Overview of Reservoir Simulation

By:
Prem Dayal Saini
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What is a Petroleum Reservoir?

A petroleum reservoir or an oil and gas reservoir (or system), is a subsurface

pool of hydrocarbons contained in porous rock formations. The naturally
occurring hydrocarbons are trapped by overlying rock formations with lower
permeability.

What is Reservoir Simulation?

Reservoir simulation is the study of how fluids flow in a hydrocarbon reservoir
when put under production conditions. The purpose is usually to predict the
behavior of a reservoir to different production scenarios, or to increase the
understanding of its geological properties by comparing known behavior to a
simulation using different geological representations.
Reservoir simulator is a tool for predicting hydrocarbon reservoir performance
under various operating strategies developed by combining physics,
mathematics, reservoir engineering, and computer programming.

Simulator + Simulation Engineer + Reservoir description

Why Do We Need Reservoir Simulation?

What is the most efficient well spacing?
What are the optimum production strategies?
Where are the external boundaries located?
What are the intrinsic reservoir properties?
What is the predominant recovery mechanism?
What and how should we employ infill drilling?
When and which improved recovery technique should we implement?

Simulation Approaches

The analytical approach:

Involves a great deal of assumptions-in essence, it renders an exact
solution to an approximate problem (not used much).
The numerical approach:
Attempts to solve the more realistic problem with less stringent
assumptions-in other words, it provides an approximate solution to an
exact problem.
The domain of interest :
Focus on a single well, entire field or a section of the reservoir

Reservoir Simulators
Simulators are the combination of :
1.
Flow equations i.e. Mathematical model
2.
Algorithms for solving the flow equations (rock and fluid properties)
3.
Computer program commands

Steps of a Simulation Study

Setting objectives
-Fact-finding, Optimization
Selecting the model and approach
-Reservoir complexity
-fluid type
-Scope of the study

Gathering, collecting and preparing the input data

Planning the computer runs, in terms of history matching and/or
performance prediction
Analyzing, interpreting and reporting the results

Data Collection
Data collection
Geological Information

Steps of a Simulation Study

Setting objectives:
-Fact-finding - History matching (eg. Well test data to find the damaged zone)
-Optimization

Overview of how to set up a Simulation case in

Petrel using Eclipse Simulators
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Build a grid and populate it with properties.

(Optionally) scale up the structure and properties onto a coarser grid.
Define or import well paths.
Define or import well completion events.
(Optionally) import historical production rates.
(Optionally) define a well segmentation set.
Define a fluid model, describing the properties of the reservoir fluids at varying
pressures, volumes and temperatures (PVT) and the initial conditions (pressures and
contacts) in the reservoir.
Define a saturation function, describing the relative permeability and capillary pressure
of the fluids as a function of saturation.
Define a rock compaction function, describing how the rock expands and compresses
with changing pressure.
Define aquifers, describing the type, size and connections of the acting
Define a development strategy to control how the wells will produce and inject.
Define a simulation case, putting all the above data objects together.
Analyze and view the results using the Function window and the Results pane.

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Physical principles

Conservation of Mass
The first principle is modeled by a so called partial differential equation that says
that if there is a difference between flow into and out of a tiny volume of space,
this will either cause a build-up or a draw down of mass in this tiny volume.
Conservation of Momentum
The second principle is approximated by an experimental law, called Darcy's law,
that relate the pressure difference (force) across a porous rock containing a fluid
and the resulting velocity (momentum) of this fluid. This experimental law is also
represented by a partial differential equation that is combined with the equation
based on the first principle to form a set of partial differential equations that is the
mathematical description of the flow of fluids through a porous media.
Conservation of Energy
The third principle is approximated by a relationship between Pressure, Volume
and Temperature (PVT) for the rock and the fluids. The PVT data is represented
by a set of tables for each reservoir.

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Upscaling

Build a grid and populate it with properties.

Scale up the structure and properties onto a coarser grid.
-Upscaling is the process of creating a coarser (lower resolution) grid based
on the geological grid which is more appropriate for simulation

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Grid Systems
Body-centered grids

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Grid Systems continued

Mesh-centered grids

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Well Design
Define or import well paths.
-The Well path design process is a tool which enables users to generate well
trajectories based on reservoir properties, seismic attributes or any other
data

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Well Completion Design

Define or import well completion events

-Well completion consists of sealing off a drilled well in preparation for production.

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Casing
Liner
Tubing
Packer
Perforation

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Well Segmentation
Define a well segmentation set
-Conventional well models treat the entire wellbore as a single entity, averaging
all the fluid properties in the well bore.
-Well segmentation divides the wellbore into segments, much like the reservoir is
divided up into grid-cells.

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Making a fluid model

Define a fluid model, describing the properties of the reservoir fluids at varying
pressures, volumes and temperatures (PVT) and the initial conditions (pressures
and contacts) in the reservoir.
Black oil fluid models are defined by specifying several properties such as
viscosity, density and volume formation factors for each of the fluid phases

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Reservoir Rock/Fluid Interactions

Wettability and interfacial tension .

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Reservoir Flow Geometries

Rectangular flow geometry

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Reservoir Flow Geometries continued

Radial-cylindrical flow geometry

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Reservoir Flow Geometries continued

Elliptical-cylindrical flow geometry

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Reservoir Flow Geometries continued

Curvilinear flow geometry

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Making rock physics functions

Define a saturation function, describing the relative permeability and
capillary pressure of the fluids as a function of saturation.
Saturation functions
are tables showing relative permeability and capillary pressure versus
saturation.
-gas-oil and water-oil capillary pressure versus saturation
Define a rock compaction function, describing how the rock expands and
compresses with changing pressure
Rock compaction functions are tables showing pore volume multipliers versus
pressure, or a single rock compressibility value used by the simulator to
calculate the pore volume change.

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Reservoir Rock Properties

Porosity

Permeability

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Reservoir Rock Properties continued .

Homogeneous vs. heterogeneous systems

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Make aquifer
Define aquifers, describing the type, size and connections of the acting aquifer.
Aquifer modeling is a method of simulating large amounts of water (or gas)
connected to the reservoir whereby it is not essential to know how the fluid
moves in it, but rather how it affects our reservoir.

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Development Strategies
Define a development strategy to control how the wells will produce and inject
Development Strategies are used to describe to the simulator how a field will be
developed - that is, which wells will produce or inject, what rates and pressures
they will flow at, what operations will be carried out on the wells over time, and so
forth.

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Numerical Models: Time step selection

Time is the "fourth dimension" in mathematical representations of flow dynamics
in porous media
A typical simulation study may cover a number of years
require subdividing this period into smaller time segments
As time step size progressively increases, it is common for material balance
errors to appear
Material balance Saturation and Pressure calculations flow rates
Material balance checks help the engineer to determine the maximum time step
size that is admissable by the particular problem, and that can be tolerated by
the model we are using.

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Simulation case and Results

Define a simulation case, putting all the above data objects together
Analyze and view the results using the Function window and the Results
pane :

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Summary Vectors
Properties
Streamlines
Simulation logs

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Streamline simulation

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For reservoirs where the movement of the fluids is mostly driven by

the potential field induced by producing wells:
Water flooding.
Highly heterogeneous reservoirs

Streamline Calculation

Streamline representation
Streamline method is the possibility it offers to do relatively quick simulations
on large geologically and architecturally complex models

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Streamline Simulation
Built for speed (simplified model) - can handle millions of cells

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Reservoir Simulation and the Computational Environment

Simple material balance calculations are now routinely performed on

desktop personal computers, while running a field-scale threedimensional compositional simulator may call for the use of a
supercomputer
In designing a simulation study, we must always be aware of the
capabilities and limitations of our computing resources.

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History Matching, Prediction and Re-Simulating

Manual history matching
Automatic history matching
Forecasting

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History Matching, Prediction and Re-Simulating

Analysis of results
Updating or re-simulating
Progressive evolution of the reservoir model
Progressive assessment of the simulation approach

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Types of Eclipse Simulators

ECLIPSE Blackoil

It is a fully implicit, three-phase,three-dimensional, general-purpose black oil

simulator.
The Blackoil model assumes the reservoir fluids consist of reservoir oil, solvent
gas and water.

ECLIPSE Compositional

It is useful when the behavior of the hydrocarbons is complexcondensate or

volatile crude oil, or gas injection developments fall in this category.

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Types of Eclipse Simulators

ECLIPSE Thermal
Thermal recovery methods are typically used in heavy oil reservoirs where the oil
viscosity is high at reservoir temperatures, but reduces as the temperature
increases.
ECLIPSE FrontSim
It is a three-dimensional, three-phase streamline simulator.

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Special Purpose Reservoir Simulators

Water Coning Simulators

Dual Porosity/Permeability Simulators
Thermal Recovery Simulators
Compositional Simulators
Miscible Displacement Simulators
Chemical and Polymer Flooding Simulators
Coalbed Reservoir Simulators

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Thanks!

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