Multiprobe Pressure Analysis and Interpretation (Advances in Petroleum Engineering)

A popular 1990s formation tester with a single "pumping" probe and one passive "observation port" displaced 180 deg away, designed to measure pressures at two locations for permeability prediction, encounters well known detection problems at low mobilities. This book, using aerodynamics methods, explains why and also reveals the existence of a wide stagnation zone that hides critical formation details. And it does much more.  An exact analytical solution is used to validate a new transient, three-dimensional, finite difference model for more general testers, one that guides new hardware designs with independent azimuthally displaced probes having with different rates, flow schedules and nozzle geometries, supports interpretation and formation evaluation, and assists with job planning at the rigsite. The methods also apply to conventional tools, allowing comparisons between older and newer technologies. Importantly, the authors introduce a completely new three-probe design with independently operable active elements that eliminate all older tool deficiencies.

Numerous subjects are discussed, such as pressure transient analyses with multiple operating probes, supercharge analysis with invasion and mudcake buildup, accurate and rapid calculations that allow more than 1,000 simulations per minute, extremely rapid batch mode calculations using convergence acceleration methods, rapid fluid withdrawal with minimal dissolved gas release, dip angle, heterogeneity and anisotropy evaluation, and many other topics.  In addition, tool operation sequences, detailed engineering and design functions, field test procedures and laboratory facilities, are discussed and illustrated in photographs that go "behind the scenes" at one of the world’s largest international oil service companies. The book hopes to educate new engineers and veteran engineers alike in hardware and software design at a time when increasing efficiency is crucial and "doing more with less" represents the new norm.

Tao Lu, PhD, Vice President, China Oilfield Services Limited, leads the company’s logging and directional well R&D activities, also heading its formation testing research, applications and marketing efforts. Mr. Lu is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Technology Development Medal, National Engineering Talent and State Council Awards, and several COSL technology innovation prizes.

Minggao Zhou, Senior Mechanical Engineer at COSL’s Oil Field Technology Research Institute, holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering and leads the company’s formation testing project team. He has worked extensively in research and development over the past two decades and has participated in several National Five Year Programs. His professional interests span a wide range of well logging instruments, presently focusing on formation testing design and interpretation.

Yongren Feng is a Professor Level Senior Engineer and Chief Engineer at the Oilfield Technology Research Institute of China Oilfield Services Limited. He has been engaged in the research and development of offshore oil logging instruments for three decades, mainly responsible for wireline formation testing technology, electric core sampling methods and formation testing while drilling (FTWD) tool development.

Yuqing Yang, PhD, Chief Engineer and Professor, Technology and Exploration, with China Oilfield Services Limited, is engaged in the research and management of geological applications of logging data. He has published several books, ten patents and sixty articles, winning a COSL Science and Technology Progress Award.

Wilson Chin earned his PhD from M.I.T. and his M.Sc. from Caltech. He has authored over twenty books with Wiley-Scrivener and other major scientific publishers, has more than four dozen domestic and international patents to his credit, and has published over one hundred journal articles, in the areas of reservoir engineering, formation testing, well logging, Measurement While Drilling, and drilling and cementing rheology. Inquiries: wilsonchin@aol.com.