Impact of Reservoir Permeability on Flowing Sandface Temperatures: Dimensionless Analysis

Abstract

Summary Layer flow contributions are increasingly being quantified through the analysis of measured sandface flowing temperatures. It is commonly known that the maximum temperature change is affected by the magnitude of the drawdown and the Joule-Thomson expansion coefficient of the fluid. Another parameter that strongly impacts layer sandface flowing temperatures is the layer permeability. Aside from determining the drawdown, the layer permeability also affects the ratio of heat transfer by convection to conduction within a reservoir. The impact of permeability can be represented by the Péclet number, which is a dimensionless quantity representing the ratio of heat transfer by convection to conduction. The Péclet number is directly proportional to reservoir permeability. Through dimensionless analysis, it will be shown that for a given drawdown (based on a dimensionless Joule-Thomson expansion coefficient JTD) the temperature change diminishes at low Péclet numbers and increases at high Péclet numbers. This implies that for low-permeability reservoirs such as shale gas or tight oil, the temperature changes will be minimal (less than 0.1ºF) despite the large drawdowns in many instances. Dimensionless analysis is performed for both steady-state and transient thermal models. Results from multilayer transient simulations illustrate the ability to identify contrasting permeability layers on the basis of the Péclet number effect.