Coupled Geological Modeling and History Matching of Fine-Scale Curvilinear Flow Barriers and Large Scale Facies Bodies
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- An accurate modeling of flow path connectivity is critical to reservoir flow performance prediction. Flow path connectivity is controlled by the complex shape, extent and spatial relationships between pay intervals, their intersection with wells, and the existence of flow barriers between wells. These features can be represented in three different scales of reservoir modeling variables: the large scale facies object, the mid-scale effective property at the cell-center (porosity and permeability), and the extremely fine-scale consisting of thin flow barriers that cannot be accurately represented in current high-resolution pixel-based models. To preserve these important fine-scale geological features at the flow simulation block scale, the introduction of an additional modeling variable is proposed as the edge of a model cell. This cell edge is a continuous or categorical value associated with the cell face and is defined in conjunction with the cell centered property which is often reserved for facies types and/or petrophysical properties. The edge property is modeled in conjunction with the pixel-based facies to preserve the correct spatial associations with the large scale facies objects during upscaling and history-matching. For the flow simulation model, the edge properties are easily translated into transmissibility multipliers. Using the example of 3D shale-drapes attached to channel-sand bodies in a turbidite environment, this research shows how such shale drapes can be accurately upscaled and history matched to production data while maintaining the geological concept that describes the drape geometry. The perturbation parameter in history matching is the continuity of the shales as the edge property. More generally, this coupled modeling of cell-center and cell-edge allows for more flexible reservoir modeling, opening up the potential for modeling and history matching complex geological features effectively at the scale that they are relevant, without additional computational cost of flow simulation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 2006 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Stright, Lisa |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Caers, Jef |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Petroleum Engineering |
Subjects
| Subject | School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences |
|---|---|
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Stright, Lisa. (2006). Coupled Geological Modeling and History Matching of Fine-Scale Curvilinear Flow Barriers and Large Scale Facies Bodies. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/tm899bg8781
Collection
Master's Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
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