Fluids and Lab Analysis

Petro-SIM extends Petro-SIM's proven oil characterization technology for refiners into the domain of upstream reservoir fluids, incorporating native support for Infochem Multiflash's Black Oil characterization methods and gas hydrate calculations, making the latter available as part of a new tool for analyzing fluid behavior we named Lab Analysis.

Black Oils

Upstream reservoir fluids can be characterized from minimal information (Gas Gravity, STO Specific Gravity and Solution GOR) through to complete property matching against laboratory PVT reports. Petro-SIM 5 offers native support for the Black Oil Analysis and basic PVT Lab Input analyses using carbon-number based GC data methods of Multiflash. It marries the Multiflash-generated composition and property information with KBC's assay synthesis technology to make sure Black Oils can be used in the same way as refinery assay characterization, supporting any number of different black oils in a single flowsheet and seamlessly blending their properties. You can even mix and match black oils with oils characterised by refinery assays.

There are two ways to set up Black Oils in Petro-SIM cases: through the Oils environment or directly on a stream in the simulation environment. This latter method is particularly applicable when you want to look at reservoir decline curves with Time Series.

Black Oils in the Oils Environment

Go to the Oils environment and you will see two new tabs allowing you to create fluids using either the Multiflash Black Oils parameters or the more complete SCN (Single Carbon Number) Analysis. Each tab supports any number of fluids, giving you a number of ways of sharing the fluids between cases through Petro-SIM database import and export or file import and export. Work with the Petro-SIM database and you can exploit our change control mechanism to help you maintain libraries of fluids and allow easy sharing of data between cases. 

 Black Oil Input

SCN Analysis Input


Black Oils in the Simulation Environment

Black oils created in the Oils environment have to be applied or loaded into feed streams in the simulation environment before they can be used for calculations. This can be done in two ways:

  1. Use the Select Assay to select an assay/fluid from the Oil Manager or to import from another source
  2. Use the controls on the Stream Composition page to load the fluid

The Synthesize From option lets you add an input page to the stream to let you define the Black Oil properties directly within the stream view:

You will be able to use Black Oil streams with any unit operation in Petro-SIM and you can also take advantage of unit operations like the Feeder that can make it easy to blend Black Oils in different proportions.

Lab Analysis

Lab Analysis offers a fast and easy way to view one or more stream phase envelopes with integrated hydrate analysis right there at your finger tips. It has two primary views:

  • a Stream view that lets you study the phase envelope for one stream at a time, automatically reporting any hydrate lines for streams containing water. This view lets you add inhibitors and see the impact on the hydrate formation line.
  • an Envelope view that lets you see one or more phase envelopes for multiple streams. Streams with the same composition are grouped onto the same phase envelope, with the current operating points shown so you know where you are.

Stream-based view showing phase envelope and hydrate line

Envelope view showing operating points for streams with same composition


You can also see multiple graphs at the same time: