Processing and analysis of transient pressure measurements from permanent down-hole gauges

With permanent down-hole gauges (PDGs) widely installed in oilfields around the world in recent years, a continuous stream of transient pressure data in real time is now available, which motivates a new round of research interests in further developing pressure transient processing and analysis techniques. Transient pressure measurements from PDG are characterized by long term and high volume data. These data are recorded under unconstrained circumstances, so effects due to noise, rate fluctuation and interference from other wells cannot be avoided. These effects make the measured pressure trends decline or rise and then obscure or distort the actual flow behavior, which makes subsequent analysis difficult. In this paper, the problems encountered in analysis of PDG transient pressure are investigated. A newly developed workflow for processing and analyzing PDG transient pressure data is proposed. Numerical well testing synthetic studies are performed to demonstrate these procedures. The results prove that this new technique works well and the potential for practical application looks very promising.