skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: A Method to Recover Useful Geothermal-Reservoir Parameters from Production Characteristic Curves (2) Hot Water Reservoirs

Conference ·
OSTI ID:889712

In this paper we develop and demonstrate a method to estimate the reservoir pressure, a mass productivity index, and a thermal power productivity index for vertical water-fed geothermal wells, from its production characteristic (also called output) curves. In addition, the method allows to estimate the radius of influence of the well, provided that a value of the reservoir transmisivity is available. The basic structure of the present method is: first, the measured wellhead mass flowrate; and pressures are transformed to downhole conditions by means of a numerical simulator; then, the computed downhole variables are fitted to a simple radial model that predicts the sandface flowrate in terms of the flowing pressure. For demonstration, the method was applied to several wells from the Cerro Prieto geothermal field. We found very good agreement of the model with this ample set of field data. The main advantages of our method are that it provides a way to retrieve important reservoir information from usually available production characteristic curves, that it works from easily and accurately taken wellhead measurements, and that its results address the two main aspects of geothermal resource utilization, namely, mass and heat production.

Research Organization:
Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas Cuernavaca, Mor., Mexico; Comision Federal de Electricidad Los Azufres, Mich., Mexico
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
DOE Contract Number:
AT03-80SF11459
OSTI ID:
889712
Report Number(s):
SGP-TR-74-38; TRN: US200620%%145
Resource Relation:
Conference: Proceedings, Ninth Workshop Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford Calif., December 13-15, 1983
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English