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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ahmed, Tarek H., 1946–
Reservoir engineering handbook / Tarek Ahmed.—4th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-85617-803-7 (alk. paper)
1. Oil reservoir engineering. 2. Oil fields. 3. Gas reservoirs. I. Title.
TN871.A337 2010
622′.3382—dc22
2009039148
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
For information on all Gulf Professional Publishing
publications visit our Web site at www.elsevierdirect.com
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This book is dedicated to my children,
Jennifer, Justin, Brittany, and Carsen Ahmed.
The book is also dedicated to a very special person, “Wendy.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much of the material on which this book is based was drawn from the
publications of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Tribute is due
to the SPE and the petroleum engineers, scientists, and authors who have
made numerous and significant contributions to the field of reservoir
engineering. This book reflects my style of teaching during my tenure at
Montana Tech of the University of Montana and my understanding of the
subject of reservoir engineering. I would like to thank all my former stu-
dents at Montana Tech for putting up with me and my Egyptian temper.
I hope that my friends and colleagues in academia will enjoy this edi-
tion of the book. Special thanks to Dr. Bob Chase, Dr. Tom Blasingame,
Dr. J. Tiab, Dr. F. Civan, and Dr. Nathan Meehan for their constructive
(I think) criticisms and discussions. I would like also to thank the
Petroleum faculty and their students at Cairo University and Suez Canal
University for their suggestions for updating and improving the book.
It was my pleasure to spend the past 7 years with Anadarko Petroleum
and work with an outstanding group of professionals. Special thanks to
Kevin Corrigan, Brian Roux, Diana McCranie, and Aydin Centilmen.
I would like to thank the editorial and production staff of Elsevier for
their work and professionalism, particularly Ken McCombs and Sarah
Binns.
xi
PREFACE TO THE
FOURTH EDITION
To make the fourth edition of this textbook as complete as possible,
I have added Chapter 17 that deals with the topics of Fracture Reservoirs
and Hydraulically Fracture Wells. The book documents the technical
materials that have published and addressed this subject over the last
20 years, particularly the research work that has been authored by
Dr. H. Kazemi and Dr. Steve Holditch.
xii
PREFACE TO THE
THIRD EDITION
To make the third edition of this textbook as complete as possible,
I have included the following: a new chapter on decline curve and type
curve analysis, a section on tight and shallow gas reservoirs, and water-
flood surveillance techniques.
Many of my colleagues have provided me with valuable recommenda-
tions and suggestions that I have included through the textbook to make
it more comprehensive in treating the subject of reservoir engineering.
xiii
PREFACE TO THE
SECOND EDITION
I have attempted to construct the chapters following a sequence that
I have used for several years in teaching three undergraduate courses
in reservoir engineering. Two new chapters have been included in this
second edition; Chapters 14 and 15. Chapter 14 reviews principles of
waterflooding with emphasis on the design of a waterflooding project.
Chapter 15 is intended to introduce and document the practical applica-
tions of equations of state in the area of vapor-liquid phase equilibria.
Acomprehensive review of different equations of state is presented with
an emphasis on the Peng-Robinson equation of state.
xiv
PREFACE TO THE
FIRST EDITION
This book explains the fundamentals of reservoir engineering and their
practical application in conducting a comprehensive field study. Chapter
1 reviews fundamentals of reservoir fluid behavior with an emphasis on
the classification of reservoir and reservoir fluids. Chapter 2 documents
reservoir-fluid properties, while Chapter 3 presents a comprehensive
treatment and description of the routine and specialized PVT laboratory
tests. The fundamentals of rock properties are discussed in Chapter 4 and
numerous methodologies for generating those properties are reviewed.
Chapter 5 focuses on presenting the concept of relative permeability and
its applications in fluid flow calculations.
The fundamental mathematical expressions that are used to describe
the reservoir fluid flow behavior in porous media are discussed in Chap-
ter 6, while Chapters 7 and 8 describe the principle of oil and gas well
performance calculations, respectively. Chapter 9 provides the theoretical
analysis of coning and outlines many of the practical solutions for calcu-
lating water and gas coning behavior. Various water influx calculation
models are shown in Chapter 10, along with detailed descriptions of the
computational steps involved in applying these models. The objective of
Chapter 11 is to introduce the basic principle of oil recovery mechanisms
and to present the generalized form of the material balance equation.
Chapters 12 and 13 focus on illustrating the practical applications of the
material balance equation in oil and gas reservoirs.
xv
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tarek Ahmed, Ph.D., P.E. is a Senior Reservoir Engineering Advisor
with Baker Hughes International at the Reservoir Engineering Technol-
ogy Center. Before joining BHI, Dr. Ahmed was a professor and the head
of the Petroleum Engineering Department at Montana Tech of University
of Montana. Until recently he was a Reservoir Engineering Advisor with
Anadarko Petroleum. He holds a Ph.D. from Oklahoma University, an
M.S. from the University of Missouri-Rolla, and a B.S. from the Faculty
of Petroleum (Egypt)—all degrees in Petroleum Engineering. Dr. Ahmed
is also the author of other textbooks including Hydrocarbon Phase
Behavior (Gulf Publishing Company, 1989), Advanced Reservoir
Engineering (Elsevier, 2005), and Equations of State and PVT Analysis
(Gulf Publishing, 2007).
xvi
C H A P T E R 1
FUNDAMENTALS OF
RESERVOIR FLUID
BEHAVIOR
Naturally occurring hydrocarbon systems found in petroleum reser-
voirs are mixtures of organic compounds that exhibit multiphase behav-
ior over wide ranges of pressures and temperatures. These hydrocarbon
accumulations may occur in the gaseous state, the liquid state, the solid
state, or in various combinations of gas, liquid, and solid.
These differences in phase behavior, coupled with the physical proper-
ties of reservoir rock that determine the relative ease with which gas and
liquid are transmitted or retained, result in many diverse types of hydro-
carbon reservoirs with complex behaviors. Frequently, petroleum engi-
neers have the task to study the behavior and characteristics of a petrole-
um reservoir and to determine the course of future development and
production that would maximize the profit.
The objective of this chapter is to review the basic principles of reser-
voir fluid phase behavior and illustrate the use of phase diagrams in clas-
sifying types of reservoirs and the native hydrocarbon systems.
CLASSIFICATION OF RESERVOIRS
AND RESERVOIR FLUIDS
Petroleum reservoirs are broadly classified as oil or gas reservoirs.
These broad classifications are further subdivided depending on:
©2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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