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TECHNICAL NOTE' ~

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Pressure Inversion and Material Balance Calculations

HOMER N. MEAD
MEMBER AIME

ABSTRACT
In a reservoir when gas comes out
of solution and rises, additional pressure is created because of the change
in position of this gas in the bounded
volume. If this pressure effect is not
taken into account as a pseudo-influx
in material balance calculations on
reservoirs in which there is evolving
gas, an error is introduced that is
directly proportional to Ihe length of
oil column and amount of gas evolved
and inversely proportional to the reservoir pressure. In reservoirs with
small oil column this pseudo-influx is
of little importance. The larger the
oil column the more important the
effect becomes. The most important
application, however, will be for reservoirs with declining pressure in
which increasing water entry has
been indicated by material balance
calculations. It could be that this indication is the result of the cited
pseudo-influx and not water entry at
all. This paper attempts to explain
I his phenomenon in relation to material balance calculations and presents an approximate method of determining the pseudo-influx.

INTRODUCTION
Only recently has the pressure-volume relationship of gas rising in a
liquid appeared in engineering literature, although its effect has been
discussed for several years-especially among engineers engaged in
drilling operations. The writer published a paper in 1957 in which this
phenomenon was examined in relation to blowouts in drilling wells.'
Also, in 1957 Stegemeier and
Original manuscript received in Society of
Petroleum Engineers office Oct. 10, 1958. Revised manuscript received March 20, 1959.
'References given at end of paper.
MAY, 1959

SPE 1185-G

MARTIN, SYKES & ASSOCIATES,

CARACAS, VENEZUELA

Matthews' authored a paper in which

the relationship was presented with
respect to pressure build-up tests
when shutting in producing wells. In
this paper the effect will be called
"pressure inversion" which is descriptive of the phenomenon.
Fundamentally, the effect just mentioned is the result of changing the
position of a quantity of energy contained within the gas itself (as a result of its compression) within the
bounded volume in which the gas exists. If the gas were allowed to expand "beyond all bounds" there
could be no pressure inversion effect.
This is because all of the energy contained within the gas as a result of
compression would have been released.
PRESSURE INVERSION
A phase that has not been discussed in the literature is the effect
of pressure inversion upon material
balance calculations in reservoirs in
which the reservoir pressure drops
with reservoir withdrawal and is below the bubble point. This action
releases solution gas which, after the
critical gas saturation has been
reached, will tend to rise and collect
at the top of the reservoir. The pseudoinflux caused by this effect could
be great enough in reservoirs of large
oil column and high permeability to
render invalid any analyzer studies
made on them - if pressure inversion has not been taken into account.
Most suspect would be those reservoirs with large oil column in which
increasing water entry has been predicted but the bottom wells have not
yet produced water.
EXAMPLE

c.

A.

difference in density and expansibility between gas and oil. For example, if a bubble of gas exists at the
bottom of a 1,000-ft column of oil
having a gradient of 0.30 psi/ft with
the pressure at the top of the column
zero, the bubble of gas will be compressed to a pressure of 300 psi. If
temperature and the combined volume of the oil column and the gas
bubble remain constant, as the gas
bubble rises in the oil column it will
have the same volume and consequently the same pressure at any
point.
Under these conditions when the
bubble reaches the top of the oil column, the pressure will be approximately 300 psi at the surface and approximately 600 psi at the bottom of
the oil column. If it is assumed that
the oil is incompressible the pressures
will be exactly 300 and 600 psi, respectively.
Vgc 100 Units

GAS

/v Pgc -

10 Units

CAP

'"gc-

10 Mois

OIL

Gas Bubble
Vb Pb

nb

1 Unit
100 Units

1 Mol

Simply stated, this phenomenon

exists in oil reservoirs because of the

FIG. I-PRESSURE INVERSION WITH A

GAS CAP.

2
Let us take an example with a gas
cap. An ideal example is shown in
Fig. 1. The gas-cap volume (Vgc ) is
100 units and the gas-cap pressure
(Puc) is 10 units. A bubble of gas
exists at the bottom of the oil column
which bubble has a volume (Vb) of
one unit and a pressure (P b ) of 100
units. The volume of the oil column
including the gas bubble is 1,001
units. Reservoir temperature is assumed to be constant throughout;
the gas will not re-dissolve in the
oil; the bubble contains 1 mol (N b ) ;
and the gas cap contains 10 mols
(N gc ). Pressure-volume relationships
are assumed to follow the perfect gas
law.
Therefore,

EXAMPLE

P gc X Vue = P b X Vb -= 100.
Nuc
Nb
The ,otal volume the gas will oc-

cupy when the bubble reaches the

gas cap is 101 units and there will
be 11 mols of gas. Assume p. is the
pressure in the gas cap after the bubble of gas has risen to the top. So,

= 100
11
'
where p. = 10.89 units.
It can be seen from the aforementioned that the gas bubble rising
through the oil column to the gas
cap increased the gas-cap pressure
by 0.89 units. Therefore, the pressure at any point in the reservoir
will have been increa&ed by the same
amount. Since material balance calculations equate change in pressure
against volume withdrawal, it follows that this increase of 0.89 units
of pressure indicates a pseudo-influx
that must be accounted for in material balance calculations.
It is recognized that gas does not
rise through the porous media in the
form of "bubbles". As the reservoir
pressure drops below bubble point,
gas is evolved in the form of bubbles. These bubbles grow in size until
by diffusion they coalesce forming
continuous gas passages. At this time
the gas begins to move, passing upwards through the reservoir in the
gas channels in a relatively continuous phase. Actually, the pressure relationships discussed herein are the
same no matter how the evolved gas
rises. Therefore, because it is easier
to explain the phenomenon using
bubbles, it will be assumed that the
gas is evolved in the form of bubbles and moved in some manner to
the gas cap.
p. X 101

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RECOMMENDED ApPROXIMATE
FORMULA

The following is an approximate

formula that can be used to calculate the pseudo-influx.
XVb,(l)

where G p , is pseudo-influx in barrels

during a given period of production,
t; P b is average pressure at the level
in the oil column where it can be assumed that all of the gas has evolved
and moved up-dip to the gas cap during the same production period, t;
Puc is average gas-cap pressure during the same period of production, t;
and Vb is volume in reservoir barrels of the gas evolved which reaches
the gas cap during the same production period, t, under the conditions
of P b and reservoir temperature.
ApPROXIMATE SOLUTION FOR
DETERMINING PSEUDO-INFLUX

In a reservoir in which the pressure is dropping and is below the

bubble point throughout, the additional pressure created by the pressure inversion will be the sum of a
relationship involving the mass and
volume of each bubble evolved which
will migrate to the gas cap and the
difference in pressure for each bubble between the point at which it is
evolved and the gas-cap pressure.
Since this is a transient condition and
since it would be impossible to tell
how much of the evolved gas is produced from up-dip wells and how
much of the gas has re-dissolved,
there is no exact solution. It would
appear that approximate methods
must be employed. The following is
one approach to the solution of this
problem.
Examination of solubility vs pressure curves for oil and its dissolved
gas will show that as the pressure
is decreased from the bubble point,
gas will be evolved at nearly a constant rate per pound drop until the
pressure has decreased to a few hundred psi. Even at these pressures the
change is gradual so that an approximate straight line could be drawn
through the curve for a pressure increment of as much as 300 psi. Since
it is the rare reservoir that has an
oil column of over 1,000 ft and an
original pressure of less than 500
psi, it will be assumed that when the
pressure of the entire oil column is
below the bubble point, the same
amount of gas will be evolved from
each barrel of reservoir oil per pound
pressure drop regardless of its position in the reservoir.
The determination of the point in

FIG. 2-EFFECT OF POSITION OF THE GAS

IS CONSIDERED WHEN (A) OIL COLUMN
ASSUMED OF CONSTANT VOLUME FROM
THE OILWATER CONTACT TO THE GAS-OIL
CONTACT. (B) GRAPHICAL REPRESENTA
TION OF WHAT EACH EVOLVED BUBBLE
WILL CONTRIBUTE TO PRESSURE INVERSION EFFECT WITH RESPECT TO ITS
POSITION OF EVOLUTION.

the reservoir which can be used as

that from which all gas has been
evolved is explained in two steps. In
Fig. 2 (A) it is assumed that the
oil column is of constant volume
from the oil-water contact to the gasoil contact. The effect of position of
the gas will thereby be considered.
In Fig. 3 the quantity of gas with
relation to depth is considered. The
final approximation is the product of
these two effects.
In Fig. 2 (AY it is assumed that
the entire oil column is below bubble-point pressure, the pressure is
dropping and gas is evolving over the
entire oil column. Fig. 2 (B) is a
graphical representation of what each
evolved bubble will contribute to the
pressure inversion effect with respect
to its position of evolution. A bubble
of gas evolved at the oil-gas contact
will contribute no additional pressure
due to its change in position in rising to the gas cap. On the other
hand, a bubble of gas evolved at the
oil-water contact will contribute an
additional pressure of P b less (what
the gas-cap pressure is when this
quantity of gas reaches it) by its rise
--or, since pressure and volume are
inversely related in the gas law, if
the pressure drops by the aforementioned increment, it will contribute
an increase in volume due to its
change in position.
In Fig. 2 (B), therefore, this pressure differential is related in an approximate straight line to depth and
the average effect of pressure inversion may be considered at the line
where A, = A,. This line is 0.293 of
the length of the oil column from the
oil-water contact to the gas cap.
If the reservoir is not uniform,

JOUR"'AL OF PETROLEt:M TECHNOLOGY

-Q-G Contact

_~~=~_---J-O-W ContClet

FIG. 3-QUANTITY OF GAS CONSIDERED

WITH RELATION TO DEPTH IN WHICH THE
CROSSSECTIONAL AREA OF THE OIL COLUMN IS PLOTTED AGAINST DEPTH.

then a graph similar to Fig. 3 should

be prepared in which the cross-sectional area of the oil column is
plotted against depth. The distance,
(b), from the oil-water contact where
the planimetered area, A, = A"
should be determined. The level at
which all gas can be considered to
have been evolved is 0.586b above
the oil-water contact.
ApPLICATION

If it is assumed that an equal quantity of gas is evolved with each pound

pressure drop, it follows that the
pseudo-influx effect will get lar&er as
reservoir pressure decreases. This is

MAY, 1959

because this effect is inversely proportional to a measure of reservoir

pressure. It is also necessary to remember that the effect will increase
at increasing rate with decreasing reservoir pressure. It is this fact, that
magnitude of error will increase at
increasing rate, that is of the greatest
importance, for it will influence reservoir interpretation even in reservoirs of decreasing pressure where
the oil column is relatively small.
Material balance calculations on
these reservoirs may show an increasing influx that is interpreted as
water when as a matter of fact there
might be no influx at alI.
CONCLUSIONS
To use this method it is necessary
to know: (1) the size and configuration of the reservoir, (2) the oil-gas
and oil-water contacts, (3) complete
PVT analysis, and (4) pressure-production history.
The basic steps for the analysis
would be as follows.
.
1. Determine the depth from which
it is assumed that all the gas has
evolved. Use method just described.
2. Calculate the quantity of gas
that has evolved from the oil during
the production period.
3. From experience determine a
"lag" factor to apply if the produc-

tion rate varies greatly between consecutive time periods.

4_ Determine the reservoir pressure (at depth calculated in Step 1)
and the gas-cap pressure for the midperiod and with the quantity of gas
calculated in Step 2, substitute in
Eq. 1. This will give a quantity that
represents the pseudo-influx for the
period unless the production rate has
varied greatly from the previous interval of time.
5. If the production rate has varied
greatly, multiply the result obtained
in Step 4 by the lag factor obtained
in Step 3. This will give an estimated
pseudo-influx for the period.
The quantity obtained in either
Step 4 or 5 is used in material balance calculation as gas influx into the
gas cap.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to express his
appreciation to Martin, Sykes and
Associates, C. A., for permission to
publish this paper.
REFERENCES

1. Mead, Homer N.: "Blowout Control

Begins Before They Occur", Pet. Engr.
(Sept., 1957) 29, No. 10.
2. Stegemeier, G. L. and Matthews, C. S.:
"A Study of Anomalous Pressure
Build-Up Behavior", Trans. AIME
(1958) 213, 44.

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