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Definition

WFP – Well Performance Analysis analysis is a comparative Сomparative analysis between:

• the formation the reservoir fluid deliverability (the ability of of reservoir to produce or take-in the fluid) which is called Inflow Performance Relation (IPR)

and

• wellbore fluid deliverability (the ability of of well  to lift up or lift down the fluid) and which is called OPR or TPR or VFP (equally popular throughout the literaturecalled Lift Curves (LC) (also called  Vertical Lift Performance (VLP) or Tubing Performance Relation (TPR) )

It is based on correlation between surface flowrate 

Application

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• Setting up the  required the required production or injection regime for each well upon the current formation pressure, reservoir saturation and production target specified by FDP 
  Generating WFP – Well Flow Performance tables as input for 3D simulations 
  

Technology

• FDP 
  
  
• Generating Lift Curves (LC) tables as input for Reservoir Flow Modelling (RFM)
  
  

Technology

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AnchorStabilisedStabilisedMost reservoir engineers exploit material balance thinking which is based on long-term well-by-well surface flowrate targets  (whether producers or injectors).

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This is primary domain of WFP – Well Flow Performance analysis.

WFP – Well Flow Performance is performed on stabilised wellbore and reservoir flow and does not cover transient behavior behaviour which is one of the primary subjects of Well Testing domain.

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The wellbore flow is called stabilised if the delta pressure across wellbore is not changing over time.

The formation flow is called stabilised if the well productivity index is not changing over time.

It's important to remember the difference between constant rate formation flow and stabilised formation flow.

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On the other hand, the constant rate formation flow may not represent a stabilised formation flow as the bottom-hole pressure and productivity index maybe still in transition after the last rate change.

The WFP methods are not applicable if the well flow is not stabilised even if the flow rate is maintained constant. 

There are two special reservoir flow regimes which are both stabilised and maintain constant flow rate:  steady state regime (SS) and pseudo-steady state regime (PSS).

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The pseudo-steady state (PSS) regime is reached when the flow is stabilised  with no pressure support at the external boundary.

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As for formation and bottom-hole pressure in PSS they will be synchronously varying while in SS they will be staying constant.

The table below is summarizing the major differences between SS and PSS regimes.

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It's again important to avoid confusion between the termines stationary conditions (which mean that refered properties are not chaning in time) and stabilised flow conditions which may admit pressure and rate vraition.

In practice, the productivity index is usually not known at all times as there is no routine procedure to assess it.

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Although, this is not strictly true and the flow stabilisation time depends on well-formation contact and reservoir property variation around a given well.

This is also compromised in multi-layer formations with cross-layer communication. 

The conventional WFP – Well Performance Analysis is perfomed as the 

• IPR – Inflow Performance Relation (IPR) – responsible for resevroir reservoir deliverability (see below)
  
  

• OPR – Outflow Performance Relation ( also called TPR – Tubing Performance Relation and VFP – Vertical Lift Performance Lift Curves (LC) – responsible for for well deliverability  (see below )

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JP JP

The intersection of WFP – Well Flow Performance and OPR curves represent the stabilized flow IPR and Lift Curves represent the Stabilised wellbore flow (see Fig. 1)

Given a tubing head pressure 

Workflow

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1. Check the current production rate against the production target from FDP
   
   
2. If the diffference is big enough to justify the cost of production optimization (see point 8 below) then proceed to the step 3 below
   
   
3. Assess formation pressure based on well tests
   
   
4. Simulate IPR /OPR based  LC based on the current WOR/GOR
   
   
5. Calculate the stabilized flow bottom-hole pressure
   
   
6. Gather the current bottom-hole pressure

   LaTeX Math Inline
   body p_{wf}

   
   
   
7. Check up the calculation aganst the actual 

   LaTeX Math Inline
   body p_{wf}

   
   
   
8. Recommend the production optimisation activities to adjust bottom-hole pressure 

   LaTeX Math Inline
   body p_{wf}

   :
   
   
   • adjusting the choke at surface
     
     
   • adjusting the pump settings from surface 
     
     
   • changing the pump depth
     
     
   • changing the tubing size
     
     
   • changing the pump
     
     

The above workflow is very simplistic and assumes single-layer formation with no cross-flow complications.

In practise, the WFP – Well Flow Performance analysis is often very tentative and production technologists spend some time experimenting with well regimes on well-by-well basis. 

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OPR – Outflow Performance Relation

OPR – Outflow Performance Relation also called TPR – Tubing Performance Relation and VLP – Vertical Lift Performance  represents the relation between the bottom-hole pressure 

p_{wf} = p_{wf}(q)

  which may be non-linear. 

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See Also

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Petroleum Industry / Upstream / Production / Subsurface Production / Well & Reservoir Management

Subsurface E&P Disciplines / Production Technology 

[ WFP – Water Injector ]

[ Inflow Performance Relation (IPR) ] [ Lift Curves (LC) ]

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References

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Joe Dunn Clegg, Petroleum Engineering Handbook, Vol. IV – Production Operations Engineering, SPE, 2007

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