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Wellbore Heat Loss in Production and Injection Wells

Introduction
The classic work by Rameyl on wellbore heat transmission derived the temperature distribution in a well used
for injecting hot fluid. Ramey later expanded on this to
give the rate of heat loss from the well to the formation. 2
However, by assuming that the fluid remains at its inflow
temperature, Ramey's analysis effectively gave the heat
loss at infinite fluid flow rate - in other words,
the maximum possible heat-loss rate. This paper reexamines this problem for finite fluid flow rate and determines the heat-loss rate as a function offluid properties
and fluid flow rate. Because this analysis is valuable
when considering geothermal wells, results will be presented for producing and injection wells. This paper
considers only single-phase fluids flowing in the well.
Satter3 suggested a method for estimating wellbore heat
loss when considering condensing steam flow and presented a sample procedure for a given set of reservoir
properties. His analysis also may be extended to production wells to obtain heat-flow estimates with two-phase
flow. For single-phase flow, the formulation permits
direct calculation of wellbore heat loss with various production and injection conditions.

Injection
Using Ramey's analysis and notation,1 consider a heat
balance in the radial direction on a section of a well with
height dz, losing heat at rate dq from the casing to the
formation. Then,

dq 271'krP (T T)
dz - k+r P!(t)
1- e ,
0149-2136/79/0001-7153$00.25

1979 Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME

.............. ( )

where TI is the temperature of the fluid in the tubing, Te is

the temperature of the formation, k is the earth thermal
conductivity, r 1 is the inside radius of the tubing, V is the
over-all heat-transfer coefficient between the inside of
the tubing and the outside of the casing (see Willhite"),
and !(t) is a dimensionless time function described by
Ramey.1 For long times J(t) can be approximated as

=-

~r~ - 0.290, .............. (2)

2vat
where r 2 is the outside radius ofthe casing in meters, a is
the thermal diffusivity of the earth in square meters per
second, and t is the production time in seconds.
Performing an over-all heat balance on the well and
considering the changing temperature of the fluid as it
flows in the tubing, TI can be evaluated as

!(t)

In

=az + b - aA + (To-b + aA) e A , . . . (3)

where az + b is Te , the formation temperature (assuming
TI

linear geothermal gradient), b is the surface temperature,

and z is measured downward. To is the injection temperature. A is a group of variables defined as
_ wC[k + rIV!(t)]
, ................ (4)
271'kr IV

A(t) -

where W is the fluid flow rate and C is the specific heat of

the fluid.
Integrating Eq. 1 (with respect to depth z) and substituting T I = To, Ramey2 obtained

r.

aH2]

27rr I Vk
5
q", - k + rp!(t) L(To-b)H - ~ ......... ( )

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116

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TABLE 1-COMPARISON OF MAXIMUM WITH ACTUAL WELLBORE

HEAT LOSSES
z
(ft)
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000

To = 300F
q
qoo
1.37
2.68
3.92
5.11
6.23
7.30

To = 400F
q
qoo

1.33
2.54
3.63
4.61
5.48
6.24

1.98
3.89
5.75
7.54
9.27
10.95

1.93
3.70
5.32
6.81
8.16
9.39

To = 500F
q
qoo

To = 600F
q
qoo

2.52
5.86
7.02
9.01
10.85
12.54

2.58
5.11
7.57
9.93
12.31
14.59

3.11
6.01
8.71
11.21
13.54
15.68

3.19
6.32
9.40
12.41
15.35
18.24

Conditions: Geothermal temperature, az+b = 0.02 z + 700F

Over-all heat-transfer coefficient, U = 30 Btu/sq ft-D-oF
Tubing size (radius),'! = 1 in.
Casing size (radius),'2 = 3Y2 in.
Thermal conductivity of earth, k = 33.6 Btu/ft-D_oF
Thermal diffusivity of earth, a = 0.96 sq ft/D

as the total heat-loss rate from a well of total depth

H. However, by substituting the actual value of T 1 from
Eq.3,
.

q = -we [aH - (To

+ aA -b)

(1 - e

H
-A

)]

proaches that for infinite flow. If the exponential function

in Eq. 10 (or Eq. 6) is expanded in a polynomial series,
the significance of other governing parameters can be
evaluated. Substituting
-H

'

................................ (6)

or al ternativel y ,

+ H2 _ H3
2A2

6A 3

'

then,

q =we (To-T 1 ).
Comparing q", [the total heat-loss rate for a well with
infinite flow rate (Eq. 5)] with q [the total heat loss for a
well with flow rate w (Eq. 6)] ,q is found to be a function
of both wand e, the specific heat of the fluid, whereas q '"
is independent of both the fluid that flows in the well and
the rate at which it flows.
For example, using the steam-injection system considered by Ramey,2 the actual wellbore heat-loss rate at an
injection time of 100 days for an injection rate of 10,000
Ib/hr (1.26 kg/s) is compared with the estimated value
(q",) in Table 1.

Production
With a well producing hot fluid, Eqs. 3,5, and 6 can be
used by substituting b = To. With a geothermal well
producing hot fl uid without tubing, the temperature in the
well as a function of height y above the producing depth
can be gi ven as
Tl = (To-ay)

= 1_

aA

(1-e7 ). ........... (7)

q = 'TrakH 2 _ weaH3
6A 2

f(t)

+ ~ (-I)n weaHn
~

n!An-l .

............................... (11)

Comparing this with Eq. 9 for q "', the difference between

q andq", (1) is always negative, q <q",; (2) increases with
geothermal gradient, a; (3) increases rapidly with depth,
H; (4) decreases with increasing flow rate, w (sinceA is a
linear function of w and e); (5) decreases with increasing
specific heat, e; for example, a steam well will lose less
heat than a hot water well; and (6) increases with time, t
[sincef(t) increases with t and A decreases].
Thus, the trad~tionally used formulas for heat loss from
a well carrying hot fluid in single-phase flow are shown to
overestimate heat loss severely, particularly in deep wells
with moderate-to-low flow rates of low specific-heat
fluids. This would be important in steam injection, where
the quantity of steam required would be overestimated, or
when flow testing a geothermal well, where down-hole
enthalpies and steam quality are calculated by considering wellhead conditions and well bore heat loss.
120r-------,r------.-----,------,

Here, the temperature of the earth is To- ay and, since

there is no tubing, U is infinite; therefore,

100

wef(t) . . ........................ (8)

2'Trk

(MMBtu/d) 80

Then, the maximum total heat flow rate from a well of

depthH would be

q", = 'TrkaH2 , ......................... (9)

f(t)

whereas the actual total heat flow rate would be

q=awe[H+A(e~H-1)J

........... (10)

For example, the total heat flow rate for a geothermal

well being tested for 30 days is given in Fig. 1.
Clearly, for large flow rates, the heat-loss rate apJANUARY 1979

Hoat

Laos

60

40

20

O~~-~---~---~---~

100

1000

10,000
100,000
FLOW RATE (lb/hrl

1,000.000

Fig. 1-Total well bore heat-loss rate vs well flowing rate for a well
producing hot water. Production time is30 days. The dotted line is
the maximum heat-loss rate for infinite flow.
117

References
1. Ramey, H. J., Jr.: "Wellbore Heat Transmission," J. Pet. Tech.
(April 1962)427-435; Trans., AIME, 225.
2. Ramey, H. J., Jr.: "How To Calculate Heat Transmission in Hot
Fluid Injection," Pet. Eng. (Nov. 1964) llO-l20.
3. Satter, A.: "Heat Losses During Flow of Steam Down a Wellbore,"
J. Pet. Tech. (July 1963) 845-851; Trans., AIME, 234.
Orignal manuscript received in Society of Petroleum Engineers office March 27,
1978. Paper (SPE 7153) accepted for publication July 14. 1978. Revised manuscript
received Sept. 5, 1978.

ll8

4. Willhite, G. P.: "Over-All Heat Transfer Coefficients in Steam and

Hot Water Injection Wells," J. Pet. Tech. (May 1967) 607-615.

Roland N. Horne*
Stanford U.
Stanford, CA

Kiyoshi Shin ohara

Nippon Steel Corp.
Tokyo
'Now with U. of Auckland, New Zealand.

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