Reservoir fluid sampling & analysis techniques



Details :

Reservoir fluid sampling and analysis is one of the most delicate and crucial services that strongly impact the reservoir management during each stage of the entire reservoir life cycle. In many historical cases, lack of knowledge about the reservoir fluid has led to an inappropriate production strategy, wrong sizing of surface facilities, ineffective field development plan, and environmental or HSE consequences. Losses were huge and unrecoverable.

This course provides  reservoir fluid in-charge engineers with the essential knowledge required to capture a meaningful and representative reservoir fluid samples and eliminate operational mistakes that may lead to loss of accurate fluid modeling. 

The course starts with the background on the phase behavior for the different reservoir fluids and how this will impact the sampling technique selection and the application of sampling operational procedure.

The course is covering all sampling techniques including WL open hole samples, WL or DST conveyed cased hole sampling, well head sampling, and separator sampling. for each sampling technique the recommended samples practices, equipment used, operational procedures, samples QC with advantages and disadvantages will be discussed.

The course also covers in brief the PVT experiments normally conducted in the laboratory and provides details about the procedure and the data to be obtained out of each test.


By end of this training course, the participants are expected to be able to acquire the following knowledge:

1. Understand sampling Objectives and application of reservoir fluid sampling and analysis

2. Factors affecting representative sampling

3.  Selecting an effective Sampling Method

4.  Understand all different sampling methods with the following criterions:

·         Equipment used

·         Operational guidelines and well conditioning procedure

·         Validation and quality control of captured samples (onsite and in PVT lab)

·         Challenges and common mistakes that affect quality of samples

·         Case studies

5.       Basic knowledge about all PVT experiments and obtained data. 

  • Petroleum and Reservoir Engineers In-charge of reservoir fluid characterization
  • Production and Operations Engineers in-charge of capturing reservoir fluid samples
  • Managers who seek to derive greater decision making on field development

Module One:  Introduction to Reservoir fluids and their behavior

·         Phase Behavior – Pure Substances, Two and multi-Component Mixtures

·         The Five Reservoir Fluids

·         Hydrocarbon Characterization Procedures

·         Sampling Objectives

·         Applications of Fluid Analysis Data

·         Factors affecting Representative Sampling

·         Selecting a Sampling Method

·         Bottom-hole Sampling

·         Surface Sampling

Module Two: Surface sampling operations

·         Surface sampling overview

·         Sampling the separator gas phase – Operational guidelines

·         Sampling the separator liquid phase – Operational guidelines

·         Surface sampling bottles and equipment

·         Possible problems encountered during surface sampling

·         Quality control of the separator gas and liquid streams

·         Well head sampling

Three: Bottom hole Sampling Training (Cased Hole)

·         Operational Guidelines and Well Conditioning

·         Cased hole sampling tools conveying methods

·         Single-Phase Bottom-hole samplers

·         Quality Control of Bottom-hole samples

·         Validating Gas Condensate Samples

·         On-Site Evaluation of BHS

·         Bottom Hole Sample Transfer

·         Introduction to Bottom-hole Sampling by DST-Cased Hole

·         Special Topic: Acoustic Signal Triggering of BHS tools


Day Four: Introduction to Bottom-hole Sampling (Open Hole)

·         Introduction and motivation for open hole sampling

·         Modular Formation Dynamics Tester (MDT)

·         Recent Advances in MDT Sampling

·         Single-Phase Reservoir Sampler (SPMC)

·         Surface Transfer of Recovered MDT Samples

·         Validation of MDT Samples

·         Field Examples

Day Five: PVT laboratories, equipment, and experiments

·         Overview of PVT equipment

·         Samples and experiment path

·         Types of PVT studies (Schematic process)

·         Type of Studies Currently Performed in PVT Labs on Reservoir Samples

o   Constant Composition Expansion (constant mass study).

o   Differential Liberation (differential vaporization).

o   Constant Volume Depletion (depletion study).

o   Separation Tests


  • All lectures are in colorful presentation
  • All lectures are interspersed with interactive discussion
  • All lectures include group discussion, case history and exercises
  • Actual major incidents as well as industry experience are reviewed
  • Pictures of real incidents and case history are shown
  • Videos on the subject are shown

09:00 - 15:00 daily with some breaks