PGE 383.6 Advanced Reservoir Engineering

The University of Texas at Austin
Fall 1999
Unique No. 17365



Meeting Time and Place

MWF 2:00-2:50 pm
CPE 2.202

Instructor

Mark A. Miller, PhD, PE
Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering
Petroleum Engineer, Getty Oil Co., 1972-80
PhD Petroleum Engineering, Stanford U., 1983
BS Engineering, Harvey Mudd College, 1972

Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1061

Office: CPE 4.186A
Phone: (512) 471-3250
Fax: (512) 471-9605
Email: miller@pe.utexas.edu

Grader

Carlos Anez
Carlos_Anez@pe.utexas.edu
CPE 4.148
Office hours to be arranged.


Office Hours

MWF 10-11:30 am

Please try to use class time and office hours as much as possible for your questions. If you must see me outside my office hours, you may either see me after class or call for an appointment. Email is a good way to contact me.


WWW & Email

Information for the course, including this syllabus, can be accessed at:

http://www.pe.utexas.edu/Dept/Academic/Courses/F1999/PGE383.6/

This web site will be used throughout the semester to post solutions to homework, provide additional information, etc.

In addition, data for some homework assignments and other things may be emailed to students in the class to avoid having to retype things. Early in the semester, everyone in the class should send an e-mail message to majordomo@pe.utexas.edu with the body of the message stating:

subscribe pge383-6

You should get a message back stating that you were added to the list. Please let me know if you have any difficulties in doing this. You can unsubscribe from the majordomo list with a similar command in the body of the message (although you won't probably need to, since the list will expire at the end of the semester):

unsubscribe pge383-6

The email address of the class list will be pge383-6@pe.utexas.edu.


Catalog Listing

None.


Prerequisites

Graduate standing plus a fundamental understanding of petroleum reservoir engineering comparable to having taken the undergraduate course PGE 331 - Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering. Students without the requisite background should see the instructor. 


Texts

Required:

There is no required text for the course. We will do readings out of handouts, selected books, handbooks, and journal articles.

Reference:

Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering, Dake (1978).
The Practice of Reservoir Engineering, Dake (1994).
Petroleum Reservoir Engineering, Amyx, Bass, and Whiting (1960).
Applied Petroleum Reservoir Engineering, Craft and Hawkins (rev. Terry) (1991).
Pressure Buildup and Flow Tests in Wells, Matthews and Russell (1967).
Advances in Well Test Analysis, Earlougher (1977).
Well Test Analysis, Raghavan (1993).
Enhanced Oil Recovery, Lake (1989).
Waterflooding, Willhite (1986).
Reservoir Simulation, Mattax and Dalton (1990).
Principles of Applied Resevoir Simulation, Fanchi (1997)
The Properties of Petroleum Fluids, McCain (1990)

Grading

Homework 200 A= 850-1000
Midterms (2) 400 B= 700-849
Final 400 C= 550-699
Total 1000 D= 400-549

Up to an additional 20 points may be awarded at my discretion for class participation, exceptional effort, improvement, etc. These points are non-negotiable! Some adjustments in the grading scheme may be made in the interest of fair and uniform grading. In no case will grading be harsher than the above. Questions about grading should be brought to my attention as soon as possible. You will have one week after the item is returned to discuss your grade. Homework grading must be discussed with the Grader first. No grade will be changed after this one-week period. 


Exams

Midterm Exam #1 Wednesday, 29 Sep, Time TBA
Midterm Exam #2 Wednesday., 03 Nov, Time TBA
Final Exam Saturday, 11 Dec, 2-5 pm

If there is a problem with the dates or times for the midterms, please see me as soon as possible.

Be forewarned that exams will be strictly timed. Automatic grade deductions will be made for turning them in late.

Make-up exams will not be given. If you have a valid excuse (as determined by me) for missing a midterm, your final exam will grade will count 600 instead of 400 points.


Homework

Approximately one per week.

You are encouraged to discuss assignments with your colleagues after you have applied individual diligent effort. However, the work you turn in must be entirely your own.

Homework assignments are intended to be practice to be certain that you understand the material. It is your chance to test what you know and to get feedback. Your best grade strategy is to attempt all of the assignments yourself before seeking help. The importance of homework in getting a good grade is far greater than the 20% weighting it receives in calculating your grade.

Homework assignments will be graded on the basis of apparent effort, completeness, and clarity of presentation. Solutions will be posted in the Petroleum Engineering Reading Room and available for www or ftp download. You will be in charge of self-evaluating your homework solutions.

Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date. Late assignments will not be accepted, except in very rare, very serious, and unexpected circumstances. The chance of acceptance of late homework will be improved by checking with me beforehand. 


Attendance

Class attendance is not mandatory, however, the course includes a large amount of interpretative and explanatory material that will be presented only during lectures. If it is necessary for you to miss class, you should arrange to get class notes and handouts from someone in the class.


Special Requirements

University policy applies to dropping the course.

Academic honesty is taken very seriously in this course. It is your responsibility to avoid situations where academic honesty can be a problem either for yourself or for those around you. Violations will be referred to the Dean of Students.

The University of Texas at Austin provides, upon request, appropriate adjustments for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4241 TDD or the College of Engineering Director of Students with Disabilities at 471-4321.


Course Evaluations

A course/instructor evaluation will be conducted during class time sometime the last week of class. The evaluation will be conducted by someone in the class and returned to the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering departmental office. Results will not be seen by the instructor until after grades have been turned in. All course/instructor evaluations are anonymous.

The instructor welcomes feedback from students throughout the semester with regard to ways the course can be improved. In the event, however, that students wish to provide anonymous feedback, the Student Feedback Forum of the Cabinet of College Councils also offers students a line of communication with professors. Their URL:

http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~cabinet/comments.html

can be used to send anonymous feedback to any professor about a course. Please use this if you feel that you would like an anonymous form of communication with us during the semester.


Course Objectives and Content

This course is intended to explore advanced concepts in reservoir engineering. We will use as an important tool, reservoir simulation, in that we will apply reservoir simulation to a variety of problems, comparing results to those from other reservoir engineering methods.

I. Material Balance (revisited)
II. Reservoir Flow Under Various Conditions and Geometries
A. Slightly compressible fluids, gases, and multiphase flow
B. Early and late time characteristics
C. Pseudosteady and steady flow
D. Superposition in time and space
E. Gravitational effects
F. Well deliverability
III. Rate vs. Time Forecasting
A. Combining rate and material balance relationships
B. Aquifer influx
IV. Miscellaneous
A. Dual porosity behavior (naturally-fractured systems)
B. Simultaneous mass and heat flow (applications to thermal recovery)