Paper: BEST PRACTICES FOR PRESSURE TRANSIENT TESTs USING SURFACE BASED MEASUREMENTS

Proper reservoir management and production optimization require timely knowledge of formation pressure, permeability and well bore skin factor. To this effect, pressure transient tests using wireline conveyed pressure gauges are commonly run in flowing wells. The presence of artificial lift equipment complicates and often precludes the use of wireline conveyed devices so that conventional pressure transient tests are seldom performed in these wells, resulting in poor reservoir and production management. Since the 1980s, the industry has used programmable equipment for calculation of bottomhole pressure from surface pressure and acoustically measured liquid level data in pumping wells. Advances in electronics, computer software and transducer technology have vastly improved the data quality and the usability of this equipment to the point that routine determination of BHP using surface measurements is reliable, cost effective and provides real-time data with the quality necessary for pressure transient analysis