.N.
Laboratory Report, Geothermal Technologies Program,
Idaho National Laboratory, September 2005.
5. Shook, G.M., Pope, G.A. and Asakawa, K.: Determining
Reservoir Properties and Flood Performance from Tracer
Test Analysis, SPE paper 124614, presented at the SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New
Orleans, Louisiana, October 4-7, 2009.
6. Viig, S.O., Juilla, H., Renouf, P., Kleven, R., Krognes, B.,
Dugstad, O., et al.: Application of a New Class of
Chemical Tracers to Measure Oil Saturation in Partitioning
Interwell Tracer Tests, SPE paper 164059, presented at
the SPE International Symposium on Oil Field Chemistry,
The Woodlands, Texas, April 8-10, 2013.
7. Cheng, H., Shook, G.M., Taimur, M., Dwarakanath, V.,
Smith, B.R., Muhammad, S., et al.: Interwell Tracer Tests
to Optimize Operating Conditions for a Surfactant Field
Trial: Design, Evaluation and Implications, SPE paper
144899, presented at the SPE Enhanced Oil Recovery
Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 19-21, 2011.
8. Levenspiel, O.: Chemical Reaction Engineering, Chapter 9,
2nd edition, New York: John Wiley and Sons, June 1972,
668 p.
9. Bear, J.: Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Media, New York:
Dover Publications, 1972, 764 p.
10. Welty, C. and Gelhar, L.W.: Evaluation of Longitudinal
Dispersivity from Nonuniform Flow Tracer Tests,
Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 153, Nos. 1-4, January 1994,
pp. 71-102.
11. Huseby, O., Andersen, M., Svorstol, I. and Dugstad, O.:
Improved Understanding of Reservoir Fluid Dynamics in
the North Sea Snorre Field by Combining Tracers, 4D
Seismic and Production Data, SPE paper 105288,
presented at the Middle East Oil and Gas Show and
Conference, Kingdom of Bahrain, March 11-14, 2007.
REFERENCES
1. Wagner, O.R.: The Use of Tracers in Diagnosing Interwell
Reservoir Heterogeneities Field Results, Journal of
Petroleum Technology, Vol. 29, No. 11, November 1977,
pp. 1,410-1,416.
2. Danckwerts, P.V.: Continuous Flow Systems, Distribution
of Residence Times, Chemical Engineering Science, Vol. 2,
No. 1, February 1953, pp. 1-13.
SPRING 2014
27
BIOGRAPHIES
Muhanad A. Al-Mosa joined Saudi
Aramco in March 2007 as a Reservoir
Engineer working in the Southern Area
Reservoir Management Department.
He has been involved in several
assignments and projects since then.
Muhanad currently works as a
Reservoir Management Engineer with part of the team
managing the giant Ghawar field. His previous experience
includes working as a Field Production Operations
Engineer, maintaining oil and water wells integrity and
productivity, and working as a Facility Engineer at the
seawater treatment and injection plants. Muhanad is
interested in reservoir and production system integration
and optimization.
He has published several technical reports, studies and
Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) papers, and he is a
SPE Certified Petroleum Engineer.
Muhanad received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Husain A. Zaberi joined Saudi Aramco
in June 2011 as a Reservoir Engineer
working in the Southern Area
Since then, he has gained a thorough
knowledge of reservoir engineering
fundamentals, substantial interpersonal
skills and up-to-date knowledge of new drilling techniques
and technologies. Husains particular area of expertise in
reservoir engineering includes coordinating with various
internal departments, such as the Reservoir Characterization and Reservoir Simulation Department, to ensure the
progress of ongoing operations and projects. Part of his
responsibilities also includes presenting reports in numerous
technical meetings and continuous monitoring of oil
production and operations.
In his current assignment as a Production Engineer,
Husain works with teams of field operators and engineers
to ensure the integrity and safety to oil wells by continuous
inspection and contingent analysis of downhole flow
control and downhole monitoring equipment.
He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers
(SPE) and the Dhahran Geoscience Society (DGS).
Husain received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Engineering from the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK.
28
SPRING 2014
Dr. Olaf Huseby is Vice President of

Technology & Interpretation and one
of 12 co-founders of the tracer service
provider Restrack, recently spun off
from the Institute of Energy Technology (IFE), Kjeller, Norway. He
joined IFE after doctoral studies at the
University of Oslo and ENSMA (Poitiers, France) and a
postdoctoral research position at the Institut de Physique
du Globe de Paris. Olaf has 15 years of research and
consultancy experience in reservoir simulation and tracer
studies. He has been co-developing Restracks tracer
simulation software ARTSim and also developed
methodology for interpretation of interwell and single well
tracer studies.
Olaf has published more than 40 scientific papers, and
served as a reviewer and technical editor for Society of
Petroleum Engineers (SPE) journals and the Journal of
Petroleum Science & Engineering. He has also served on
the organization committees for several SPE applied
technology workshops.
Olaf received his M.S. degree in Nuclear Physics from
the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, and his Ph.D.
degree in Reservoir Physics from the University of Oslo,
Oslo, Norway.
Quantifying the Intelligent Field

Added Values
Authors: Zaki B. Husain and Muhammad A. Al-Hajri
ABSTRACT
Saudi Aramco has embarked on an aggressive plan to implement an intelligent field infrastructure and workflows across
all existing and new fields. Since the inception of the first intelligent field in 2003, the technology and processes have provided obvious benefits to Saudi Aramco and offer clear
justification for a business case in favor of the intelligent field.
Even with the evidence of such obvious gains through intelligent field implementations, very few, if any attempts have been
made to quantify the value and benefits of the program implementation in dollar terms. The exercise in quantifying the
value of a given program is considered a step toward sharing
the lessons learned within the dynamic environment of the
energy sector. It also helps with understanding how new and
improved sensors and communication technologies have combined with people and processes to transform the way business
is done today.
This article discusses some of the reasons why the value determination in the intelligent field environment is such a challenge and why such an effort raises questions from all sides, as
well as how we can present more such cases from around the
world. Additionally, this article presents some convincing
cases, more relevant to the production engineering and operations environments, quantifying the benefits in dollar terms. By
making comparisons between conventional fields and fully implemented intelligent fields using cases from within the company, the article highlights the value of the technology and
processes for those unconvinced individuals who still consider
the intelligent field as somewhat of an additional load on their
already stressed work schedules, where an overwhelming
amount of data is available and where, sometimes, the most
critical data is not available instantly.
INTRODUCTION
Historically, several individual components of the intelligent
field architecture were deployed in wells during the latter part
of the last century. The first known installation of permanent
downhole gauges dates back to 1972 in West Africa. Similarly,
the first multiphase flow meter (MPFM) went on stream in
1992. The first downhole valve later an integral component
of a smart well was installed in 1998. It was not until the

turn of the 21st century, however, that the digital revolution
enabled the integration of discrete hardware and stand-alone
software/firmware to shape what is commonly referred to as
the intelligent field or its many other synonyms, like smart
field, digital oil field of the future (DOFF), etc. The developments in sensor technologies made hardware easily accessible,
while improvements in the reliability of the network and IT infrastructure increased data availability. Furthermore, the introduction of enterprise solution software made data monitoring
and analysis much more efficient and accessible for relevant
enterprise employees. What started as independent, disparate
projects in separate geographical locations based on very specific petroleum engineering needs developed into a unified,
state-of-the-art technology, changing the economics of the energy equation and opening new avenues in technical excellence
and collaboration.
Saudi Aramco started installing individual components of
the intelligent field after the turn of the 21st century. Although
it made a late start compared to other companies in the industry, Saudi Aramco currently boasts the largest deployment of
such tools and technologies in the worlds oil and gas fields.
The first intelligent field in Saudi Aramco was commissioned
in 2003. Building on the experience gained from this implementation, Saudi Aramco has progressed rapidly, and the number of intelligent fields has increased since the first field was
commissioned. Obviously, the benefits derived from intelligent
field implementations have generated a lot of interest within
the engineering community, and young engineers are very keen
to join the project teams. The current effort is directed at such
engineers, who may not be aware of how things happened in
the not so distant past, where amp charts and Barton charts
were the principal tools to control wells. Everything had to be
planned weeks in advance before making a visit to a well site
to collect the data, where charts like these were used to perform rate calculations and the well skin was estimated using
type curves. It is simply amazing how far the industry has
come in terms of tools, technologies and approaches to handling field problems as well as overall efficiency improvements
in the everyday work cycles.
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VALUE DETERMINATION
Each oil company has a vision and a list of strategic goals that
the intelligent field is tailored to align with. Likewise, each oil
company has its own definition of an intelligent field. This is
why it has always been somewhat of a challenge to define
what an intelligent field encompasses. The lack of uniformity
also makes it more challenging to determine the associated
added values. From the remote monitoring and decision making involved at the drilling phase, to the routine day-to-day
production monitoring and field surveillance, intelligent field
architecture is present in one form or another at every stage of
the oil field operations. If we try to quantify the economics and
resulting benefits derived from such an implementation, spread
as it is across a wide spectrum of oil and gas operations, it
becomes quite a complex job. In fact, the project becomes so
large, involving numerous departments and asset teams, that it
can seem almost impossible to define the value chain.
It has been observed that when someone conducts a top-down,
full program valuation, which takes into consideration the entire
setup and where the value is presented in terms of increased
production, it usually produces a number that seems unrealistically high and is rarely believed, resulting in a loss of credibility.
On the other hand, trying to decouple each investment, particularly within the foundational components of IT and field automation, is a challenge, as engineers may argue over which
components provide the most benefit to the solution. For instance, a pressure sensor located at the wellhead can benefit
production monitoring as much as it can aid the monitoring of
well integrity. To have some meaning, the measurement of success has to be more specific, limited, well defined and relevant.
After a look at the above two extreme scenarios in our efforts to determine the value of the intelligent field, a middle
path was considered suitable and justifiable for the project. In
our opinion, focusing on a specific business benefit, i.e., reliability improvement, cost reduction, health, safety and environment (HSE) benefits, or similar advantages, with all the
components needed for that benefit included, will produce the
clearest value proposition to objective decision makers. Focusing on the business benefits in an intelligent field environment
and estimating the total cost of achieving the same benefits in a
conventional nonintelligent field environment will provide a
useful measure of comparison between the two cases. Yet the
results, although very specific, can still be a can of worms if
people so decide and can start a never-ending discussion. So, to
highlight the comparison, we have estimated the value of each
of the business benefits derived from the specific advantages of
the intelligent field by assuming how much it would cost to
achieve the same benefit in a conventional field environment.
In our estimates, we used existing salaries of Saudi Aramco operations personnel and equipment costs, if used at all, since using third party or vendor personnel would have elevated our
costs, increasing the measure of the value from the intelligent
field implementation.
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SPRING 2014
Benefits like improvements in ultimate recovery, reservoir

sweep/performance, and production gain, etc., although dependent on the same factors as other benefits, require more resources and time to qualify and quantify, and so they are not
included as part of this exercise. A detailed multi-company
study1 includes several value quantification examples where,
for instance, the net present value changes were calculated for
both greenfield DOFF projects and brownfield projects as a
comparison.
There are many inherent features of the intelligent field that
help us realize these benefits, such as the availability of highly
accurate and frequent real-time data, as well as the various
data analysis and visualization software programs that improve the usability and analysis of this large data source. Our
current exercise, however, is focused primarily on the benefits
derived by the remote monitoring and control features of the
intelligent field architecture. A future project will address the
benefits derived from the real-time data analysis workflows.
FIELD SETUP
To determine the potential economic impact of the intelligent
field implementation on a project, the base state of a sample
field was compared to the intelligent field alternative for the
same field. Our intelligent field consists of three main bodies,
Khurais, Abu Jifan and Mazalij, as outlined in Fig. 1. The
main field is Khurais, which has two oil-bearing reservoirs
with an elongated north-south trending, an asymmetrical anticline structure and a lower limit with a tight aquifer2. Both
reservoirs consist of carbonate formations that are a few hundred feet thick. The upper reservoir of Khurais field also appears in fields Abu Jifan and Mazalij, which are significantly
lower producers compared to Khurais.
The north-south spread of the three main bodies is almost
200 km, whereas the east-west spread varies from 5 km to 25
km with an average of 18 km. Based on this spread, we are
looking at monitoring an area of approximately 3,600 km2.
Oil production from oil wells in the three fields is remotely
controlled and monitored using state-of-the-art sensors and
communication technologies. Each producing well is equipped
with an electric submersible pump (ESP), mounted downhole
on a Y-block to permit intervention below the ESP as and
when required. Each ESP is equipped with sensors that monitor intake and discharge pressures, motor temperature, motor
current and vibration; these parameters are critical to ensure a
smooth and efficient operation of the downhole pumps. At the
surface, a remotely controlled and monitored variable speed
drive (VSD) permits instantaneous frequency control of the
downhole ESP. Several electrical parameters like current, voltage, operating frequency, etc., are also recorded at the surface
VSD. The ESP installations play a critical role in the overall
development strategy. Often used as a tool for artificial lift, in
this case the ESP has been utilized to generate sufficient pressure at the surface to push the produced oil all the way to the
Fig. 1. Intelligent field layout.
plant through trunk lines. Close monitoring of the ESP sensors,

therefore, is critical to avoid exposure of the pump to the high
flow line back pressure. Logic has been built into the ESP controllers to trip them as soon as conditions turn unfavorable.
A MPFM is installed on each well to monitor the three
phase production rates. The rate data obtained from the MPFM
is used in a wide range of operational, production management
and reservoir engineering applications. A remotely controlled
surface choke is used to control the well production. In addition, a number of surface pressure and temperature sensors enable the monitoring of parameters related to production and
well integrity requirements. Some of these sensors monitor the
surface flow line parameters, and others are installed to monitor the tubing-casing and casing-casing annuli pressures. Constant monitoring of these sensors is essential to ensure an
environmentally safe operation.
In addition to the producers, water injector wells are located
along the periphery of the three fields. Not as instrumented as

a production well, a water injection well is equipped with a remote controlled surface choke and an orifice-based injection
water rate meter. Surface transmitters are installed much like
the producers, serving the same purpose. Acquiring accurate
injector well data is crucial as it is the reservoir pressure resulting from water injection that eventually produces the oil.
A total of 54 observation wells are located in critical areas
of the fields to enhance the monitoring of the water injection
efficiency as well as the maintenance of reservoir pressure.
Lacking any sensors for surface measurements, these wells are
equipped only with redundant permanent downhole pressure
and temperature gauges. These high resolution gauges permit
close monitoring of very small changes in the static reservoir
parameters data considered critical for proper management
of the reservoirs. The permanent downhole measuring systems
pressure and temperature data is acquired at a very high frequency (every 1 sec) downhole and is only sampled at the surface based on the application needs.
The produced crude from Khurais, Abu Jifan and Mazalij is
gathered in the central processing facility (CPF) located within
Khurais field via 14 trunk lines; 12 trunk lines for Khurais and
1 trunk line each for Abu Jifan and Mazalij. Full monitoring
and control functionalities exist at the CPF for all the wells in
all three fields.
As previously illustrated in Fig. 1, based on the large total
area, one can easily imagine the logistical nightmare this project
would have presented without an intelligent field architecture.
The sandy landscape, and the extreme weather conditions add
to the challenges of field operations. It is very common, for example, to perform a sand cleaning operation after a sandstorm
on arrival at a well site like this one. Surface instruments,
chokes and piping have to be dug out of the sand mounds on a
regular basis. Since the instruments are designed for harsh environments, they continue to work, and the data continues to
be transmitted. There was, however, a learning curve; the high
surface temperature related instruments and electronic cards
that failed during the summers have since been replaced with
more robust components.
DATA AT THE DESKTOP

Data from each of the well site transmitters is collected at the
remote terminal unit (RTU) located on each site and forwarded to the plant supervisory control and data acquisition
(SCADA) system via Ethernet network switches.
A state-of-the-art SCADA system located within the plant
environment collects the huge amount of data from all three
fields. With its redundancy and data storage capacity, the
SCADA system has been designed to handle data from both
the existing wells and future additions. Operators of the
SCADA system have full monitoring and control capabilities.
Any well can be remotely placed on production, shut down or
adjusted so the flow rate is increased or reduced based on the
SPRING 2014
31
production guidelines issued from time to time. This capability

is critical to the smooth management of fields spread over such
a vast area.
Real-time data from the SCADA system is forwarded to the
corporate servers with the help of area and central productivity
index servers. Once across the plant firewalls, the data is transmitted over the corporate IT network to the corporate servers.
End users can access the data based on strict access controls
depending on their roles and organizational requirements.
INFORMATION GATHERING STAGE

One of the most challenging tasks in performing a value-based
assessment study is to get a good grasp of the cost of implementation. The information is spread across many organizations and is usually lumped with other project related items.
Furthermore, most departments are reluctant to share such information, and even if shared, the information may not be in
the format required or as comprehensive as required. Some
level of estimation is always necessary to fill in the missing
numbers, and this is what we have done.
ADDED VALUES REALIZED

Improved Asset Management
Collective and comprehensive management of the entire asset

is a key benefit of the digital infrastructure installed in intelligent fields. From close monitoring of the injected water, to
maintaining an eye on the resultant reservoir pressures in all
corners of the reservoirs, to the optimized oil production from
each of the wells, the intelligent field architectures and the associated surveillance routines help engineers perform their
tasks efficiently from the comfort of their offices. The global
oil supply requirements are extremely dynamic and corporate
departments dealing with the supply side change their delivery
requirements on a regular basis. It is not always external factors that necessitate the immediate need for a supply change.
Sometimes production from another field within Saudi Aramco
needs to be shut down due to one of many possible causes
annual maintenance, pipeline leak, etc. Every time a request
Fig. 2. Real-time 24/7 monitoring of all ESPs.
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SPRING 2014
for a change in production is forwarded to the production engineering personnel, clear guidelines are sent to the operations
personnel, who affect the required changes in production almost immediately using the SCADA interfaces. Remote control
and monitoring has made life very simple, and as a result, to a
newcomer, the value realization is not there; it is construed as
business as usual.
If the same job were performed in the conventional environment, without an intelligent field setup, as an estimate it would
cost several million dollars annually just to manage the
changes in production, with field operators running from well
to well to affect the choke changes or to open and close the
wells. Additionally, since all data would have to be collected
manually, the accuracy of the collected information would always be open to question. The timeline to collect useful data,
convert it into usable information and implement a required
change was much longer in the past.
Downtime Reduction
It is a major challenge to monitor the large number of instruments installed in the wells in all of the three fields under
study. It is almost unimaginable to perform data collection on
this scale manually. The widespread area combined with fully
instrumented wells would require assembling a large workforce and overcoming the attendant logistical challenges to perform surveillance in the same manner as it is being performed
currently using the intelligent field infrastructure. An ESP installation is a significant cost item for any company. Every
effort is made to increase its run life as much as possible by
avoiding failures and preventing interventions, which result in
production loss. As seen in Fig. 2, in an intelligent field, any
ESP that stops working due to any of several possible causes is
immediately detected, and a remote startup of the ESP is
attempted. If the problem is of a serious nature, a field team is
contacted to respond immediately and provide detailed troubleshooting for the problem. A remedial plan is then enacted, and
the ESP is returned to an operational state in the shortest possible time. As is evident from the real-life example, an ESP labeled
as E tripped three times during a month and was restarted
every time it tripped. Such efficiency would be unthinkable in a
conventional field. The efforts to locate the particular well

where the ESP tripped from out of the fields numerous wells
would be tantamount to trying to find a needle in a haystack.
In a recent case, a well in a conventional field tripped, and it
took two months for the engineers to locate the exact well. Where
there is a lack of monitoring and surveillance capabilities, such
losses can be a common occurrence. Efficiently managing all
parts of the ESP program, whether it is introducing new technologies or performing proactive surveillance of the installed equipment with routine preventive maintenance checks, is the key to
successfully reducing downtime. Saudi Aramco is rightly proud
of the performance of its engineers associated with these fields.
Reliability Improvement
All ESP performances are monitored on a real-time basis in the

intelligent field. Data extracted from the ESPs provides estimated flow rates that are compared to the surface MPFM flow
rates, and any discrepancy is immediately investigated. Current
thrust indications of ESPs are available on a constant basis;
any ESP showing upthrust or downthrust is attended to immediately, which avoids costly failures and helps to extend the
run life of the ESPs, Fig. 3. After an ESP failure, teardown reports are investigated closely. All efforts are made to improve
the future run life of the ESPs.
The investment in new ways of running the business and the
resulting increase in the run life of the ESPs has provided a better understanding of ways to improve the reliability of the ESP
Fig. 3. Monitoring of critical ESP parameters, including thrust and a chart of

failure distributions.
systems. Performance-based maintenance contracts bring the

best technologies, processes and procedures to the field. The
availability of real-time data, which is shared with vendors,
has improved the reaction time of the field teams. Failures are
recorded and analyzed in the greatest detail, and remedial
plans are implemented through the involvement of experts
from the vendors as well as from Saudi Aramco. A forecast using the current intelligent systems showed a failure rate of 5%,
whereas another field in the Kingdom without any intelligent
monitoring recorded failure rates of 32%. For the ESPs installed in the intelligent field, the average run life has exceeded
1,000 days, which is a significant achievement by any means.
This improvement in the run life of the ESPs translates to a
considerable annual savings when the cost of workover rigs is
factored into the equation.
COST REDUCTION
ESP Operations
The availability of 24/7 real-time monitoring and control

functionality in intelligent fields has completely changed the
way business is conducted. For instance, managing the shutdowns and the startups of the numerous ESPs spread across
the length and breadth of the three fields would be a huge
challenge without real-time monitoring and control capabilities. As previously noted, it would be a task in itself to figure
out which of the ESPs had tripped, not to mention plan a visit
to the well site, make a visit to place the ESP back into operation and return to the camp hoping it is still running. Given the
many possible reasons for an ESP to trip, some related to the
ESP itself and some totally unrelated like an increase in
back pressure due to an increase in the flow line pressure
the probability that the pump will keep running is low. Since it
is likely that a trip might recur, it would require a constant,
round-the-clock crew in the field to manage these shutdowns
and startups. Figure 4 shows some of the causes of shutdowns
experienced in the field and the frequency of their occurrence.
With the intelligent field in place, a pop-up alarm on the
Fig. 4. Common causes of shutting down the ESP from the SCADA system.
SPRING 2014
33
control room SCADA screen indicates that an ESP is running

outside the recommended operating envelope and that prompt
adjustment of the SCADA system to bring the pump back into
the operating range is needed, sometimes by adjusting the
choke and sometimes by fixing the frequency of the ESP. In
case an ESP needs to be shut down, just sending a command
from the SCADA system will be sufficient. Similarly, to start
up an ESP after a SCADA initiated shutdown, commands from
the SCADA system are usually sufficient to start up the unit. In
case of an ad hoc or an unplanned shutdown, a field crew is
dispatched to the well to investigate the cause of the shutdown
prior to placing the ESP back into operation.
For 2012, a total of 2,992 shutdown and startup events
were recorded for ESPs at the SCADA system.
Choke Operations
To maintain the production targets set by the corporate departments, the chokes on all the producers as well as on the
water injector wells were manipulated to achieve the required
production and injection targets. In addition, the chokes were
also adjusted to optimize ESP performance at the producing
wells. On average, every choke was changed twice a month in
2012. Some wells experienced more than five choke changes in
a particular month, as illustrated by the pink line in Fig. 5. All
in all, 6,100 choke changes were logged in the SCADA system
during 2012. Just the idea of performing this task manually,
without the availability of the monitoring and control functionalities, makes it seem daunting and almost impractical. The
intelligent field has changed completely the way operations are
currently performed.
Well Performance Monitoring
Real-time monitoring of the tags of an oil well on a 24/7 basis

is a huge capability of the intelligent field architecture that cannot be performed manually by any other practical means. Conventionally, to collect the flow rate data of a well, operators
had to wait for months to schedule a separator rate test. If the
test were performed in-house using a test trap, data quality
issues would be raised. If it were performed using a third party
Fig. 5. Choke changes on some of the wells during one month.
34
SPRING 2014
portable separator, cost was always an issue and the frequency

of such tests would be limited. Similarly, a production engineer
would be lucky to have downhole reservoir data that was less
than three months old for all his productivity analysis. Many
times the depth of the measurement was not correctly
recorded, introducing an anomaly in the data.
Monitoring the water production from each of the producers is a design parameter critical to overall field development
strategy. An unattended increase in water cut would mean a
loss in injection efficiency, which would not serve the actual
purpose of reservoir pressure maintenance. With the intelligent
field architecture, all well parameters are closely monitored,
Fig. 6. The downhole sensors are permanently installed, so
there is no question of depth discrepancy. Flow rate and other
associated data is acquired constantly at a high frequency. Any
invalid data can be pinpointed and isolated immediately. Only
valid data is forwarded to all the applications running in real
time. Just the gains from the availability of highly accurate,
high frequency data can be estimated to run into millions of
dollars by avoiding additional surveys and separator tests.
Wireline Surveys
With the availability of the intelligent field architecture, several

mandatory wireline surveys on critical wells (as defined by
production engineers) are not required anymore. The required
data is available all the time on an as-needed basis through the
wellhead sensors and networks installed permanently in the wells.
Table 1 shows the types and frequency of the surveys. Saudi
Aramco maintains teams that can perform such simple surveys
without the need of external help. In addition to the savings on
the surveys of oil wells, similar savings are experienced on water
injection and observation wells, where mandatory surveys are
required on a frequent basis.
HSE Benefits
It will not be an exaggeration to claim that the biggest gain derived from the intelligent field architecture has been in the field
of HSE. The availability of real-time data at the desktop without the need to travel hundreds of kilometers out into the
desert in extremely hot weather conditions is nothing less than
a miracle. Exposure to multiple hazards, like desert driving,
Fig. 6. Monitoring of an oil well flowing parameters.
Type of Survey
Survey Freq Intelligent Field
Survey Freq Nonintelligent Field
SBHP on Wireline
Data Available RT
Once Every Quarter for Key Wells
PI Test
Data Available RT
~ 25% per Year
Annuli Survey
Data Available RT
Once Every 6 Months
Well Rate Testing
Data Available RT
Every Month
Table 1. Types of frequencies of well surveys
for acquiring equivalent data in a conventional field was

presented.
3. The value of HSE related benefits could not be ascertained
properly as the value is too large to quantify.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Fig. 7. HSE gains; well sites before and now.
camels on the roads, lengthy travel time, the physical handling

of field logistics, and many more, has been totally bypassed. It
is estimated that to conventionally collect a volume of data
similar to what is now being collected using the intelligent field
architecture, a workforce of 150 fully cross-trained personnel
would be required. The numbers go higher if the personnel are
not cross-trained to collect all kinds of data at the well site.
One can imagine the logistical nightmare of managing such a
large number of personnel and vehicles in the fields just for the
purpose of data collection.
Accidents have been recorded at well sites where crews are
rigging up or rigging down the pressure equipment after a
wireline survey conducted to collect downhole pressure and
temperature data. With the intelligent field introduction, no
such operations are required, resulting in the prevention of
such well site accidents and the resulting lost time. The comparison is evident as seen in Fig. 7.
With the availability of remote monitoring and control
functionalities, well integrity issues are tracked very closely,
and shutting off the production from an entire field, e.g., in the
case of a pipeline leak, is just a matter of minutes. The quick
response time helps in preventing environmental disasters and
large hydrocarbon spills that can destroy the surrounding ecology. The value of the intelligent field is so great in such cases
that one finds it difficult to quantify it.

Aramco for their permission to publish this article.
This article was presented at the SPE Middle East Intelligent
Energy Conference and Exhibition, Dubai, UAE, October 2830, 2013.
REFERENCES
1. A CERA Multiclient Study: The Digital Oil Field of the
Future: Enabling Next Generation Reservoir Performance,
May 2003.
2. Alhuthali, A.H., Al-Ajmi, F.A., Shamrani, S.S. and Abitrabi
Ballan, A.N.: Maximizing the Value of the Intelligent
Field: Experience and Prospective, SPE paper 150116,
presented at the SPE Intelligent Energy International,
Utrecht, The Netherlands, March 27-29, 2012.
CONCLUSIONS
1. A method to quantify the value of an intelligent field
implementation was presented.
2. Several field examples were presented to highlight the value
of the intelligent fields; for comparison purposes, the cost
SPRING 2014
35
BIOGRAPHIES
Zaki B. Husain is a Senior Production
Engineer working with Saudi Aramcos
Southern Area Production Engineering
Department. His primary focus is on
the intelligent field aspects related to
production engineering. Prior to
joining Saudi Aramco in 2009, Zaki
worked with Schlumberger for 24 years in the production
domain, focused primarily on production enhancement,
well testing, multiphase metering and real-time monitoring
and control.
He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Engineering and Technology,
Lahore, Pakistan.
Muhammad A. Al-Hajri joined Saudi
Aramco in 2001 as a Production
Engineer. Since that time, he has
worked in several different fields
throughout Saudi Aramco.
Muhammad became a Supervisor in
2011. His experience also includes
working for one year as a Reservoir Engineer. Muhammad
is the coauthor of several Society of Petroleum Engineer
(SPE) papers.
He received his B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering
from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
(KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 2001.
36
SPRING 2014
Development of Mature Fields Using the

Reservoir Opportunity Index: A Case
Study from a Saudi Field
Authors: Alfonso Varela-Pineda, Dr. Ahmed H. Alhutheli and Dr. Saad M. Al-Mutairi
ABSTRACT
This article presents a rigorous methodology for identifying the
remaining reservoir opportunities to enhance sweep efficiency and
increase hydrocarbon production rate in a mature field under
waterflooding operations. Development of mature fields relies on
proper reservoir management practices to determine the amount
and location of the remaining oil. It also entails optimal placement of new wells and reentries to enhance ultimate recovery.
As of today, common approaches to the placement of new
wells are usually based on oil column maps derived from saturation and production logs, as well as the performance of the
neighboring wells in the area of interest. The current work improves on these common practices by combining both static
and dynamic variables extracted from the geological and simulation models to estimate the reservoir opportunity index (ROI),
which can effectively detect unswept oil zones not seen by simple methods. The ROI and other available information in the
geological and simulation models, such as production history
and well logs, are then integrated into one platform to facilitate
informed decisions for successful mature field development.
The initial formulation of the ROI, previously presented by
many authors in the industry, has been improved to suit reservoir geology and conditions at different time steps, incorporating changes in oil saturation and reservoir pressure effects. The
computed ROI is then normalized to allow accurate representation and comparison among various layers and areas.
The ultimate benefits of the proposed approach are realized
when mapping the ROI for different reservoir layers and advising on the location of new wells and reentries. Moreover, the
applicability and the advantages of this work can be expanded
to other areas, such as reservoir description, reservoir characterization, and reserves estimation and depletion analysis.
INTRODUCTION
The process of identifying locations for infill drilling and the
sidetracking of existing wells in a mature field is involved. It
requires multiple levels of scrutiny to correctly estimate storage
and flow capacity, which facilitates predicting the production
performance of new wells and generating future development
plans. This process is even more complex in carbonate reservoirs
due to the compounded effect of the heterogeneity associated

with the matrix as a result of diagenesis and the presence of
natural fractures.
Therefore, one of the primary objectives of reservoir management is to achieve a cohesive understanding of reservoir
performance so as to make and carry out exploitation and
budgeting plans. Normally, to realize this objective, engineers
rely on history matched reservoir models to explore various
development scenarios related to production strategies, well
completion configurations and pattern schemes. In this article,
we focus our analysis on using the reservoir models combined
with other sources of information, such as saturation logs, production logs and production rates, to plan the locations of new
infill wells and sidetracks in mature areas.
The common practice followed to select new locations for
infill drilling starts with using different filtering schemes of oil
saturation, rock properties and pressure performance, then using the numerical simulation extensively to evaluate the future
potential of these locations. These techniques can be tedious,
and choosing effective cutoffs to filter the wells locations may
require a large number of trials, which later cannot be handled
effectively by the numerical simulation. A meticulous methodology is proposed to estimate the reservoir opportunity index
(ROI) as the prime criterion to screen areas for new infill
drilling or sidetracking. As will be discussed later, this index
integrates various criteria, such as oil saturation, porosity, flow
capacity and reservoir pressure, among others, to simplify the
screening process. The outcome is a limited number of locations that can be easily handled by numerical simulation to
predict their future performance.
METHODOLOGY
The concept of the ROI is based on Camargo (1999)1, a paper
that set mathematical expressions to combine reservoir variables to estimate reservoir quality and assist in identifying the
best reservoir spots for future well locations. The ROI was expressed in terms of oil saturation, hydrocarbon pore volume
(PV) and flow capacity (kh) as follows:
(1)
SPRING 2014
37
where I0 is the oil saturation index, Ic is the hydrocarbon PV

index, and Ikh is the flow capacity index.
This expression has been slightly modified over time2, 3 by
adding other terms, like the hydrocarbon PV in terms of the
mobile oil saturation (SOMPV), the reservoir pressure and the
reservoir quality index (RQI). The RQI has the following form:
(2)
where PERM is the permeability (mD) and PORO is the porosity (fraction).
The RQI describes the porosity and permeability variations
inside different lithologies, which in turn define rock with
similar fluid flow characteristics, usually called flow units.
The hydrocarbon PV in terms of SOMPV can be written in
the following form if derived from numerical simulation outputs:
(3)
where Dx, Dy and Dz are grid simulation dimensions, is
porosity, and So is oil grid saturation (at the relevant time step).
Finally, the ROI is computed as an average of RQI, SOMPV
and reservoir pressure as follows:
(4)
where PRESSURE is pressure grid simulation (psi), RQI is
reservoir quality index (fraction), and SOMPV is hydrocarbon
PV (fraction).
The equation can have a simpler form, if written without
the pressure term, as follows:
(5)
The ROI as expressed in Eqns. 4 or 5 is then normalized, to
reflect a fractional scale from zero to one to allow representative data.
GEOLOGIC OVERVIEW
The main oil-bearing formation in the field was deposited in a
shallow continental shelf sea with extensive carbonate and
evaporitic deposits. It has been divided into three main layers4.
The upper reservoir layer thickness widely varies across the
field. Due to facies changes, the reservoir quality is quite variable. Calcarenites have been developed in this layer with poor
lateral continuity. Furthermore, dolomite diagenesis and minor
anhydrite plugging have tended to degrade reservoir quality in
this layer. This layer is separated from the mid-layer by an
anhydrite streak for most of the reservoir.
The reservoir mid-layer is characterized by grain supported
carbonates. Calcarenites make up more than half of the reservoir rock, with the percentage of this lithotype varying within
the layer. Calcarenites and calcarenitic limestones are present
38
SPRING 2014
in about equal proportions. These show a wide variation in

mud content and can be either grain supported (grainstones)
or mud supported (packstones to wackestones). The above
general trends can be misleading inasmuch as there are local
variations superimposed on these average regional trends,
which in turn affect key rock properties. This layer is the most
prolific and the main contributor to the reservoirs production.
Dolomitization greatly affects the bottom reservoir layer.
Partial or complete replacement of carbonates is very common
throughout this zone. Introduction of dolomite into the carbonate usually results in a decrease in porosity and permeability. In general, rocks with high dolomitic content (>75%
dolomite) can be dense and impermeable, greatly reducing
reservoir quality and lateral continuity.
RESULTS
Reservoir Quality Index (RQI)
Variation in porous media quality is a key indicator of drilling

opportunity across the reservoir. Figure 1 summarizes the RQI
values for the three layers considered in this study, using the
normalized outputs of Eqn. 2.
The reservoir mid-layer exhibits the best quality index, as it
contains the best quality rock and the largest reservoir thickness.
It is followed in quality by the top layer and then the bottom one.
The mid-layer values have a mean of 0.735 and a maximum
value of 1 after normalization. The difference between the average (mean) and maximum values is an indication of the heterogeneity associated with each layer. As the magnitude of this
difference increases, the level of heterogeneity is higher.
The obtained values fairly match our geologic understanding of the reservoir in terms of the diagenetic effects and plugging, which decrease the reservoir quality vertically and
laterally in the uppermost and lowermost layers.
Reservoir Opportunity Index (ROI)
Two estimation scenarios are considered for the ROI computations: oil column and simulation grid, Fig. 2.
Fig. 1. RQI variation.
Fig. 2. ROI evaluation scenarios.
The oil column scenario is based on the remaining oil column

estimated from production and saturation logs, which is extrapolated for future ROI estimations. In this scenario, the oil
column estimate is mapped into the simulation grid, and an average reduction in the oil column is extrapolated for the corresponding time steps based on historical data. In the simulation
grid scenario, the computations are straightforward since all
the information from the geological and simulation models has
been integrated.
For each scenario, the effect of pressure has also been evaluated. Due to the pressure maintenance program taking place in
the field, both scenarios generally reflect a well pressurized
reservoir along the time.
The ROI computations are carried over multiple time steps
to reduce the uncertainty calculations and ensure a reservoir
opportunity that remains for along the time, indicating that the
oil in the area is stagnant.
The ROI maps for a common field area in each reservoir
layer are presented in the following lines; where the ROI maximum corresponds to the highest computed value across each
reservoir layer, while the mean ROI corresponds to the average
value over the same reservoir layer being evaluated.
Both 2013 and 2040 are the corresponding initial and final
time steps for the field area under consideration.
OIL COLUMN BASED SCENARIO
Fig. 3a. Top layer in the oil column based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 3b. Top layer in the oil column based scenario with pressure.
Regardless of its patchy character, this layer shows improvement in the ROI values when pressure is involved in the calculations. The red circles in Fig. 3b highlight the best areas to
drain, taking advantage of the waterflooding pressure support.
This analysis indicates that the pressure support in the top
layer is critical to create opportunity.
Mid-layer
Compared to the top layer, a significant improvement in ROI

values can be observed in the mid-layer Figs. 4a and 4b. The
calculations are not as sensitive to pressure in this layer, indicating
that pressure is not a key factor to create opportunity. The key
contributors to the ROI are the RQI and the fluid saturations.
Top Layer
Bottom Layer
Using the oil column based approach, the ROI in the top layer
shows very limited opportunities at the initial and final time
steps when pressure is not considered in the calculations, Fig. 3a.
Based on the oil column map, there is no oil to drain in the

bottom layer, with no exploitation chances now or in the future,
SPRING 2014
39
regardless of the pressure effects, Figs. 5a and 5b. In this case, the
outputs should be handled with care, since the true oil saturation
in the wellbore vicinity is being masked by the investigation depth
of the logging tools, and oil might be present at a deeper radius.
SIMULATION GRID BASED SCENARIO

Top Layer
The ROI indexes for the top layer display an improvement in

the simulation grid based scenario, Fig. 6a. They show a wider
coverage and higher values than in the oil column based scenario. Once again, pressure enhances the ROI values when it is
included in the calculations. The red ovals on the left side of
Fig. 6b show the best spots to drill in this reservoir layer,
which are still fairly preserved in 2040.
Mid-layer
The highest ROI values are exhibited by the mid-layer in the
Fig. 4a. Mid-layer in the oil column based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 4b. Mid-layer in the oil column based scenario with pressure.
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SPRING 2014
simulation grid based scenario. As can be observed in Figs. 7a

and 7b, there is a general improvement all across the reservoir
layer due to pressure effects, changing from blue to light green
and from green to yellow (indicated by blue ovals). The increase in pressure improves the ROI in certain areas due to
reservoir compartmentalization. The spots that are easier to
get the oil from are marked by the red ovals, where the ROI
values indicate that some of these spots still can be swept by
2040, given the current production scheme.
Bottom Layer
ROI values in the bottom layer improve in the simulation grid

based scenario in comparison with the oil column based one.
Here again, if pressure were not included in the calculations,
there would be no possibilities to drain the reservoir now or in
the future, Fig. 8a.
Although it is not promising, some recovery might be expected at some locations in the bottom layer if pressure support is available, as indicated by the red ovals, Fig. 8b.
Fig. 5a. Bottom layer in the oil column based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 5b. Bottom layer in the oil column based scenario with pressure.
Fig. 6a. Top layer in the simulation grid based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 6b. Top layer in the simulation grid based scenario with pressure.
FIELD CASE
The previously mentioned approach to calculating the ROI
was used to decide on the sidetracking of Well-A, a former vertical producer that could not sustain flow and subsequently
was converted to an observation well to monitor sweep. The
well was kept as an observation well for a long period of time,
since the old evaluation of the remaining oil in this area indicated very limited opportunity. When the area was recently revisited using the approach proposed in this article, the ROI
values showed a potential opportunity, especially using the
simulation grid based approach, Fig. 9 on the right.
The ROI values using the oil column based approach indicated a very low opportunity, which is in line with the old approaches, since oil column estimation formed the bases for
those evaluations. The ROI values at the well location, however, change from 0.2 in the oil column based scenario to 0.7
in the simulation grid based scenario. The boundary values
were used to bracket the uncertainty involved in the calculations.
Eventually, the team assigned more weight to the simulation
grid based approach and decided to sidetrack the well in the
Fig. 7a. Mid-layer in the simulation grid based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 7b. Mid-layer of the simulation grid based scenario with pressure.
top 5 ft of the mid-layer. The horizontal lateral extends for

more than 1,000 ft with an open hole size of 6. The production performance after sidetracking testifies to the successful outcome, as the well currently produces 10,000 barrels of
oil per day with 5% water cut.
CONCLUSIONS
1. The ROI computed in the present work, which is an
improved version of the concept as originally developed,
incorporates RQI as well as changes in oil saturation,
production performance and pressure.
2. The followed methodology has allowed the identification
of not only the easy opportunities, but also the ones that
are not so obvious in each reservoir layer.
3. The presented ROI maps include rock and reservoir fluid
properties, which give a higher resolution and an
engineering approach to select locations for new wells and
reentries. In addition, the calculations were carried over
multiple time steps using various approaches to delineate
SPRING 2014
41
the involved uncertainty and achieve informed decisions.

4. Field examples indicate that decisions to drill new wells or
to sidetrack existing wells should not be solely based on oil
column maps, since good spots could be missed.
5. The effects of pressure on the ROI calculations are
apparent in areas where the RQI and oil saturation are
low. This observation can be supported by the fact that
high pressure is required to sustain the production from
swept areas with limited flow capacity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Aramco for their permission to publish this article.
REFERENCES
1. Camargo A.: Prioritizing Opportunities for New Well
Locations and Well Workovers, paper presented at the
Geoquest Schlumberger Forum, Venezuela, 1999.
2. Amaefule, J.O., Altunbay, M., Djebbar, T., Kersey, D.G.
and Keelan, D.K.: Enhanced Reservoir Description Using
Core and Log Data to Identify Hydraulic (Flow) Units and
Predict Permeability in Uncored Intervals/Wells, SPE
paper 26436, presented at the SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition, Houston, Texas, October 3-6,
1993.
Fig. 8a. Bottom layer in the simulation grid based scenario without pressure.
Fig. 8b. Bottom layer in the simulation grid based scenario with pressure.
Fig. 9. A field case example of the oil column based approach (left) vs. a simulation
grid based approach (right), Well-A.
42
SPRING 2014
3. Shedid, S.A. and Almehaideb, R.A.: A New Approach of

Reservoir Description of Carbonate Reservoirs, SPE paper
74344, presented at the SPE International Petroleum
Conference and Exhibition, Villahermosa, Mexico,
February 10-12, 2002.
4. Daetwyler, C. and Wooten, J.: Geological Reservoir
Description of a Giant Field in KSA, Saudi Aramco
Internal Publication, 1975.
BIOGRAPHIES
Alfonso Varela-Pineda is a Petroleum
Engineer in the Southern Area
Before joining Saudi Aramco in 2008,
he worked in a variety of engineering
positions with Ecopetrol, Occidental
Petroleum and Chevron in Colombia;
and with Fugro-Jason in Venezuela. Alfonso has over 10
years of diversified experience in the oil and gas industry in
areas including field operations, production, special
projects and reservoir engineering.
He received his B.S. degree from the Universidad de
America, Bogot, Colombia, and his M.S. degree from the
University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, both in Petroleum
Engineering.
Dr. Saad M. Al-Mutairi is a Supervisor

with the Southern Reservoir
Management Department in Saudi
Aramco. He has 13 years of experience,
mainly in reservoir engineering. Saad
has also worked in many other
engineering disciplines, including production, workover and drilling. He was part of the advance
training program exchange with Chevron USA in 2007.
Saad is an active Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
member, serving the SPE at many events in different roles.
He has published three journal papers and more than 10
SPE papers.
Saad received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
Petroleum Engineering from King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Ahmed H. Alhutheli is a

Supervisor in Saudi Aramcos Southern
Area Reservoir Management
Department. In addition to his current
assignment, Ahmed is the Asset Team
Leader of Uthmaniyah field,
overseeing various financial and
technical activities. During his 14 years with the company,
he has worked on multiple assignments concerning
reservoir engineering aspects of four giant fields. Ahmed is
interested in reservoir and production system integration
and optimization. He is also interested in risk management
and decision making under uncertainty.
In 1998, Ahmed received his B.S. degree in Electrical
Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In 2003, he
received his M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, and in 2011,
he received his Ph.D. degree in Petroleum Engineering, also
from Texas A&M University. Ahmed earned a business
certificate from Mays Business School at Texas A&M
University in May 2008.
He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers
(SPE). Ahmed has published many technical papers on
topics related to reservoir management.
SPRING 2014
43
Comprehensive Reservoir Vertical

Interference Testing to Optimize
Horizontal Well Placement Strategy
in a Giant Carbonate Field
Authors: Mabkhout A. Al-Harthi, Cesar H. Pardo, Khaled A. Kilany, Majid H. Al-Otaibi, Dr. Murat M. Zeybek
and Asif Amin
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the early evaluation of vertical connectivity with vertical interference tests (VITs) using an advanced
multi-probe wireline formation tester (WFT) in a giant carbonate field in Saudi Arabia. The objective was to determine the
vertical permeability of low permeability layers within the
reservoir. Early understanding of such vertical connectivity is
required to ensure the optimum development of new fields
with limited dynamic data.
To conduct the evaluation, an advanced multi-probe WFT
was utilized in five key wells around the field to obtain vertical
and horizontal permeabilities. Several VITs created pressure
pulses at the dual-packer, which produced pressure responses
monitored at two observation probes in real time. The vertical
connectivity was assessed from the pressure responses to the
transient generated across the stratigraphic layers. Comprehensive interference tests were conducted across all the layers. Advanced nonlinear regression analysis techniques were utilized
for pressure transient analysis at test intervals. The results
were further confirmed with a fine gridded 3D reservoir
simulator. The integration of all vertical permeability results
obtained so far indicate a good degree of reservoir vertical
connectivity.
The VIT results were used as input in the field simulation
model, improving the accuracy of the vertical permeability determination in different areas of the reservoir, which in turn
supported changes in the well placement strategy for maximized recovery.
layer for review. If the layers have sufficient pressure communication, there will be no pressure gradient difference across
the reservoir. This method of assessing vertical connectivity is
suitable for a field that has undergone enough production to
observe the depletion difference. An early understanding of the
vertical connectivity, however, is required to ensure optimum
development for new fields with limited dynamic data. Characterization of vertical heterogeneity is also important for well
performance and sweep efficiency.
To address this need, advanced formation testers equipped
with multiple probes and dual-packers can be utilized at the
early stage of field development to provide 3D (spatially r and z
plus time) dynamic data for the estimation of horizontal and
vertical permeability distributions along the wellbore1. It has been
shown that the integration of known static data (geology, cores
and open hole logs) and dynamic data from formation testers can
help to build more accurate reservoir models right after the
drilling phase2. Typical testing distances and the depths of investigation afforded by multi-probe formation testers can vary
between 10 ft and 100 ft, depending on reservoir properties.
When integrated with static data, results from such tests provide
more accurate evaluation and quantification of layer properties3.
Determination of vertical permeabilities with confidence
provides more accurate assessment of vertical connectivity.
Several vertical interference tests (VITs) from five wells located around the field were analyzed in this article for the early
evaluation of vertical connectivity.
VERTICAL CONNECTIVITY ASSESSMENT FOR HORIZONTAL WELL PLACEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Vertical permeability is a key factor in optimum well placement to ensure excellent well productivity. Reservoirs with
good vertical connectivity allow horizontal wells to be placed
at the top of the reservoir without crossing the entire reservoir.
On the other hand, reservoirs with poor vertical communication require slanted wells, layer dedicated wells or multilateral
wells to achieve optimum volumetric efficiency.
Formation pressure testing that is usually conducted postproduction can indicate the degree of vertical connectivity
within the reservoir by producing the pressure profile in each
44
SPRING 2014
The field considered in this study is located in the Middle East.

The reservoir was deposited in a shallow marine environment,
and capped by regressive tight limestones and algal boundstone
facies.
This reservoir is generally described as a calcarenite. The
formation rock is dolomitic in parts and demonstrates a typical
carbonate relationship between porosity and permeability. The
typical log response with lithology is shown in Fig. 1. The
reservoir is categorized as heterogeneous, based on available
core and log data. It is divided into four geological layers. A
tight streak exists between Layer-2 and Layer-3 in some areas
Fig. 1. Lithology and the porosity log from the study field.
of the reservoir. The well placement strategy was based on a

thorough assessment of all available data, including core
analysis, formation tests, well test data and reservoir simulation studies. A key uncertainty in defining the most optimum
well placement strategy was the extent of vertical connectivity
across Layer-2 and Layer-3. It was recognized that the permeability contrast between Layer-2 and Layer-3 with a tight
streak in between could pose significant risk of water override
in the reservoir if not addressed in a timely fashion. The existence of low permeability streaks in the reservoir introduced a
challenge in defining the optimum development plan and well
placement strategy. Due to relative low production volume and
the distance to the producing points, it was thought that pressure surveys alone may not be sufficient. Given the uncertainty
regarding the hydraulic communication toward the flank area,
a comprehensive evaluation and monitoring program was considered to address it. The well placement strategy and monitoring requirements are formulated considering the different
reservoir characteristics in each region, so as a part of the monitoring program, VITs using advanced formation testers were
designed and run to obtain horizontal and vertical permeabilities in several wells in the field.
METHODOLOGY OF THE VIT WITH A FORMATION

TESTER
Modern wireline formation testers (WFTs) are modular and
can be configured with different modules to achieve the different objectives such as pressure profiling, fluid sampling and
identification, and conducting interval pressure transient tests
(IPTTs) for determining permeability distribution while
adapting to specific well and formation conditions. It is designed
for the VIT to create a pressure pulse at the source probe and
to measure observed pressures at the different layers1.
Horizontal and vertical permeabilities are obtained for each
layer along the wellbore using the dual-packer configuration
with observation probe(s). In carbonate reservoirs, formation
layering with permeabilities of different orders of magnitude
can affect productivity, recovery factors, and gas and water
breakthroughs, as well as vertical and horizontal sweep efficiencies. To assess this layering, the configuration of a dualpacker with one or two probes can be set at each flow unit
(layer or sublayer) for characterization of its permeabilities.
The number of vertically distributed IPTTs conducted depends
on the expected variation of the vertical permeability and the
existence of faults and fractures. If there are many layers (flow
units) with contrasting permeabilities and/or several fractured
or faulted zones, the number of tests should be substantial. If
there are very few distinct layers, only a few tests in each well
are needed.
For instance, if there are three layers within the radius of investigation, one IPTT with a configuration of a dual-packer
with two observation probes will be sufficient to provide pressure measurements for a well-defined inverse problem from
which horizontal and vertical permeabilities for all layers can
be determined, provided that the other properties of the formation around the wellbore, e.g., layer porosity and thickness,
are known. It should be pointed out that if the packer and two
observation probes are located in the same layer in a threelayer formation, some permeabilities for the other two layers
cannot be determined with high confidence. If the location of
the packer and those of the two observation probes are distributed among the three layers, however, then permeabilities can
be estimated with a higher degree of certainty. In this study,
three to four tests were conducted across 10 to 12 layers. It is
also important to achieve a simultaneous match on all tests
with one completed layered model.
Typical events for a configuration of a dual-packer with two
probes are shown in Fig. 2a, with pressure and rate measurements shown in Fig. 2b1, 2. One of the challenges of the IPTT
is the detection of the pressure response at the observation
probes, especially as the permeability of the formation increases or decreases while the probe distance increases. It
should be pointed out that small pressure changes can be detected and measured by high resolution quartz gauges at the
observation probes as long as the pressure changes are considerably higher than the pressure gauge resolution. Todays
quartz pressure gauges have resolutions ranging from 0.002 to
0.01 psi1. In addition, special valves are utilized to eliminate
noise, obtaining higher confidence in the case of low amplitudes at the observation probes.
SPRING 2014
45
Fig. 2. Schematic of a WFT multi-probe packer module with two observation probes
(a) and typical pressure responses (b).
A pressure transient test interpretation, whether it is for

conventional well tests or IPTTs, presents two problems that
must be solved concurrently. The first is the definition (diagnosis) of the system, and the second is the estimation of its
parameters. The system identification problem is the most
complex part of the interpretation because the structure of the
model, boundary geometries and geological features, such as
faults, fractures, etc., also has to be determined from the subtle
features of the pressure response of the system. Other independent information, such as geological or geophysical data,
may also be needed to define a system (model). Once the
model and underlying flow regimes are identified, the parameter estimation can be achieved by using conventional graphical
techniques, such as derivative plots, Horner plots, linear plots,
etc., as well as nonlinear estimation techniques. Solving the
system identification and parameter estimation problem is not
simple, but it can be achieved by adopting a stepwise approach
for the determination of the model: (1) A model is identified by
using suitable (e.g., log-log) specialized plots of the pressure,
pressure change and pressure derivative. (2) A rough estimation of the parameters is made by using type curve and flow
regime analysis techniques. (3) The model and its parameters
are tuned up until the final solution is obtained. This last
step is often called validation or verification. The interpretation of IPTTs, or pressure transient tests in general, consists of
many steps and procedures, and uses many different data
types: hard and soft, dynamic and static. Because IPTTs are
generally three dimensional (spatially r and z plus time) and
require high resolution pressure measurements around the
wellbore, the static model from petrophysics and geology
should also have high spatial resolution. A workflow and the
interpretation procedure steps for IPTT are shown in Fig. 3.
With the geological input and open hole logs, the initial layering
is set up for the IPTT formation model, including other necessary
fluid and rock properties. An automatic optimization procedure adjusts the model parameters to minimize the differences
between the computed model pressures and all IPTT pressure
measurements as horizontal and vertical permeabilities and
layering are updated. Sometimes, mismatches if the pressure
and derivative matches are unacceptable can occur due to
46
SPRING 2014
Fig. 3. A typical workflow for the interpretation of the IPTT in a layered reservoir.
incorrect layering; therefore, the geological model and its layering are also iterated.
For the estimation of the reservoir parameters, the nonlinear
estimation method is based4 on the analytical multilayer
model5, although the analytical modeling with nonlinear
parameter estimation methodology can obtain horizontal and
vertical permeabilities for a single IPTT in a formation with a
few layers. On the other hand, it can be quite challenging to
include the entire formation with many layers (10-12 in this
case) and simultaneously match pressure and derivative data
from all the IPTTs (3-4 in this case); i.e., ensure that the final
horizontal and vertical permeability estimates and the layer
definition honor all the IPTTs at the same time. The integration of all static and dynamic data all logs, images, cores
and pretests with the geological input is very important to
obtain estimates with high confidence. Although an example of
a single well was shown2, here it is demonstrated that honoring the derivative response provides significant information regarding the permeabilities of the adjacent layers in multi-well
examples. For instance, if a permeable layer (not very thick) is
surrounded with relatively low permeability layers, the derivative exhibits a radial flow regime that yields a direct estimate
of the permeability of the layer. Some of the VITs are also
matched with a fine gridded numerical model.
Field Examples
The VITs were conducted in five wells around the field for
more representative characterization. The VIT examples are
presented here from two wells due to the limited length of this
article. As discussed in the previous sections, the primary objective is to determine vertical permeability across low porosity
intervals between two geological layers.
Well-1
Fig. 5. Pressure responses and the rate during the first VIT in Well-1.
In this well, three VITs were conducted with a dual-packer and

two observation probes with 6.5 ft and 15.5 ft distances between the dual-packer midpoint and two probes, respectively.
The distances between the packer and the probes were optimized based on layering and the expected responses at the
probes. The VIT locations are shown in Fig. 4.
During the first test, a very small increase in pressure background was observed and determined to be due to the recent
injection startup in an injector well that was close by. Figure 5
shows the pressure responses at the dual-packer (source) and
at the observation probes at the top, and shows the rate at the
bottom. The pressure scale is 1 psi for each track, on the right,
for the probes, and a small pressure increase is evident before
and after the test. The same response is observed at the dualpacker. Since the pressure scale is large 100 psi for each
track on the left it is not expanded.
Interference response at probe 1 was clear with 2.5 psi.
Since the pressure response was smaller at probe 2, the pressure
was pulsed at the dual-packer to increase the confidence in the
interference response at probe 2. It was then clear that there
was around a 0.2 psi pressure response at probe 2.
The injection effect was demonstrated with conceptual
Fig. 6. Conceptual simulation of the pressure response of the background at the

observation well.
Fig. 7. Derivative responses of a buildup period with and without injection

background.
Fig. 4. VIT intervals, pressure profile and pretest mobilities in Well-1.
numerical simulation. Figure 6 shows the simulation results of

the pressure response at the observation well as the injection
history is exactly input for the injection well. The expected
background is highlighted almost in an identical manner as in
the actual case. The derivative comparison of a buildup period
with and without injection background is shown in Fig. 7. The
injection effect is clearly identified with an increased trend.
The VIT data for all three tests were analyzed based on the
workflow, previously shown in Fig. 3, and a 10-layer model
SPRING 2014
47
Fig. 10. Comparison of pressure matches measured at the packer and probes with
the layered model for the second VIT in Well-1.
Figs. 8a and 8b. Schematic of 10 VIT intervals (a) and pressure matches at the
packer and probes with the layered model for the first VIT in Well-1 (b).
H (ft)
Kh (md)
Kv (md)
1,000
100
1.5
30 - 100
30
4,000
350
3,000
350
2.5
133
13
6.5
1,000
350
280
170
1.5
2,500 - 3,000
300
1 - 10
0.1 - 1
10 - 30
1-5
Table 1. Layered model results for Well-1
Figs. 9a and 9b. Schematic of 10 VIT intervals (a) and pressure matches at the
packer and probes with the layered model for the second VIT in Well-1 (b).
was set up, Fig. 8a. Pressure responses were simultaneously

matched at the packer and both probes, Fig. 8b, for this first
VIT. The derivative plot at the packer is shown at the bottom
of Fig. 8b. The increasing trend after the radial flow regime is
attributed to the injection effect.
The second VIT was conducted across the low porosity
zone, M, between two geological layers where placement of a
producer horizontal well was being considered. Figures 9a and
9b show the VIT intervals and the pressure matches at the
packer and probes, respectively. Although pressure response
amplitudes are small at the observation probes, the confidence
is high due to the repetition and pulse of the interference. The
analysis yielded a vertical permeability, Kv, of 13 md and Kv /Kh
of 0.1 across the low porosity zone. which was the primary
48
SPRING 2014
objective of the work here. The increasing trend in the derivative plot after the radial flow regime at the packer is attributed
to the injection effect.
After each VIT, results were matched with the layered model
in that test interval. It was ensured that all three VIT measured
pressure responses were simultaneously matched with the same
layered reservoir model horizontal, Kh, and vertical permeabilities, Kv as a final step of the workflow. It should be
noted that the small background pressure change was subtracted for the matching process.
To increase data confidence further, the numerical model
was set up with the identical 10 layers used in the nonlinear estimation. Pressure responses were numerically simulated using
fine gridded 3D commercial software. Pressure responses at
the packer and at both probes were obtained with very close
values to the measured responses, Fig. 10.
Table 1 shows the layered model Kh and Kv results. The values
within the blue range indicate that there is a variation in permeability based on the sensitivity analysis.
Well-2
In this well, four VITs were designed and conducted with the
same dual-packer and probe distances as in Well-1. The job
objectives also included pressure measurements and sampling
at different formations in one run. The integrated plot of the
open hole wells pressure and mobility profile is shown along
with VIT locations in Fig. 11. The VIT responses and their simultaneous matching to measured pressures at the packer and
Fig. 13. Pressure match to the drawdown and buildup periods with the probe in
layer M in Well-2.
Fig. 11. VIT intervals, pressure profile and pretest mobilities in Well-2.
at the probes are shown in Figs. 12a and 12b.

The pressure drop was 0.25 psi at probe 1 and 0.1 psi at
probe 2. Due to the excellent quality of the high resolution
gauges and special tool configuration, high quality data were
achieved, and the responses were repeated in a pulse manner
to increase the confidence. The vertical permeability of the low
porosity interest zone, M, was found to be 11 md with a Kv /Kh
of 0.19, consistent with the previous well results. A skin value
of 6.2 was obtained for the match at the packer.
A unique practice that consists of testing during short drawdown and buildup periods was conducted with the probe in
layer M to assess the permeability range with greater confidence. An independent pressure match to the drawdown and
buildup periods yielded similar permeability to that obtained
from the VIT analysis across the low porosity M zone. Figure
13 shows the drawdown and buildup pressure match with the
probe in layer M.
After analysis of the individual VITs, it was ensured that the
four VIT measured pressure responses at the packer and the
probes were matched simultaneously to the one complete layered model to obtain the final Kv and Kh. This process and the
workflow were followed for the five wells around the field to
assess more representative vertical connectivity in the field.
Integration of Results
Pressure responses as low as 0.05 psi at probe 2 (15.5 ft away

from the source) and as high as 3 psi at probe 1 (6.5 ft away
from the source) were recorded during the VITs in all wells. It
was clear that confidence in the pressure responses was high
due to repeated pulse tests conducted when the pressure responses were small at the observation probes. In addition,
recording multiple buildup periods proved crucial for detecting
the formation response to increase the confidence in the interference tests.
Kv/Kh
Figs. 12a and 12b. Schematic of VIT intervals (a) and pressure matches at the packer
and probes with the layered model for the third VIT in Well-2 (b).
Well 1
Well 2
Well 3
Well 4
Well 5
0.1
0.2
0.15
0.19
0.26
Table 2. Kv /Kh results for all wells
SPRING 2014
49
It was observed in real time that a pressure response due to

the short injection in an offset well was detected in the observation well, providing evidence of good areal connectivity
between wells at a field scale.
Vertical permeability results were compared with field modeling values in current use, based on open hole logs and cores.
The comparison indicated that trends were similar. The layered
model results obtained in this study are considered to be an essential input to fine-tune the simulation model and to ensure
maximum reservoir sweep efficiency along with improvements
in the well placement strategy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
for permission to publish this article.
This article was presented at the ADIPEC 2013 Technical
Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 10-13, 2013.
Fig. 14. Comparison of the VIT results and field model Kv in Well-1.
NOMENCLATURE
Table 2 summarizes the Kv /Kh results in five wells, indicating reasonably good connectivity.
Vertical permeabilities obtained from the VITs were compared with field modeling values currently in use based on
open hole logs calibrated with the cores. The comparison for
Well-1 indicated that trends are similar, Fig. 14. The other two
wells also indicated similar trends along with discrepancies in
some intervals, leading to the conclusion that field modeling
values used a constant Kv /Kh. Fine-tuning the field model with
the VIT results would increase the accuracy of the assessment
of vertical connectivity and enhance horizontal well placement.
Kh
Kv
p
CONCLUSIONS
The evaluation of vertical connectivity is the key to minimizing
the uncertainty of optimum horizontal well placement. A new
methodology to assess such connectivity was demonstrated
with comprehensive field examples, designed as a part of the
monitoring program in a layered giant carbonate reservoir. Extensive VITs conducted with special tool configurations and
best practices in well testing yielded confident measurements
despite small pressure amplitudes at the observation probes.
The flow regime analyses and nonlinear history matching
procedure, integrated with well logs and geological data, resulted in an excellent approach for estimating horizontal and
vertical permeabilities, verified by having the VITs benchmarked with a fine gridded numerical simulator. Results
showed that Kv /Kh consistently varied between 0.1 and 0.26
for the low porosity layer, indicating considerable connectivity.
Layered model results confirmed and quantified that the upper
layers (L2) have higher horizontal permeabilities up to a few
Darcy, which is a key indication for optimal and efficient horizontal well placement in these layers.
50
SPRING 2014
horizontal permeability, md
vertical permeability, md
pressure drop
REFERENCES
1. Ayan, C., Hafez, H., Hurst, S., Kuchuk, F., OCallaghan,
A., Peffer, J., et al.: Characterizing Permeability with
Formation Testers, Oilfield Review, Vol. 13, No. 3,
October 1, 2001, pp. 2-23.
2. Ma, S.M., Zeybek, M. and Kuchuk, F.J.: Integration of
Static and Dynamic Data for Enhanced Reservoir
Characterization, Geological Modeling, and Well
Performance Studies, SPE paper 166492, presented at the
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New
Orleans, Louisiana, September 30 - October 2, 2013.
3. Zhan, L., Kuchuk, F.J., Ma, S.M., Al-Shahri, A.M.,
Ramakrishnan, T.S., Altundas, Y.B., et al.:
Characterization of Reservoir Heterogeneity through
Fluid Movement Monitoring with Deep Electromagnetic
and Pressure Measurements, SPE paper 116328, presented
at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition,
Denver, Colorado, September 21-24, 2008.
4. Onur, M. and Kuchuk, F.J.: Nonlinear Regression
Analysis of Well Test Pressure Data with Uncertain
Variance, SPE paper 62918, presented at the SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, Texas,
October 1-4, 2000.
5. Kuchuk, F.J.: Pressure Behavior of the MDT Packer
Module and DST in Crossflow Multilayer Reservoirs,
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Vol. 11,
No. 2, June 1994, pp. 123-135.
BIOGRAPHIES
Mabkhout A. Al-Harthi is a Reservoir
Engineer in Saudi Aramcos Northern
Area Reservoir Management
Department. He is currently involved
in the development of Manifa field as
the champion for the master strategic
reservoir surveillance plan. Mabkhout
has worked in a variety of disciplines, including production
engineering, drilling engineering and reservoir management.
He was involved in the reservoir management of Ghawar
field, where he conducted reservoir assessment studies,
including horizontal well performance evaluation.
Mabkhout received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and is
currently pursuing a M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering,
also at KFUPM. He is certified as a Petroleum Engineer by
the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and is a SPE
member.
Cesar H. Pardo has 27 years of
experience with E&P companies. He
joined Saudi Aramco in 2006 and
worked for 1 year for the Gas
Reservoir Management Department as
a Senior Reservoir Engineer. In April
2007, Cesar was moved to the Manifa
Reservoir Management Division, where he currently works
as a Petroleum Engineer Specialist for the Manifa
Increment. He generated the Manifa reservoirs FDP and is
currently leading the Manifa Modeling and Simulation
multidisciplinary team.
In 1987, he began working at Ecopetrol (the Colombian
state oil company), where he spent 4 years involved in
drilling, workover and production technology engineering.
In 1990, Cesar joined Shell Colombia (Hocol) as a
Workover Engineer. In 1992, he was promoted to
Production Technology Engineer and successfully designed
and implemented a fracturing campaign for 30 producer
wells, and an electrical submersible pump and gas lift
campaign for over 70 wells. In 1996, Cesar was promoted
to Reservoir Engineer, working in Classical Reservoir
Engineering and Numerical Reservoir Simulation; he also
performed integrated studies to identify new infill drilling
and workover opportunities. In 2002, Cesar was promoted
to Senior Reservoir Engineer and given the additional
responsibility of Asset Exploitation Manager Acting for a
key field on production. He prepared and coordinated field
development plans to optimize sweep efficiency and
recovery in two fields with water injection. In 2004, Cesar
was promoted to Reservoir Engineering Network Leader
for the whole company in Colombia, where he coordinated
and prepared the new books with company standard
procedures to generate field forecast and calculate reserves.
Cesar received his B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering
from the Universidad de America, Bogot, Colombia.
Khaled A. Kilany has over 25 years of

industry experience while working as a
Reservoir and Production Engineer. He
started his career in the oil fields as a
Production Engineer working from
1986 to 1990, and then Khaled
switched to reservoir engineering,
working as a Reservoir Simulation and Reservoir
Management Specialist in several international companies
in Egypt, Canada and the Gulf area, including AGIP in
Egypt, the Kuwait Oil Company and Shell International in
Canada and Oman prior to coming to Saudi Aramco.
Since joining Saudi Aramco in August 2005, Khaled has
worked as a Senior Reservoir Engineer with the Northern
Area Reservoir Management Department where he was
involved in introducing innovative completion equipment
and production optimization techniques in Safaniya.
Khaleds experience here includes his participation in
several reserve assessment studies, short- and long-term
production forecasts, waterflood management and full field
development plans. He also participated in the Manifa
increment, which successfully went onstream recently.
Currently, Khaled leads a long-range study unit for the
Northern Area Reservoir Management Department that
works on enhancing recovery of the three major offshore
fields (Safaniya, Zuluf and Marjan), in addition to
establishing development plans for new remote fields in the
Northern Area.
In 1982 Khaled received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Engineering from Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
Majid H. Al-Otaibi has 15 years of
experience with Saudi Aramco. During
this time, he has worked in a variety of
disciplines, including production
facilities, production engineering,
drilling engineering and reservoir
management. Majid has participated in
multiple increments that Saudi Aramco has put onstream in
recent years, including HRDH-III, KHRS, NYYM, and
most recently, Manifa. In reservoir management, he led the
upscale development of a thin oil zone in a giant mature
carbonate reservoir. In 2011, Majid began leading the
Manifa Team, serving in that capacity until the increment
was put onstream in 2013. He is now the Division Head of
Khurais Reservoir Management in the Southern Area
Majid received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering
from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
(KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and his M.S. degree in
Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at
Austin, Austin, TX.
SPRING 2014
51
Dr. Murat M. Zeybek is a

Schlumberger Reservoir Engineering
Advisor and Reservoir and Production
Domain Champion for the Middle
East region. He works on analysis and
interpretation of wireline formation
testers, pressure transient analysis,
numerical modeling of fluid flow, water control,
production logging and reservoir monitoring.
He is a technical review committee member for the
Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) journal Reservoir
Evaluation and Engineering. Murat also served as a
committee member for the SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition in 1999-2001. He has been a
discussion leader and a committee member in a number of
SPE Applied Technology Workshops (ATWs), including a
technical committee member for the SPE Saudi Technical
Symposium, and he is a global mentor in Schlumberger.
Murat received his B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering
from the Technical University of Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey.
He received his M.S. degree in 1985 and his Ph.D. degree
in 1991, both from the University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, CA, also in Petroleum Engineering.
He has published more than 50 papers on analysis/
interpretation of wireline formation testers, pressure
transient analysis, numerical modeling of fluid flow, fluid
flow porous media, water control, production logging and
reservoir monitoring.
52
SPRING 2014
Asif Amin is Reservoir Engineer based

in Saudi Arabia, working for
Schlumberger Petro Technical Services
(PTS). He works on interpretation of
wireline formation testers, pressure
transient analysis, production logging
and corrosion monitoring. Asif is also
involved in testing and implementing new technology
regarding formation fluid sampling.
He has 12 years of experience in job planning, real-time
monitoring and post-acquisition data processing and
interpretation related to production logging, formation
testing and fluid sampling.
In 2000, Asif received his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Engineering from the University of Engineering &
Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. He is member of the Society
of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
Quantifying Gas Saturation with Pulsed

Neutron Logging An Innovative
Approach
Authors: Mamdouh N. Al-Nasser, Dr. Shouxiang M. (Mark) Ma, Nedhal M. Al-Mushrafi, Ahmed S. Al-Muthana,
Steve W. Riley and Abel I. Geevarghese
ABSTRACT
In reservoir surveillance, gas saturation is routinely monitored
both in gas reservoirs for reservoir performance and in saturated oil reservoirs to prevent gas coning or to optimize infill
drilling well placement. This article presents a new pulsed neutron (PN) technology and method that enables the quantitative
monitoring of the gas saturation variations to address these
reservoir management issues. One of the key features of the
newly designed PN tool is its new type of lanthanum bromide
(LaBr3) detectors, which have the best overall performance
among the detectors used in the industry. Another important new feature is its array of five detectors working together to provide an optimized solution for the targeted reservoir. The extra-long spacing of the far detectors enables a
larger volume of investigation that is more representative of
the actual reservoir condition. The quantitative aspect of the
measurement is achieved by using the ratios of the detector
counts, so that the rock matrix effects are diminished, as opposed to the traditional sigma measurement, which can be
influenced significantly by the rock matrix properties. This
new tool and data interpretation methodology have been
tested in both clastic and carbonate reservoirs with encouraging
results. This article presents an overview of the technology and
some field application examples.
INTRODUCTION
Pulse neutron (PN) technology has existed for nearly 50
years1, and during that time sigma, S , was employed as the
workhorse of saturation, S, monitoring for both oil and gas
reservoirs in high salinity environments. In 1971, Clavier et
al.2 suggested that in a quantitative saturation analysis, the difference in sigma measurements (S log) must be larger than or
equal to six cross section units (CUs), which requires:
Reservoir effective porosity (with accuracy) > 15%.
Reservoir lithology free of shales, i.e., clean formations.
Formation water salinity > 100 kppm.
The primary source of uncertainty, which results in a qualitative rather than a quantitative saturation answer outside
these conditions, is not the statistics on the measurement (S log),
but rather the uncertainty of the various input parameters
required for the analysis, as defined in Eqn. 1:

(1)
where S is saturation, V is volume, and the subscripts indicate
log reading, log, matrix, ma, hydrocarbon, hc, shale, sh, and
water, w.
While these conditions are equivalent to D S log 6 CUs
between water and hydrocarbons at any particular effective
reservoir porosity, it is noted that in the case of a saturated oil
reservoir the contrast of interest is not between the gas and
water, which is larger, but between the oil and gas, which is
much smaller, and so more difficult to quantify. In the most
obvious application, i.e., steam flood of a heavy oil reservoir,
this 6 CU requirement sets the minimum effective porosity requirement at min > 27%, which is obviously difficult to meet.
In the application considered in this article, the conditions
are generally poorer than the guidelines suggested2, with
porosities in the 20% to 30% range, while the expected in situ
gas sigma S g 8 CU and oil sigma S o 21 CU. To compound
these difficulties, the sands are also generally of poorer quality
with various shale volumes. At a porosity of 20%, a sigma sensitivity (D S log) of only about 2.6 CU exists less than half of
that suggested2 for quantitative saturation analysis. Further
complications arise from the mineralogical uncertainties present: high sigma minerals, such as pyrite and siderite exist, and
clay minerals in the shales are variable with chlorite, kaolinite
and illite, Table 1.
Density
(gm/cc)
Capture Cross
Section Units
MDPN NB
Units
Pyrite
5.01
89.9
11.87
Siderite
3.94
52.3
44.69
Kaolinite
2.59
12.8
49.57
Chlorite
2.88
25.3
52.95
Illite
2.64
15.5
49.49
Quartz
2.65
4.3
19.38
Mineral
Table 1. Mineral properties of interest in this application

Note: MDPN stands for multi-detector pulsed neutron, and NB stands for
neutron burst. The values in the last column represent the expected response of
the new measurement: the ratio of counts during the neutron burst (in ratio units).
SPRING 2014
53
The literature review showed that various techniques have

been proposed to reduce the uncertainty in calculated saturations under complex mineralogy conditions by effectively using
a level-by-level varying sigma matrix parameter. In a 2003 article, Zalan et al.3 used a technique in which a sigma matrix is
derived from the open hole density, neutron porosity and
gamma ray logs using a coefficient regressed from data
recorded in reference wet zones within the field. Simpson and
Truax (2010)4 suggest expanding the material balance equation to use multiple mineral volumes derived from capture
spectroscopy measurements. Although those approaches could
improve the performance of Eqn. 1 by trying to minimize uncertainties of S ma, uncertainties in the calculated Sw could still
be significant due to the effect of this input parameter uncertainties. A more detailed uncertainty analysis for Sw determination from Eqn. 1 is provided in Appendix A. The objective of
this article is to describe a new approach based on the neutron
burst ratio for gas saturation quantification.
NEW METHODOLOGY
Recently, new measurements have emerged5 based on multi-detector pulsed neutron technology (MDPN), where measurements
sensing a larger volume of the neutron gamma transport field
are made using an array of detectors providing larger detector
source spacings than conventional instruments. These larger
sensed volumes result in higher measurement sensitivities to
several formation properties, including gas saturation6, 7.
The instrument employed for the trial described in this article comprises four spectroscopic lanthanum bromide (LaBr3)
detectors and a fast neutron detector distributed axially along
the tool body and coupled to high count rate electronics. The
instrument generates two new measurements useful in formation
evaluation: a fast neutron normalized burst (NB) and capture
ratio, derived from the nearest (proximal) and furthest (long
spaced) detectors, as well as four detector carbon/oxygen
(C/O) and sigma measurements.
Characterization of all these measurements is accomplished
using full 3D neutron-gamma transport response modeling for
the exact wellbore geometry and the borehole fluid conditions
that existed during logging of the well. The characterized instrument measurements are calibrated by a multi-point calibrator
prior to the logging; this calibrator performs a calibration of
both the magnitude and the sensitivity of the instrument readings.
Interpretation of the measurements follows mathematically
from the characterization data along traditional lines except
for the handling of shale in both the C/O and formation gas interpretations. In both cases, analytical shale characterization
and petrophysical processes have been implemented to
strengthen the mathematical definition of the shale effects and
reduce the reliance on subjective aspects of the analysis within
the saturation calculation workflow.
Previous applications of MDPN technology have been published8, 9. In this article, we address a new MDPN instrumentation
54
SPRING 2014
Fig. 1. A comparison of the new methodology (left) vs. traditional sigma (right).
with its associated nuclear attributes and its specific application to gas saturation quantification in complex mineralogical
environments.
The significant differences between this methodology and
that of traditional sigma are demonstrated in Fig. 1, and a
more detailed uncertainty analysis for the new methodology is
provided in Appendix B.
1. Traditional sigma:
Difference between sandstone oil and sandstone gas is often insufficient, making it difficult to use the technology
to differentiate gas from oil, especially if reservoir porosity
is low to intermediate.
The large effect of mineralogy, i.e., uncertainties in mineralogy determination, has a significant effect on Sw using
Eqn. 1.
2. New methodology:
The large dynamic range between sandstone oil and sand
stone gas makes the technology good for gas quantification.
Small mineralogy effect is observed, except pyrite.
The tool works in much lower porosity reservoirs.
Note: The green and red lines in Fig. 1 represent the response for sandstone oil and gas, respectively, while the other
colored lines represent the wet response for the various minerals considered; black is pyrite, blue is siderite, gray is illite,
purple is chlorite, and brown is kaolinite. In the new methodology, the gray line is exactly over the top of the brown line, so
only one is visible. The yellow bar indicates the gas sensitivity
of each system at a porosity of 20%, while the red bar illustrates the sensitivity to siderite.
ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE
En route to arriving at the saturation profile from the measured
nuclear attributes, one always goes through some important
questions. Satisfactory answers to these reinforce the validity
of the measurements and interpretation. The questions are:
Does the characterization match the formation, wellbore,
completion and borehole conditions?
Was the tool operating correctly?
Was the measurement seeing the formation?
The characterization was constructed for the exact conditions
Fig. 2. Illustration of the derivation of the in situ shale characterization; the thick
line represents the derived shale correction function from the measured data
points.
Fig. 4. Example Well-1. Track 1 displays the supplied open hole volumetrics and
correlation curves while Track 2 displays the borehole fluid condition. Track 3
displays the analysis envelope, while Tracks 4 and 5 display the PV and whole
volume results, respectively. The location of the gas-liquid contact is observed, and
an indication of which sands are developing gas caps is obtained. Remaining oil
saturation can also be estimated.
Fig. 3. Illustration of the coherence of the measured curve and the analysis
envelope. Tracks 1 and 3 contain open hole PVs and data, respectively; while
Track 2 displays the analysis envelope and measured curve. The red line of the
envelope is the gas line and the blue line is the liquid line.
encountered: casing size, weight, borehole size, cement and

borehole fluid. Furthermore, the peaks and spectra tracked
correctly throughout the log interval and attest to the proper
functioning of the tool.
The modeled characterization is interpolated with the formation porosity to construct the analysis envelope within
which the measured curve will respond. Shale is characterized
in situ and enables the mathematical handling of the envelope
Fig. 5. Example Well-2. Similar to the Fig. 4 plot, this figure shows that a gas cap
is being developed at the top of the main sand.
in proportion to shale volume. Figure 2 shows the shale

characterization function derived in situ from the whole logged
SPRING 2014
55
interval of one well. Essentially, this curve is added to the

sandstone characterization wet line and represents the in
situ shale effect on the measurement. The spread of data points
about the function illuminates the variance it introduces into
the saturation computation, although the spread at higher
porosities is a mathematical anomaly resulting from the
method of calculation and the presence of gas.
The main indicator that the measurement is seeing the formation is coherence. Coherence is the synchronous motion
of the measured curve and the envelope; that is, they move and
sway together with the changing properties of the reservoir.
This is an important observation because the measured curve
and the envelope are independently constructed, so their
synchronous motion is a strong indication that:
The tool is seeing the formation.
The reservoir model agrees with what the tool sees in the
reservoir.
Figure 3 illustrates this coherence. The measured curve follows
the wet line and departs toward the gas line when it sees gas. It
returns and follows the wet line when the porosity decreases.
When the wet line moves left, the curve moves left, and vice
versa. The curve position with respect to the envelope yields
the gas saturation. The contact movement is also readily apparent when compared with open hole density and neutron
porosity data.
RESULTS
The MDPN NB measurement tool has been field tested in
wells completed in fluvial sandstone deposits, where pressure
is supported by natural aquifer and gas cap expansion drives.

The reservoir lithology is complex, containing shales and other
minerals like pyrite and siderite, and porosity averages 26%.
The main objective of the evaluation was to determine gas-liquid contact locations and determine the gas saturation profile
in the sands, particularly the thinner sands overlying the main
oil producing interval. In all, three wells, Figs. 4, 5 and 6, were
investigated to gain a spatially significant view of gas cap development over the field. The location and magnitude of gas
saturations are intuitively obvious from the displays in Figs. 4,
5 and 6, which helps engineers to better understand reservoir
performance in terms of which of the overlying sands are in
pressure communication with the main reservoir and which
are not, or are in restricted communication, information that is
key in reservoir management.
CONCLUSIONS
A new measurement based on MDPN is presented with field
examples showing the applications of the MDPN technology.
The new technology is robust in reservoirs with complex
lithologies when compared to the sigma analysis technique. The
analysis technique is intuitive with a clear connection between the
derived saturations and the petrophysical inputs of shale volume
and porosity, the Monte Carlo response characterization, the
derivation of the in situ shale characterization and the generation of the analysis envelope. The trial results have been
encouraging under difficult conditions and warrant further
testing to determine the limits of the technique in terms of
porosity range, completion complexity and lithological environments. In the applications tested to date, performance of
the technique has been in line with expectations, and no
special logging practices or procedures have been required.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
for permission to publish this article.
REFERENCES
1. Youmans, A.H., Hopkinson, E.C., Bergen, R.A. and Oshry,
H.I.: Neutron Lifetime, a New Nuclear Log, Journal of
Petroleum Technology, Vol. 16, No. 3, March 1964, pp.
319-328.
Fig. 6. Example Well-3. Similar to the plots in Figs. 4 and 5, this figure shows that
a gas cap is being developed at the top of the main sand.
56
SPRING 2014
2. Clavier, C., Hoyle, W. and Meunier, D.: Quantitative

Interpretation of Thermal Neutron Decay Time Logs: Part
2. Interpretation Example, Interpretation Accuracy, and
Time-Lapse Technique, Journal of Petroleum Technology,
Vol. 23, No. 6, June 1971, pp. 756-763.
3. Zalan, T.A., Badruzzaman, A., Julander, D. and Whittlesey,

K.: Steamflood Surveillance in Sumatra, Indonesia and
San Joaquin Valley, California, Using Steam Identification,
Carbon/Oxygen and Temperature Logs, SPE paper 80435,
presented at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference
and Exhibition, Jakarta, Indonesia, September 9-11, 2003.
4. Simpson, G.A. and Truax, J.A.: New Dry Clay Total
Porosity Model for Interpreting Pulsed Neutron Capture
Logs in Shaly Sands, paper 2010-80670, presented at the
SPWLA 51st Annual Logging Symposium, Perth, Australia,
June 19-23, 2010.
5. Trcka, D., Gilchrist, A., Riley, S., Bruner, M., Esfandiari,
T., Ly, T., et al.: Field Trials of a New Method for the
Measurement of Formation Gas Using Pulsed Neutron
Instruments, SPE paper 102350, presented at the SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio,
Texas, September 24-27, 2006.
6. Badruzzaman, A., Badruzzaman, T., Zalan, T.A. and Mai,
K.: Multi-Sensor Through-Casing Density and Saturation
Measurement Concepts with a Pulsed Neutron Source: A
Modeling Assessment, SPE paper 89884, presented at the
SPE International Petroleum Conference, Puebla, Mexico,
November 8-9, 2004.
7. Guo, P., Fitz, D. and Spears, R.: Pulsed Neutron Logging
in Tight Gas Sand Reservoirs: A Cost-Effective Evaluation
Approach, paper 2010-21847, presented at the SPWLA
51st Annual Logging Symposium, Perth, Australia, June
19-23, 2010.
8. Zett, A., Riley, S., Webster, M. and Brackenridge, R.: An
Integrated Data Acquisition and Analysis Approach
Decreases Saturation Uncertainty and Provides Valuable
Secondary Information in Difficult Conditions, paper
2008-QQQ, presented at the SPWLA 49th Annual Logging
Symposium, Austin, Texas, May 25-28, 2008.
9. Bertoli, S., Borghi, M., Galli, G., Oprescu, A. and Riley, S.:
Field Trials of a New Array Pulsed Neutron Formation
Gas Measurement in Complex Completions, paper
presented at the Offshore Mediterranean Conference and
Exhibition, Ravenna, Italy, March 20-22, 2013.
10. Al-Ruwaili, S.B., Al-Waheed, H.H. and Al-Belowi, A.R.:
Petrophysical Methods and Techniques for Accurate
Evaluation of Shaly Sands, paper 2005-AAA, presented
at the SPWLA 46th Annual Logging Symposium, New
Orleans, Louisiana, June 26-29, 2005.
11. Badruzzaman, A., Logan, J.P., Bean, C., Adeyemo, A.O.,
Zalan, T.A. and Barnes, D., et al.: Is Accurate Gas
Saturation behind Pipe Feasible with PNC Measurements? SPE paper 110098, presented at the Asia
PacificOil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta,
Indonesia, October 30 - November 1, 2007.
12. Badruzzaman, A., Barnes, D. and Vujic, J.: Accuracy of
Pulsed Neutron Capture Sigma-Derived Steam Saturation

and Corresponding Remaining Oil in Steam Floods,
paper presented at the SPWLA 51st Annual Logging
Symposium, Perth, Australia, June 19-23, 2010.
Appendix A
Uncertainty Analysis of Traditional Sigma Measurement
In an effort to gauge whether this new technique would result

in acceptable accuracy in terms of the calculated saturations
uncertainty, various calculations were undertaken in this article. By using the published uncertainties for elemental yields of
a spectroscopy tool, and summing in quadrature in the correct
proportions, an uncertainty figure for the volume of clay,
pyrite and siderite was calculated; this data is presented in
Table 2 and does not include any additional errors introduced
by the element weights to mineral volume models employed;
the clay volume uncertainties derived are in line with the work
of Al-Ruwaili et al. (2005)10. With these uncertainties, the resulting uncertainty in capture units can be calculated simply by
multiplying the mineral volume uncertainty times its respective
effective macroscopic capture cross section contribution at
reservoir porosity. Since the material balance equation is a simple linear system, the effective contribution is the difference
between the mineral matrix value and sandstone matrix value
times 1 minus the porosity, and represents the sigma difference
observed when sandstone is completely replaced by the other
mineral. The resulting uncertainty from each component is
then easily computed by dividing by the measurement sensitivity, and a single value of matrix uncertainty is computed once
again by summing the individual components in quadrature.
The results of this process are startling when examined (the
reader is reminded that the statistics on a measurement divided
by the sensitivity simply defines the precision of the measurement, but the accuracy is influenced by the contribution of
ALL the uncertainties). The uncertainties in saturation introduced from ONLY the sigma matrix parameter under these
conditions, Table 2, ranged from 0.439 to 0.475 volume divided by volume (V/V) depending on which clay mineral was
assumed to be present, the lowest being kaolinite and the highest being chlorite. In essence, the saturation measurement has
an uncertainty range of 0.88 (+/- one standard deviation) and a
dynamic range of 1. This figure, of course, does not include the
contributions from the more conventional sources, such as statistics which can be reduced by logging multiple passes
and diffusion correction error, porosity error, sigma oil parameter errors and sigma gas parameter errors, none of which can
be reduced by logging multiple passes; the effect of the latter
will further increase the uncertainty. This situation is further
compounded by work performed by Badruzzaman et al. (2007
and 2010)11, 12, which suggests there are significant errors
inherent in gas saturations reported by sigma calculations
SPRING 2014
57
Uncertainty
(V/V)
Effective
Sigma CU
Product
CU
Saturation
Uncertainty
(Sw V/V)
Total Kaolinite
Total Chlorite
Total Illite
Pyrite
0.011
67.92
0.74712
0.287354
Summation
Summation
Summation
Siderite
0.0222
37.84
0.83967
0.32295
Summation
Summation
Summation
Kaolinite
0.0315
6.24
0.19681
0.075696
Summation
Chlorite
0.0315
8.4
0.264936
0.101898
Illite
0.0315
16.24
0.51221
0.197004
Mineral
Summation
Summation
Measurement sensitivity at 0.20 porosity = 2.6 CU
0.438861
0.444131
0.475057
Table 2. Uncertainty in gas saturation resulting from mineralogical uncertainty using sigma methodology
Uncertainty
(V/V)
Effective Contribution Ratio

Units
Product
Ratio
Units
Saturation
Uncertainty
(Sw V/V)
Total Kaolinite
Total Chlorite
Total Illite
Pyrite
0.011
4.67
0.052
0.0027
Summation
Summation
Summation
Siderite
0.0222
10.31
0.229
0.0120
Summation
Summation
Summation
Kaolinite
0.0315
12.30
0.387
0.0204
Summation
Chlorite
0.0315
13.68
0.431
0.0227
Illite
0.0315
12.27
0.387
0.0204
Mineral
Summation
Summation
0.02393
Measurement sensitivity at 0.20 porosity = 18.94 Ratio Units
0.02592
0.02389
Table 3. Uncertainty in gas saturation resulting from mineralogical uncertainty using the new methodology
attributable to other influences, such as neutron transport

phenomena in gas filled formations.
Appendix B
Uncertainty Analysis of the New Technology
It was prudent to go through the same error propagation exercise for this new technique as was done for sigma. To accomplish
this, full modeling was performed for the wellbore geometry to
be logged for each of the required minerals. From this, the results shown in Fig. 1 were obtained. An observation to be made
about this Monte Carlo characterization process is that ALL
neutron transport and diffusion effects are inherently accounted
for in the results. The conditions used were exactly the same as
those used for the sigma analysis, porosity of the reservoir being
0.2 V/V and with sandstone lithology as the basis. The results
of the error propagation analysis, Table 3, show remarkably
that the saturation error range is now reduced to 0.024 to
0.026, depending on which clay mineral is present an improvement factor of almost 20 times in accuracy over sigma
under these conditions. Note also the similarity in response of
the three clay types, virtually removing the need for clay type
identification and differentiation within the shale.
The picture is even clearer if the results are presented as a
ratio of the sensitivity to a particular mineral divided by the
sensitivity to gas, Table 4, where the last column is a figure of
58
SPRING 2014
Mineral
Relative Sensitivity
Merit Figure
Sigma
MDPN NB
Pyrite
26.12308
0.246568
105.9467
Siderite
14.55385
0.544351
26.73616
Kaolinite
2.4
0.649419
3.69561
Chlorite
3.230769
0.722281
4.473009
Illite
6.246154
0.647835
9.641577
Table 4. Comparison of relative sensitivities (sensitivity to a particular mineral

divided by the sensitivity to gas) of sigma and the new methodology
merit comparing the relative sensitivity of sigma to the MDPN

measurement for each mineral component; the biggest offender
is pyrite, which has over 100 times more effect on sigma than
on the new method.
In fact, the situation is improved so dramatically that gas
saturations calculated using the new methodology employing
just porosity and a generic shale volume curve are less uncertain than sigma calculations using the best mineralogy
solution from elemental spectroscopy.
BIOGRAPHIES
Mamdouh N. Al-Nasser is a Reservoir
Engineer working in Saudi Aramcos
Reservoir Description and Simulation
Department. Since joining Saudi
Aramco in 2002, he has held several
technical positions throughout the
company. Currently, Mamdouh is
working with the Petrophysical and Special Studies Unit,
where his responsibilities include reservoir saturation
surveillance technologies, integrations and best practice
optimization. His research interests are in saturation
monitoring and surveillance, nuclear logging, dynamic
petrophysics and enhanced oil recovery/improved oil
recovery surveillance design.
Mamdouh received his B.S. degree in Chemical
Engineering and M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering in
2002 and 2012, respectively, from King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
He has published and coauthored several papers.
Mamdouh is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
certified Petroleum Engineer.
Dr. Shouxiang M. (Mark) Ma is a
Senior Petrophysical Consultant in the
Reservoir Description Division and
actively serves in the Petroleum
Engineering Technologist Development
Program as a mentor and a member of
its technical review committee. He was
a founding member of the Upstream Professional
Development Center, serving as the Professional
Development Advisor for the petrophysics job family from
2009 to 2012.
Before joining Saudi Aramco in 2000, he worked as a
Lecturer at Changjiang University, Jingzhou City, China,
and as a Lab Petrophysicist at the Petroleum Recovery
Research Center in New Mexico, the Western Research
Institute in Wyoming and Exxons Production Research
Company.
Mark received his B.S. degree from the China University
of Petroleum, Beijing, China, and his M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology, Socorro, NM, all in Petroleum Engineering.
He is a member of the Society of Core Analysts and the
Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and he has served on
the SPEs Formation Evaluation Award Committee (as
Chairman in 2012) and the AIME/SPE Robert Earll
McConnell Award Committee.
Mark has more than 60 publications and several patents
in petrophysics. He was awarded the 2003 Department
Individual Achievement Award and 2011 SPE Saudi Arabia
Section Active Technical Involvement Award, and is a
technical journal reviewer for SPE Reservoir Evaluation
and Engineering (SPERE&E), Journal of Canadian
Petroleum Technology (JCPT), Journal of Petroleum
Science & Engineering (JPS&E) and the Arabian Journal
for Science and Engineering.
Nedhal M. Al-Musharfi is currently

the Head of Saudi Aramcos Reservoir
Description Division. He started his
career with Schlumberger in 1994 as a
Wireline Field Engineer, and then made
a cross-segment move to drilling and
measurements. During his time at
Schlumberger, Nedhal worked in several operational
positions and as the Recruiting Manager.
In 1994, he received his B.S. degree in Mechanical
Ahmed S. Al-Muthana is a Senior
Engineer who has more than 17 years
of experience with Saudi Aramco. His
expertise covers several business lines
within Saudi Aramco, such as
Reservoir Description, Reservoir
Management, Reservoir Simulation,
Production Engineering and Reservoir Characterization,
just to name a few.
During his work on the Technical Development Program
(TDP), Ahmed joined Schlumberger and Core Laboratory
personnel in special training assignments. In 2011, he
graduated from TDP as a Core-Log Integration Specialist.
Ahmed is a member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE) and served as the vice chairman of the SPE
Saudi Arabia Section during 2006/2007. He has authored
and coauthored numerous technical papers.
Ahmed received his B.S. degree in Petroleum Geology
from King Abdulaziz University, Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.
Steve W. Riley has 35 years of
experience in the oil and gas industry
focused on the wireline, formation
evaluation and R&D disciplines. He is
currently engaged in pulse neutron
analysis and interpretation product
development for Weatherfords new
Raptor multidetector pulse neutron instrument as the CRE
software project manager.
Steve received his B.S. degree (with honors) in
Cosmology and Earth Science from the Open University of
the U.K.
Abel I. Geevarghese is a Production
Petrophysicist working with
Weatherfords Petroleum Consulting
product line. He joined Weatherford in
2008 as a Log Analyst for open hole
and cased hole wireline measurements.
In 2007, Abel received his B.Tech.
degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from
Kerala University, Kerala, India, and in 2008, he received
his M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt
University, Edinburgh, U.K.
SPRING 2014
59
Insight into SmartWater Recovery

Mechanism through Detailed History
Matching of Coreflood Experiments
Authors: Dr. Abdulkareem M. AlSofi and Dr. Ali A. Yousef
ABSTRACT
A practical SmartWater Flooding simulation model should
replicate laboratory and pilot-scale observations. An ideal
model should also capture the recovery mechanism in play. In
the literature, only the conventional, straightforward residual
oil reduction approach has been suggested and tested to scale
up SmartWater Flooding laboratory results. This, consequently, provides only a single view of the potential recovery
mechanism. Other approaches can be equally successful in
matching laboratory results and can provide additional insight
and understanding of the recovery mechanism in play. In this
article, we use the laboratory results of two tertiary SmartWater
corefloods to investigate the various possibilities for modeling
SmartWater Flooding and capturing the recovery mechanisms.
First, we use a high accuracy Buckley-Leverett solver to
study the performance of the two corefloods from a fractional
flow perspective. Second, we use a streamline-based simulator
to investigate in detail the possible relative permeability sets
capable of history matching SmartWater recoveries and pressures. As a result, a new set of relative permeabilities is generated
and tested through a 3D synthetic layered reservoir to demonstrate SmartWater Flooding recoveries. The results of this
work suggest that recovery enhancement through SmartWater
Flooding is best explained based on changes to the curvature of
the oil relative permeability curve, i.e., the Corey oil exponent.
Incremental recoveries are realized not due to a reduction in
the technical/absolute residual oil, but rather due to improvement in the oil flow capacity, i.e., the oil-to-water relative
permeability ratio. Based on our results, we postulate that
SmartWater incremental recovery is triggered by the formation
of a dual-wettability state across the porous medium.
INTRODUCTION
Relative permeability is the ability of a fluid phase to flow
through a porous medium in the presence of other fluid phases.
The relative permeability concept was first postulated by Muskat
and Meres (1936)1, where they extended the application of
Darcys law to two-phase systems. Relative permeabilities
are determined through either steady-state or unsteady-state
displacement experiments2. In both experiments, relative
60
SPRING 2014
permeabilities are not explicitly measured, but rather inferred

from the experimentally observed recovery and pressure data3.
Because of the relative simplicity of conducting unsteady-state
experiments, these are more commonly used2, 4.
Two approaches exist for the interpretation of unsteady-state
experiments: explicit and implicit. For the explicit approach, i.e.,
the Johnson, Bossler and Naumann method and its variations,
relative permeabilities are directly calculated from experimental
results. For the implicit approach, a mathematical model of the
displacement process is used to obtain relative permeability
functions that best fit the observed experimental data2-6. The
main advantage of the implicit approach is the ability to obtain
relative permeability functions over the entire saturation range
that are self-consistent and do not exhibit spurious fluctuations3.
In this article, we use implicit techniques fractional flow
and reservoir simulation to interpret the changes in relative
permeabilities associated with SmartWater Flooding.
SmartWater Flooding is basically the injection of water,
chemistry optimized in terms of salinity and ionic composition,
into the reservoir to realize incremental oil recoveries. The
distinct advantage of this method compared to conventional
enhanced oil recovery methods is its low cost of implementation,
especially in fields with an existing water injection scheme. Extensive research has addressed the impact of injection water
chemistry on oil recovery. In sandstone reservoirs, research
studies at laboratory conditions have shown that injection of
low salinity water can significantly improve oil recovery7-10.
Other work11, 12 has confirmed low salinity flooding potential
at reservoir conditions through coreflood experiments. The
potential of low salinity flooding has also been confirmed at
the field scale through log-inject-log and different single well
chemical tracer tests13-15. In chalk reservoirs featuring pure calcite rocks, research studies have shown that seawater injection
rather than any other type of water injection can improve oil
recovery16-18. This effect was attributed to the high concentrations of key seawater ions, SO42-, Ca2+ and Mg2+, which have
the capability to change the rock surface charges, release adsorbed carboxylic oil components, alter rock wettability and
eventually improve oil recovery.
In carbonate reservoirs, recent research studies have shown
that substantial incremental oil recovery, up to 18%, can be
achieved by SmartWater Flooding, i.e., using brine with optimized
salinity and ionic composition19. The potential of SmartWater

Flooding has also been confirmed and validated in the secondary
recovery mode as a green field technology20. Incremental recoveries in that case were attributed to wettability alteration
since SmartWater injection had less impact on interfacial tension.
Furthermore, the use of direct/indirect techniques, i.e., nuclear
magnetic resonance and zeta potential, determined that this
wettability alteration was due to (a) surface charges alteration,
and (b) microscopic dissolution of anhydrite21. Finally, the potential of SmartWater Flooding has also been confirmed at the
field scale through various single well chemical tracer tests22.
The goal of this work is not only to come up with a representative relative permeability model that is capable of predicting
SmartWater performance, but also to gain insight into the
SmartWater recovery mechanism. In the literature, the current
approach to modeling low salinity floods is based on the assumption that lower salinity leads to residual oil (Sor) reduction23.
While this could be the case, such low salinity effects can also
be explained differently. Although the practical Sor might
decrease, yielding incremental recoveries, the actual absolute
residual oil does not necessarily change. Incremental oil recovery,
therefore, is not necessarily triggered by a reduction of absolute
residuals, but is feasibly realized by shifts in relative permeability
curves near the residuals.
The experimental data used in this work are those reported
by Yousef et al. (2011)19. In our interpretation, we neglect capillary pressures and also assume capillary end effects to be
minimal. Both assumptions are reasonable due to the high injection rates employed19. Actually, these experiments have
recently been investigated24, 25 in an attempt to understand the
recovery mechanism of SmartWater Flooding in carbonate
systems through history matching its performance. Aladasani
et al. (2012)24 concluded that the primary recovery mechanism
is an increase in oil relative permeability. Al-Shalabi et al.
(2013)25 concluded that the main recovery mechanism is wettability alteration because a reduction in Sor by itself cannot
match experimental observation; rather, an additional shift in
relative permeabilities is needed.
A major drawback of these studies, and the traditional implicit interpretation of unsteady-state experiments in general, is
the definition of endpoints more specifically, the water endpoint and the associated residual oil assumption. In our view,
the termination point of a waterflood is not necessarily the
endpoint, but merely a point along the relative permeability
curves, which exhibit a very high water fractional flow. Neither
the injection of a couple (even tens) of pore volumes (PVs) of
water nor the observation of a recovery plateau proves the
attainment of residual oil conditions.
According to Anderson (1987)4, in oil-wet systems, waterflooding is very inefficient; because Sor and the relative permeability endpoint depend on the number of PVs injected, the Sor
concept and value are not well defined. This lack of definition
is due to the presence of a continuous thin oil film4. As water
advances, it continuously forms water channels through the
larger pores, and the water-to-oil ratio gradually increases until

enough channels have formed, permitting nearly unrestricted
water flow and practically ceasing oil production4 despite
the continuity of the oil film coating the grain surfaces. According to Agbalaka et al. (2008)26, this surface film drainage
mechanism is also significant in mixed-wet systems. As a result,
the waterflood Sor in mixed-wet systems is also a strong function
of the PVs injected. For example, in coreflooding that involved
a mixed-wet preserved core from the Endicott field in Alaska27,
the observed Sor was 40% after the injection of 1 PV, 22% after 500 PVs and 12% after infinite PVs26. Polymer flooding
displacement experiments suggest that a similar surface
drainage mechanism is in play for our studied carbonate system.
In these 1D experiments, polymer flooding results in incremental recoveries post-waterflooding28.
Another limitation of conventional implicit techniques is the
priori definition of the relative permeability functional form.
Functional forms typically used, such as the Corey-type curves,
may not capture reservoir rocks with distinct pore-scale variations. A distinct variation in the rock topology may lead to
two distinct subsystems; one encompassing the more permeable
pores and a second comprising extremely tight pores. If the
second subsystem has an appreciable volume, then it is reasonable to expect that two functional forms will be needed to
represent the entire relative permeability curves. The second
subsystem, representing the tighter pores, is insignificant at the
initial stage of the waterflood due to the dominance of the
more permeable subsystem. But later, at high water saturations
as the more permeable pores are flooded and the practical Sor
is reached, the tighter subsystem becomes the only contributor
to oil flow, reflecting its relative permeability. Therefore, a different functional form will be needed to represent the displacement of this tighter subsystem, one that is characterized by a
long-tailed oil relative permeability. Clearly, in such topologies
the observed Sor will also be a strong function of the PVs injected.
In this article, we address only the first limitation relating to
the endpoint definition and the distinction between practical
and true Sor. The second limitation relating to the use of two
functional forms will be the subject of future research. We will
focus our discussion on one of the corefloods reported by
Yousef et al. (2011)19. We first present the experimental results
used in this work. We later present the fractional flow and
reservoir simulation interpretation of the experimental results,
providing information on the prevalent recovery mechanism
for the studied carbonate system. Finally, we present simulation results for SmartWater Flooding in a 3D synthetic case,
using two distinct definitions of relative permeabilities that
correspond to the distinction between the true and practical
definitions of Sor.
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
We start our investigation with the raw coreflood data. We
correct the data to account for the apparatus dead volume.
SPRING 2014
61
First, we correct the dimensionless time, t, by shifting the recovery (RF) to the left, such that oil production starts at zero.
Second, we also account for the dead volume by shifting the
recovery down, thereby matching the observed Sor19, Fig. 1.
viscosity equivalent to a seawater viscosity of 0.272 mPa.s.

The oil viscosity is 0.691 mPa.s.
FRACTIONAL FLOW ANALYSIS
First, we generate Corey relative permeability realizations that

match seawater flooding. Three sets are generated by assuming
different levels of Sor and by modifying the Corey parameters
to obtain the best match to observed recovery and pressure
drop. The three sets vary in their Corey parameters, Table 1.
All sets provide a good match with the ultimate recovery of
seawater flooding, but Set 1 characterized by an infinitesi-
Seawater Flooding
We estimate, using a high accuracy Buckley-Leverett solver,

Corey relative permeabilities for seawater flooding and
SmartWater Flooding. Pressure drop is also semi-analytically calculated based on experimentally inferred saturations. For this analysis, we assume a constant water
Fig. 1. Revised recovery and pressure drop data compared to the remaining oil (lines)19.
krw
kro
Sor
Swir
nw
no
Set 1
0.7
0.05
0.1441
Set 2
0.33
0.2
0.1441
2.3
2.3
Set 3
0.31
0.221
0.1441
2.5
1.8
Table 1. Corey parameters for the possible seawater relative permeability sets
Fig. 2. Fractional flow match to seawater flooding using three relative permeability sets of varying Sor (refer to Table 1); Sets 1 through 3 from left to right.
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SPRING 2014
mal ultimate Sor of 0.05 provides the best match to the recovery profile, Fig. 2. As noted earlier, this infinitesimal ultimate Sor is in agreement with the expected performance of
oil-wet and mixed-wet systems.
(1)
At different concentrations, Cs, the modified oil relative
permeability, kro*, is calculated using Eqn. 229.
SmartWater Flooding
(2)
Using the three relative permeability sets, we investigate the independent shifts in the Corey parameters necessary to replicate
SmartWater recoveries. We assume a secondary injection of
SmartWater, i.e., we attempt to match only the ultimate recoveries
but not the production profiles. For Set 1, a reduction in the oil
exponent, no, is the only reasonable way to replicate SmartWater
recoveries, and for Sets 2 and 3, a reduction in Sor is the only possible way to match SmartWater recoveries, Table 2. Using Set 1,
Fig. 3, plots the fractional flow match against experimental data
for the 2x and 10x SmartWater injection. The oil exponent modifier a simulator input29 is also estimated to be 0.25 with
pseudo-SmartWater concentrations of 0.45 and 1 for the 2x and
10x SmartWater, respectively. As seen in Eqn. 1, the oil modifier,
mo, is related to the modified Corey oil exponent, no*.
SmartWater Effects
Figure 4 shows the associated change in the kro* due to SmartWater Flooding. Note that the increase in kro* at a given concentration as well as the shift of the intersection point toward
higher water saturations are indications of wettability modification to a more water-wet condition2, 30. This is consistent with
contact angle measurement19, Fig. 5. An approximately 20
reduction in the contact angle is reported when seawater is
substituted with the 10x SmartWater. Consistent findings have
been reported in the literature where wettability variations that
are relatively small were found to produce sizable effects on
the relative permeability curve31.
Set 1
Relative Permeability
Set 2
Set 3
Sor
Sor
no
nw
krw
0.7
0.05
0.2
0.221
2x SmartWater
3.4
0.25
0.008
0.13
0.145
10x SmartWater
300
0.0005
1,500
-0.08
0.046
0.06
Water Type
Seawater
kro
Sor
Table 2. Independent changes in Corey parameters necessary to match SmartWater recoveries
Fig. 3. Fractional flow matches to 2x (left) and 10x (right) SmartWater Flooding.
SPRING 2014
63
Fig. 4. Estimated SmartWater oil relative permeability curves based on relative

permeability for Set 1.
Fig. 6. Estimated recoveries for Set 1 (black curve) and Set 2 (red curve) against
coreflooding with seawater and SmartWater lines.
COREFLOOD SIMULATION
We start with the relative permeability for Set 1, which assumes
an ultimate Sor of 0.05, and use it in a streamline simulator to
history match the SmartWater coreflood data. The streamlinebased simulator is based on the work of Batycky et al. (1997)32
and has been extended to model low-salinity flooding29.
The Simulation Model
Fig. 5. A strong correlation between predicted changes in the oil exponent and
measured changes in the contact angle. Note that we use the average of the three
contact angle tests19.
Recovery Mechanism in the Studied Carbonate
Essentially, the relative permeability sets provide two different

explanations for the oil recovery performance in the studied
carbonate system. But recall that Set 1 provides the best match
to the recovery profile. The first hypothesis, implicit in Set 2,
assumes an absolute Sor equivalent to that observed in the
coreflooding experiment. This hypothesis promotes the argument that no additional oil displacement recovery would
take place with the continuous injection of seawater even if an
infinite number of PVs are used. On the other hand, the second
hypothesis, implicit in Set 1, suggests that although seawater
flooding has an absolute Sor of 0.05, the practical Sor is 0.221.
Reaching an Sor of 0.05 would require a huge number of PVs.
For instance, with Set 1, for seawater to recover 92.5% of the
original oil in place, we would need to inject ~105 PVs, Fig. 6.
With SmartWater, the same recovery can be obtained with less
than 2 PVs.
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SPRING 2014
The composite core properties are listed in Table 3. Water viscosities and the pseudo-polymer concentrations of the waters
are shown in Table 4. Using the data, we build four simulation
models with increasing complexities, Table 5. The first model
is the most simplified, assuming a constant water viscosity, a
homogeneous composite core and a constant initial water saturation of 0.1441. The second model relaxes the first assumption
in which we model the variations in the viscosities of injected
water. For this purpose, we use the simulator polymer flooding
model33 assuming that the core is initially fully saturated with a
polymer. The third and fourth models relax the homogeneity
assumption. Finally, the number of cells and their dimensions
are identical for the four simulation models. We use 118 cells
in the x-direction to minimize the error in the length of the
composite core and to reduce numerical dispersion effects.
Seawater Simulation Runs
First, we attempt to match seawater injection. Due to numerical errors across the refractive wave, the simulator overpredicts recoveries. This overprediction can be due to truncation,
roundoff and interpolation errors across the refractive wave
where the kro drops significantly. A second possible explanation
is mass destruction during the consecutive mapping between the
Eulerian and Lagrangian grids. To match both the experimental results and the analytical solution, the relative permeability
Length (cm)
Diameter (cm)
Permeability (md)
Porosity (%)
Plug 1
3.94
3.81
0.2257
74.34
Plug 2
4.16
3.81
0.2773
59.44
Plug 3
3.83
3.81
0.2497
73.26
Plug 4
3.77
3.81
0.2565
64.51
Plug 5
4.02
3.81
0.266
73.25
Plug 6
3.93
3.81
0.2036
65.26
Table 3. Composite core properties
Viscosity
(mPa.s)
Water Type
Pseudo-polymer
Concentration
Connate
0.476
Seawater
0.272
0.362
2x SmartWater
0.242
0.158
10x SmartWater
0.232
Table 4. Water viscosities and pseudo-polymer concentrations
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Nx
118
1
0.05
0.1441
Ny
1
1
0.221
0.1441
Nz
1
1
0.2
0.1441
x (m)
0.002
y = z (m)
Model 4
matching the analytical solution, i.e., matching the observed

ultimate recovery and practical Sor of 0.221 using a true Sor
of 0.05.
SmartWater Simulation Runs
After matching the seawater flooding performance, we match

the performance of the full cycle of the SmartWater Flooding
i.e., seawater, 2x SmartWater and 10x SmartWater assuming changes in the oil exponent. Nevertheless, since we
have an artificial termination of the kr set, we need also to
modify the water endpoint and the practical Sor. For the 10x
SmartWater, the oil exponent modifier is 0.25, the endpoint
relative permeability ratio is 1.1, and the input Sor is set to
0.067. The 10x SmartWater is assumed to have a dimensionless concentration, inversely proportional to salinity, of 1,
while the 2x SmartWater has a dimensionless concentration of
0.45. Figure 7 shows the final match using the fourth simulation model previously identified in Table 5. The SmartWater
inputs are shown in Table 6.
3D SIMULATIONS
0.03377
Seawater
Average
Average
Varying
Heterogeneous
Heterogeneous
Table 5. Simulation grids and assumptions
curves have to be terminated at a practical Sor. Taking this

practical oil saturation as the experimentally observed Sor is
sufficient to obtain accurate results.
Note that this termination is artificial and is due to numerical limitations. A high accuracy simulator should be
able to match the seawater flood specifically the remaining oil saturation of 0.221 using the same kr set characterized by an Sor of 0.05. This is the case for the truncation-free analytical solution. This is validated by performing the simulations using Eclipse and UT-Chem. Eclipse exhibits similar numerical errors, but UT-Chem is capable of
In this section, we perform some preliminary 3D simulations

using the previously suggested fractional flow-based relative
permeability. The purpose of this section is, first, to illustrate
the possible recovery improvement due to SmartWater injection,
and second, to lend confidence to the infinitesimal ultimate Sor
concept. This is done by comparing our results to a more conventional relative permeability set.
The use of a small residual for waterflooding despite its
relatively low recovery justifiably raises all sorts of questions. From a practical reservoir engineering perspective, the
remaining oil observed in the field is nowhere near 0.05. Even
at laboratory conditions and after the injection of tens of PVs,
we do not reach such extremely low values. Nonetheless, we
should first distinguish between remaining oil, practical residuals
and residual oil, or ultimate residuals. The practical residual is
what we observe in reality. It differs with scale and the associated
definition of practicality. In the laboratory experiments, the injection of a few PVs is practical, and the observed Sor can be as
SPRING 2014
65
Fig. 7. Simulation match to SmartWater coreflood.
Connate
krw ratio
Seawater
2x SmartWater
mo
Cs
Sor
0.221
10x SmartWater
1.1
0.25
0.45
1
0.067
Table 6. SmartWater simulation input
Fig. 9. Reservoir permeability and porosity logs.
Fig. 8. Permeability porosity transforms for the top (red) and bottom (blue) zones.
low as 0.15. Second, we should keep in mind that what controls production cuts is fractional flow, the krw:kro ratio, rather
than residuals. A relative permeability curve with an Sor of 0.2
can be practically identical to another curve with an Sor of 0.
The Simulation Model
We simulate a secondary line drive waterflood. Fluid properties, i.e., oil and water viscosities as well as the initial water
saturation, are based on the previous laboratory coreflood.
The sector is 3,281 x 1,640 x 220 ft, discretized into 52 x 26 x
22 cells. The reservoir is assumed to consist of two zones, with
zone A the top 130 ft having better quality. Figure 8
shows the assumed permeability-porosity transforms along the
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SPRING 2014
top and bottom zones. Along each zone, the reservoir is assumed to be layered with a long, normally distributed porosity,
with a 0.2 mean and a 0.25 standard deviation for zone A, and
with a 0.1 mean and a 0.2 standard deviation for zone B. Figure 9 shows the generated porosity and permeability logs. The
reservoir is produced using a line drive scheme with four producers and four injectors. The well-to-well distance is 820 ft.
The wells are completed in the top zone the top 130 ft.
Furthermore, we simulate seawater flooding and SmartWater
Flooding using two sets of relative permeability curves. The
first is the fractional flow-based curves generated in the previous section with a 0.05 Sor. The second is a more conventional
set with a 0.225 Sor to seawater flooding. Figure 10 shows the
two sets of kr curves.
Simulation Results
Secondary seawater flooding and SmartWater Flooding simulations with the two sets of relative permeability curves are performed using UT-Chem. The recovery results are plotted in
Fig. 11. Despite the significant difference in the assumed Sor
values of the two curves, the recovery predictions are almost
Fig. 10. Relative permeability sets. (Left) Fractional flow based with infinitesimal residual (0.05). (Right) Conventional curves with a practical residual definition (0.225
and 0.100 for seawater flooding and SmartWater Flooding, respectively). In both figures, seawater and SmartWater curves are shown in blue and red, respectively.
Fig. 11. UT-Chem recovery predictions against time (left), and water cut (right) for secondary seawater flooding and SmartWater Flooding using the two relative
permeability sets.
identical. The saturation profiles, Fig. 12, for secondary seawater flooding and SmartWater Flooding further demonstrate
the potential of SmartWater injection.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
flow capacity, i.e., an increase in the kro:krw ratio. With SmartWater injection, the practical Sor decreases significantly due to
shifts in the relative permeability curves. With this, one might
argue that seawater flooding would recover as much as SmartWater Flooding, which could be true but it would do so
only after the injection of a impractically huge number of PVs.
SmartWater Simulation and Up-scaling

SmartWater Recovery Mechanism
Through analysis and simulation of unsteady-state tertiary

SmartWater displacement experiments, we have estimated the
seawater and SmartWater relative permeabilities. Figure 13
shows the final seawater and 10x SmartWater oil relative permeability curves. To match the 2x SmartWater performance,
its effective salinity is 0.45. This information can be implemented in a commercial reservoir simulator, e.g., Eclipse, to
scale up our laboratory results.
The Effect of SmartWater
From the earlier results, we hypothesize that SmartWater

Flooding recovery enhancement is due to an increase in the oil
The effect of wettability on the oil recovery performance of

waterflooding, despite being studied extensively, is a controversial subject26. Probably the latest consensus is that neutral wettability is an optimal condition for oil recovery26, 34. This
conclusion is based on systems that do not undergo an alteration of their wettability state during the course of a waterflood. Therefore, and based on contact angle measurements19,
the wettability of the studied system has been altered to a less
favorable condition from intermediate to water-wet conditions. Then, a viable question is how to explain the observed
incremental recoveries and the inferred increase in oil flow
capacity, i.e., kro:krw ratio.
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67
Fig. 12. Predicted saturation profiles after 10 PVs of seawater (top) and
SmartWater Flooding (bottom), obtained using UT-Chem with the fractional flowbased relative permeability curves.
Fig. 13. Oil relative permeability curves for seawater and 10x SmartWater used in
matching laboratory corefloods. Note that the relative permeability curves are
very close to those initially predicted using fractional flow (refer to Fig. 4).
Our explanation, based on several in-house research studies,

is that even if intermediate wettability is the most favorable
condition, SmartWater incremental recovery is triggered by the
establishment of a dual-wettability state across the porous
medium, Fig. 14. Initially, post-waterflooding, the system is
relatively oil-wet, and the oil exists mainly as a continuous film
coating the surface grains. This film can be produced, but at
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SPRING 2014
Fig. 14. Dual-wettability effect: A possible SmartWater recovery mechanism. (a) At

the end of waterflooding an appreciable amount of oil remains as a continuous film
coating the rock surface. (b) As SmartWater invades the porous medium, it alters the
wettability. (c) As a result, the remaining oil film across the invaded zone redistributes
itself forming globules that act as restrictions to water flow. (d) Therefore, oil films
across the non-invaded zone get depleted at more appreciable rates.
extremely low and impractical rates. As SmartWater is injected, the SmartWater front advances and alters the wettability
behind the front. Therefore, behind the front, the oil film coating
the surface starts to break and form discontinuous oil globules
in the center of the water flow paths, reducing the water capacity
to flow. Recall that a wetting phase has lower endpoint permeability than a non-wetting phase due to the essential difference
in the microscopic distribution of the remaining non-wetting
and wetting phases, respectively2. Therefore, ahead of the
SmartWater front and across the yet relatively oil-wet system,

the oil still exists as a continuous film, one that was being produced at extremely low rates during waterflooding but now,
after the injection of SmartWater, is being produced at more
appreciable rates due to the restriction of the water flow capacity across the SmartWater region. In addition, as more oil globules
behind the SmartWater front form, they tend to coalesce into
an additional oil bank.
Another slightly similar explanation is based on the presence of a dual-porosity system. At the end of waterflooding, a
tight subsystem is poorly flooded, while a more permeable subsystem is fully flooded. Both systems are initially relatively oilwet. As SmartWater advances, it preferentially flows through
the more permeable subsystem and alters its wettability to a
more water-wet condition. As above, across this more permeable
subsystem, the oil film coating the surface starts to break and
form discontinuous oil globules in the center of the water flow
paths, reducing the water flow capacity and eventually allowing oil globules behind the SmartWater front to coalesce and
form an additional oil bank. As a result, more water gets diverted
to the tighter, poorly flooded subsystem; its contribution to
production in turn becomes more appreciable, and incremental
recoveries are realized. Those postulated situations are analogous to the generation of a mixed-wettability system for which
recoveries have been reported to be considerably higher than
recoveries from systems with uniform wettability26.
CONCLUSIONS
Through analysis and simulation of unsteady-state tertiary
SmartWater displacement experiments, we have estimated the
seawater and SmartWater relative permeabilities. This information can be implemented in a commercial reservoir simulator,
e.g., Eclipse, to scale up our laboratory results. Actually, we
have investigated the various possibilities for modeling SmartWater Flooding resulting in a possible recovery mechanism.
Different relative permeability realizations have been generated
to match the experimental results. Essentially, the relative permeability realizations provide two different explanations for
the oil recovery performance in the studied carbonate system.
The first hypothesis states that no additional oil displacement recovery would take place with the continuous injection of seawater even if an infinite number of PVs are used. In
this traditional view, the SmartWater incremental is due to a
direct reduction in Sor. On the other hand, the second hypothesis
suggests that although seawater flooding has an absolute Sor of
0.05, the practical Sor is 0.221. Reaching an Sor of 0.05 would
require a huge number of PVs. With SmartWater injection, the
practical Sor decreases significantly due to shifts in the relative
permeability curves, but not the absolute residual itself.
SmartWater Flooding recovery enhancement is due to an increase in the oil flow capacity, i.e., an increase in the kro:krw ratio. Based on that, we postulate that SmartWater incremental
recovery is triggered by the formation of a dual-wettability
state across the porous medium. As SmartWater is injected, the

SmartWater front advances and alters the wettability in the invaded zone. Across this zone, the oil film coating the surface
starts to break and form discontinuous oil globules in the center
of the water flow paths, reducing the water capacity to flow
and eventually allowing oil globules behind the SmartWater
front to coalesce and form an additional oil bank. Thereby,
across the non-invaded yet relatively oil-wet system, oil that
was being produced at extremely low rates during waterflooding
is now after the injection of SmartWater produced at
more appreciable rates due to the restriction of the water flow
capacity across the SmartWater region.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the Saudi Aramco management and the EXPEC ARC management for granting permission to present and publish this article.
NOMENCLATURE
S
C
n
m
k
kr
t
N
saturation, dimensionless
normalized concentration, dimensionless
Corey exponent, dimensionless
Corey exponent modifier, dimensionless
viscosity, ML-1T-1, Pa.s
permeability, L2, m2
relative permeability, dimensionless
dimensionless time
number of grid blocks
SUBSCRIPTS
w
o
or
wir
s
water
oil
residual oil
irreducible water
SmartWater
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33. AlSofi, A.M. and Blunt, M.J.: Streamline-based
Simulation of non-Newtonian Polymer Flooding, SPE
Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4, December 2010, pp. 895-905.
34. Morrow, N.R.: Wettability and Its Effect on Oil
Recovery, Journal of Petroleum Technology, Vol. 42,
No. 12, December 1990, pp. 1,476-1,484.
BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Abdulkareem M. AlSofi is a
Petroleum Engineer with Saudi
Aramcos Reservoir Engineering
Technology Team at the Exploration
and Petroleum Engineering Center
Advanced Research Center (EXPEC
ARC). His main research interest is the
modeling of enhanced oil recovery processes. Abdulkareem
has also worked with the Reservoir Management,
Reservoir Description and Simulation, and Reserves
Assessment Departments.
He is the recipient of the 2009 Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE) Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition Young Professional Best Paper Award in
reservoir engineering, the recipient of the 2011 EXPEC
ARC Best Presentation Award and the recipient of the 2013
Middle East Young Engineer of the Year Award.
In 2006, Abdulkareem received his B.S. degree from the
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and in 2010, he
received his Ph.D. degree from Imperial College London,
London, U.K., both in Petroleum Engineering.
Ali A. Yousef is a Petroleum
Engineering Specialist and a Focus
Area Champion of improved oil
recovery/enhanced oil recovery
(IOR/EOR) focus area tagged
SmartWater Flood in the
Exploration and Petroleum
Engineering Center Advanced Research Center (EXPEC
ARC). He has more than 20 years of experience in
upstream research and technology. Since joining Saudi
Aramco, Ali has been involved in applied research projects
on IOR, waterflooding performance optimization, and
EOR. Currently, he is leading 40+ scientists and engineers
in developing new technologies that can increase recovery
factors from Saudi Arabian reservoirs.
Ali has written over 45 technical papers and reports and
has more than 5 patents. He is currently an active member
of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Ali has helped
organized several petroleum engineering related conferences
and taught courses on IOR/EOR and waterflooding.
He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Petroleum
Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin,
TX.
SPRING 2014
71
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Winter 2014
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December 31, 2014
March 31, 2015
June 30, 2015
Additional Content Available Online at: www.saudiaramco.com/jot.com.html
Gelled Emulsion of CO2 Water Nanoparticles

Fawaz M. Al-Otaibi, Yun C. Chang, Dr. Sunil L. Kokal, Jassi F. Al-Qahtani and Amin M. Al-Abdulwahab
ABSTRACT
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) by carbon dioxide (CO2) injection is quickly becoming an important and effective method for
recovering additional oil beyond waterflooding. The CO2 EOR process is handicapped, especially in thick reservoirs, by CO2
gravity override. Due to density differences between the injected CO2 and resident fluids in the reservoir, the CO2, being lighter,
tends to rise to the top of the reservoir, thereby bypassing some of the remaining oil. Different techniques have been used to
overcome the CO2 gravity override by either increasing its density and viscosity, or by reducing its relative permeability.
Calibrating Log Derived Stress Profiles in Anisotropic Shale Gas Formations
Anas M. Al-Marzooq, Hussain A. Aljeshi and Abdullah Al-Akeely
ABSTRACT
The complex properties of unconventional gas resources pose challenges to petrophysical evaluation techniques and tools. Data
from standard logging tools and standard interpretation techniques produce high levels of uncertainties in the analysis, thereby
limiting their reliability in producing thorough petrophysical solutions. Both tight gas and shale gas formations add multiple
layers of complexity to the petrophysical evaluation, with their complex lithology and heterogeneity causing uncertainty in the
hydrocarbon volume calculations and hydraulic fracturing completion designs.
Overcoming Hydraulic Fracturing Challenges in High Temperature and Tight Gas Reservoirs of Saudi Arabia with an
Enhanced Fracturing Fluids System
Saad M. Al-Driweesh, Alaa A. Dashash, Ataur R. Malik, Jairo A. Leal Jauregui, Eduardo Soriano and Alfredo Lopez
ABSTRACT
Hydraulic fracturing has been an important aspect of the successful exploitation of gas sandstone formations in Saudi Arabia.
During the past decade, conventional formations were stimulated successfully with traditional, low to moderate temperature,
borate cross-linked fracturing fluids. As the development of the existing fields continues into deeper formations and exploration
activities are inclined toward unconventional reservoirs, new challenges are experienced due to the lower permeabilities and
higher temperatures. The conventional borate cross-linked gels are no longer the choice of fracturing fluids for extreme bottomhole conditions.
Real Life Natural Fracture Detection Examples and Workflows for Implementing Fractures in Simulation Models
Stig Lyngra, Dr. Constantine Tsingas and Nazih F. Najjar
ABSTRACT
Systematic fracture characterization is required to construct a well-constrained static and dynamic fracture model of the
reservoir. The main challenge is the need to integrate all the available data sets in a consistent manner, ranging in scale from core
samples to seismic, to allow construction of appropriate detailed geologic models and up-scaled simulation models. If this is
done with sufficient understanding of the geology and dynamic behavior of the reservoir, a history match to all available field
dynamic data can be performed. The history matched simulation model is used to generate prediction scenarios of future oil and
water production.

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Spring 2014

A quarterly publication of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix Acidizing Technology Boosts Well

THE SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

A stage of the limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing

The Saudi Aramco Journal of Technology is

EDITORIAL ADVISORS (CONTINUED)

Robert M. Arndt, ASC

Program Director, Technology

Manager, Research and Development Center

Pixel Creative Group, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.

Complete issues of the Journal in PDF format

Vice President, Southern Area Oil Operations

Unsolicited articles will be returned only

Vice President, Corporate Planning

President & CEO, Saudi Aramco

Executive Director, Exploration

Vice President, Saudi Aramco Affairs

Executive Director, Chief Technology Officer

General Manager, Public Affairs

A quarterly publication of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix Acidizing

Mohammed A. Al-Ghazal, Saad M. Al-Driweesh, Mustafa R. Al-Zaid

A New Real-Time Analysis Method for Pressure Tests in

Mohammed F. Al-Zayer, Amer H. AbuHassoun, Dr. Sami Eyuboglu,

Improved Reservoir Surveillance through Injected Tracers

Quantifying the Intelligent Field Added Values

Zaki B. Husain and Muhammad A. Al-Hajri

Development of Mature Fields Using the Reservoir

Alfonso Varela-Pineda, Dr. Ahmed H. Alhutheli and

Comprehensive Reservoir Vertical Interference Testing

Mabkhout A. Al-Harthi, Cesar H. Pardo, Khaled A. Kilany,

Quantifying Gas Saturation with Pulsed Neutron

Mamdouh N. Al-Nasser, Dr. Shouxiang M. (Mark) Ma,

Insight into SmartWater Recovery Mechanism through

THE SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

Limited Entry, Multiple Injection Matrix

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

TRIAL TESTING QUALIFICATION

The Permian Khuff-C carbonate formation is generally a

LIMITED ENTRY, MULTIPLE INJECTION MATRIX

will ensure efficient annular isolation between stages, cope with

Fig. 3a. Hydraulically set, mechanical, dual-element open hole packer.

Fig. 1. Limited entry, multiple injection matrix acidizing technology utilizes

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

acid is dispensed and spread along the wellbore in the open

Max. Rate (bpm)

Avg. Rate (bpm)

Max. Pressure (psi)

Table 1. Limited entry treatment parameters for Well-A

PRODUCTION DATA ANALYSIS

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

Fig. 8b. Sustained post-multistage fracturing well production rates showing

Fig. 9. Normalized PI comparison between Well-A and three offset wells.

gas development fields in Saudi Arabia. This spans carbonate

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

downhole hydraulic scenario, which usually alters the

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

10. Al-Jubran, H.H., Wilson, S. and Johnston, B.: Successful

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

Saad M. Al-Driweesh is a General

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

A New Real-Time Analysis Method