Assessment Of Bubblepoint Oil Formation Volume Factor Empirical PVT Correlations

Abstract

The oil formation volume factor (FVF) among other factors is the most important factor that enables the calculation of the amount of reserves in a particular reservoir. In this paper, the existing oil formation volume factor correlations were assessed for their performance using data from the Niger Delta Region. Two hundred and fifty PVT reports were validated for this study from various oil fields. Both quantitative and qualitative analytical methods were implemented through statistical parameters and performance plots respectively. From the general evaluation i.e. using the full range of the data, Hemmati and Kharrat (2007) correlation performed the best for the Niger Delta crude with percent mean absolute relative error (Ea) of 1.9055 and correlation coefficient (r) of 0.9897. From the oil API gravity ranges reliability
analysis, it is clear that different correlations other than Hemmati and Kharrat (2007) would be more appropriate for API≤ 35.