(63bb) Using a Large Data Bank to Develop a Robust and Simple Model to Estimate the Saturation Pressure of Oil Reservoirs

Measurements of saturation pressure are crucial for all hydrocarbon reservoir fluids.  Below the crude oil saturation pressure gas reaches a critical saturation; then, a two phase flow occurs and results in decreasing oil production and recovery.  To maximize oil production and recovery, the reservoir pressure has to be maintained closer to the original saturation pressure.  This pressure is normally measured using bottom-hole samples or surface recombined samples of oil and gas.  Occasionally, the samples become unavailable and the pressure needs to be estimated using computational methods.

In this study, a large data bank of 231 crude oil compositions and saturation pressure measurements including literature data, unpublished data, and newly measured data were used to develop two empirical models to predict the saturation pressure of a variety of crude oils if the oil sample is unavailable or the experimental measurements are unreliable.  The first proposed model utilizes the extended compositions of hydrocarbons up to the heptane plus fraction in addition to non-hydrocarbons. The second model uses the lumped compositions of light, intermediate, and heavy components in addition to non-hydrocarbon components as the input variables. The lumped model has the advantage of using fewer input parameters while maintaining the thermodynamics.  The accuracy and validity of both models to calculate the saturation pressure for volatile oils, black oils, and heavy oils are presented using several compositional data.  The models performance is also compared to the Peng-Robinson equation-of-state (PR-EOS), and the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation-of-state (SRK-EOS) as well as all published methods that use compositions as input variables.  The comparison indicates that the proposed models are much simpler and more accurate than the other computational methods. The proposed models treat the heptane-plus fraction as a single component, thus eliminating the splitting and characterizing the plus fractions and the binary interaction parameters needed for the EOS’s calculations.