Special Core Analysis
To predict oil and gas field performance, reservoir engineers need to feed their models, be it an analytical tool or a reservoir simulator, with basic…
- Level
- Intermediate
- Type
- Course
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About Training
To predict oil and gas field performance, reservoir engineers need to feed their models, be it an analytical tool or a reservoir simulator, with basic reservoir data. These will comprise initial saturation distributions and flow parameters. The measurement of single phase properties is addressed by routine core analysis, while the measurement for two- and three-phase properties such as imbibition and drainage relative permeabilities, capillary pressures and resistivity (I-Sw) is addressed by Special Core Analysis (SCAL).
The preparation of a SCAL measurement program is ideally a multi-disciplinary effort. This SCAL course will prepare reservoir engineers, petrophysicists, geologists and other E&P professionals to design a SCAL program, select a service provider, coach the execution of the program if and when required, manage data quality and do state-of-the-art data interpretation. Particularly for design and data interpretation use can be made of a dedicated, license free, SCAL flow simulator.
The course is highly interactive with an abundance of exercises, both with dedicated Excel spread sheets and with the SCAL simulator. No simulation experience is required to use the simulator.
The material presented in this course refers to many field examples that the instructor has worked on himself in his 33 years of service with Shell in various positions, including Manager of Shell SCAL R&D.
Training Objectives
- Understand the business impact of Special Core Analysis (SCAL) measurements
- Understand the various measurement techniques for SCAL
- Awareness of the limitations of each measurement technique, both from theory and for the laboratory equipment perspective
- Design a SCAL measurement program with the right business impact
- How to select the right SCAL service provider
- Understand the value of interpretation of SCAL experiments by simulation of the experiments
- Hands-on experience running the SCORES SCAL simulator
- Guide a core analysis service provider into delivery of high quality data
- Quality assessment of SCAL reporting
Audiences
The course is designed for all professionals with background and experience in petrophysics, whose role of job requires extensive knowledge of core, detailed data interpretation and SCAL measurement program. They include reservoir engineers, petrophysicists, geologists, geophysicists, geoscientists, petroleum engineers and other E&P professionals
Instructor
Jos G. Maas
- Associate, Panterra GeoConsultants
- Advisor, TNO Geosciences Utrecht
- Past-president and former Director, The Society of Core Analysts
Jos Maas studied experimental physics at Amsterdam University and obtained his PhD in 1976. For that, he built a tandem mass-spectrometer and wrote a simulator program to analyse the data by forward modeling of ion trajectories. Analysing experiments through interpretation-by-simulation has been the continuous factor in his whole career.
He joined Shell in 1976 and has held a variety of positions over his 33 years of service. His activities centred on reservoir engineering, including experimental research in the lab in the Netherlands on a.o. EOR with steam, or in Venezuela (seconded to Intevep SA), operational work in Oman, head of Shell SCAL R&D (focusing a.o. on the measurement of remaining versus residual oil saturation, low salinity flooding, SCAL for EOR), CO2 EOR (a.o. at Shell's Bellaire Technology Center in Houston), head of Geothermal R&D, Shell's technical lead for CO2SINK (a European CO2 sequestration demo project).
Jos is a Past-President of the Society of Core Analysts (SCA) and was the VP Technology of the first SCA Symposium in Abu-Dhabi. He is member of the SCA Technical Committee for more years than he can remember.
Presently Jos is enjoying an active retirement, being part-time Reservoir Engineering Advisor to TNO in the Netherlands. In addition, he teaches for IFP Paris and is associated with PanTerra Geoconsultants BV. Recently, he has revived the SCORES web site, now a user interface to DuMux, which provides a SCAL simulator free-of-charge (see paper SCA 2011-08).
Daily Aims
DAY 1
Introduction
- Business value of SCAL
- Remaining vs residual oil saturation
- Wettability
- Need for interpretation-by-simulation
- General overview of laboratory measurement techniques
Steady-State Technique
- Basics
- Experimental set-up in the lab
- Physics of the experiment
- Horizontal vs. vertical
- Automation of data gathering
- Analytical interpretation with exercises in Excel
- Data consistency
- Design of experiments, choices for fractional flow
- Interpretation-by-simulation, hands-on through exercises with the SCORES/DuMux simulator
- Residual oil vs remaining oil saturation
- Impact of imbibition capillary pressure, oil end-effect
- Impact of drainage capillary pressure, water end-effect
DAY 2
Core plug preparation
- Plug selection, using quantitative X-ray CT images
- Cleaning
- Establish initial water saturation
- Ageing
Unsteady-State (Welge) Technique
- Basics
- Experimental set-up in the lab
- Physics of the experiment
- Horizontal vs vertical
- Automation of data gathering
- Analytical interpretation with exercises in Excel
- Analytical calculation of shock front saturation
- JBN method
- Corey parameter characterisation
- Interpretation-by-simulation, hands-on through exercises with the SCORES/DuMux simulator
- Effect of viscosity ratio
- Impact of capillary forces
- Capillary number and desaturation
DAY 3
Centrifuge Technique
- Basics
- Experimental set-up in the lab
- Physics of the experiment
- Drainage vs. imbibition hardware Automation of data gathering
- Analytical interpretation with exercises in Excel
- Bond number
- Hassler -Brunner analysis for multi-speed experiments
- Hagoort analysis for single-speed experiments
- Interpretation-by-simulation, hands-on through exercises with the SCORES/DuMux simulator
- Effects of oil viscosity, characteristic time
- Impact of water mobility in imbibition experiments
- Impact of capillary forces
- History matching multi-and single-speed experiments
SCAL quality assessment
- How to recognize a bad data
- Verifying data consistency
DAY 4
Porous Plate Technique
- Basics
- Experimental set-up in the lab
- Physics of the experiment
- Capillary continuity
- Multiple plugs vs. single plug equipment
- Automation of data gathering
- Analytical interpretation with exercises in Excel
- Recognising equilibrium
- Characteristic time
Interpretation-by-simulation, hands-on through exercises with the SCORES/DuMux simulator
- How to set-up simulations in the absence of data
- Experimental design
- Interpretation-by-simulation of capillary pressure and resistivity measurements
SCAL for gas flflooding experiments
- Understand limitations of UnSteady-State and Steady-State techniques through exercises in Excel
- Impact of shock front in drainage and imbibition mode in UnSteady-State experiments
- Hagoort criterion for viscous fingeri
- 3-phase relative permeabilities, spreading condition, centrifuge experiments for GOGD
- Interpretation-by-simulation, hands-on through exercises with the SCORES/DuMux simulator
- Impact of capillary pressure in flooding experiments
Plenary discussion of strength and weaknesses of each SCAL measurement technique
- Understanding main characteristics of each technique facilitates designing a lean and fit-for-purpose SCAL measurement program
DAY 5
SCAL for EOR
- Introduction into EOR techniques in the field
- Understanding scope for EOR
- Issues and design of SCAL experiments for
- Low salinity flooding
- Thermal EOR
- Chemical EOR
- Thermal EOR
- Chemical EOR
- EOR in fractured reservoirs
Plenary discussion on the design of a Master measurement program
At the end of this discussion, a comprehensive hand-out will be distributed that serves as a Master SCAL measurement program for future use in the office.
Training Schedule
No upcoming session is scheduled yet. Send a quick inquiry and we will let you know the next date.
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