Practical Application of Pressure/Rate Deconvolution to Analysis of Real Well Tests

Summary Pressure/rate deconvolution is a long-standing problem of well-test analysis that has been the subject of research by a number of authors. A variety of different deconvolution algorithms have been proposed in the literature. However, none of them is robust enough to be implemented in the commercial well-test-analysis software used most widely in the industry. Recently, von Schroeter et al.1,2 published a deconvolution algorithm that has been shown to work even when a reasonable level of noise is present in the test pressure and rate data. In our independent evaluation of the algorithm, we have found that it works well on consistent sets of pressure and rate data. It fails, however, when used with inconsistent data. Some degree of inconsistency is normally present in real test data. In this paper, we describe the enhancements of the deconvolution algorithm that allow it to be used reliably with real test data. We demonstrate the application of pressure/rate deconvolution analysis to several real test examples.