Reservoir Simulation

THE ROLE OF RESERVOIR ENGINEER

During exploration phase of the project
1-Design of well tests (pressure and rate).
2-Coring and coring program.
3-Pressure – depth relationship.
4-Fluid properties (PVT).
During initial development planning
1-Production profiles (oil/gas/water).
2-Topsides facilities design.
During the field development
1-Scheduling / location of producer and or Injection wells.
2-Completion policy / scheduling of re-completions.
3-Pressure monitoring.
4-Water injection policy / tracking water movement.
5-Production forecasting / decline strategy (sidetracking /
IOR / EOR).
Reservoir engineering techniques (tools).
Volumetric techniques (static: before any production has been
obtained):
 Reservoir maps (structural, isochore, and net-pay) from combined G&G data.
 Log and routine core analysis: average net thickness, porosity and water
saturation, property mapping; fluid contact.
 Distribution pressure measurements (fluid distribution).
 Special core analysis: movable oil estimation.
 Well testing, fluid sampling, well performance, permeability determination
and its variation, reservoir characterization.
 PVT studies (fluid properties).
 The geological model (map-based, geo-cellular).
Reservoir engineering techniques (tools).
Dynamic techniques (once production have been established):

 Decline curves (plots of rate withdrawal vs. time or cumulative production on

a variety of co-ordinate scales).
 Material balance: (pressure-production behavior of the entire field, zero-
dimensional approach, methodology: observe data, fit a simple model,
predict by extrapolation).
 Reservoir simulation: three-dimensional, three-phase, mathematical model
approach, used to estimate reserves under alternative recovery methods
(needs a detailed geological model, Methodology: input model, history match
and predict).
Darcy’s Law for Single-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Single-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
Darcy’s Law for Two-Phase Flow
What is reservoir simulation?
A reservoir model is a digital representation of the subsurface
formation and its rock and petrophysical properties. It is
geometrically defined by its area of interest and top and base
bounding surfaces. It is a process of integrating geological,
geophysical, and petrophysical data into a 3D description of a
reservoir.

Building a reservoir model includes the construction of a

structural and stratigraphic model and determining the spatial
distributions of facies and various petrophysical properties in the
model. Therefore, when we build models of oil and gas resources
in the subsurface we should never ignore the fact that the fluid
resources are contained within rock formations
What is reservoir simulation?
Constructing a good reservoir model requires multi-
specialties analyses andintegration of geological,
geophysical, petrophysical, and reservoir
engineeringdata using scientific and statistical
inferences. So building a model of an oil and gas
reservoir is complex because of the variety of data types
involved as the many different steps required. Reservoir
modelling is also a challenge because we are dealing
with a mix of geological and spatial properties and the
complex fluids present in the reservoir.
The Uses of Reservoir Modelling
1- Evaluation of rock volumes and the original
hydrocarbons in place.

2- Representation of geological and petrophysical

descriptions of the reservoir for input to reservoir
simulation.

3- Increase profitability through better reservoir

management, including development plans for new
fields and depletion strategies for mature fields.
4- Prediction of the liquid volume (oil, gas, and water),
decline analysis, secondary or tertiary recovery option
injection strategies, and well and completion designs.
The Uses of Reservoir Modelling

5- Observation of fluid movement contacts and

pressures.

6- Analysis of fault seal and transmissibility in

addition to calculating the displacement of the
fault vertically and laterally.

7- Assessment of wells number and types that

required to produce the reservoir economically
(e.g. vertical, slant, horizontal, multilateral, etc.)
and locations.
Reservoir Modeling According to the Stages of the
Reservoir Life Cycle
Exploration Stage:

 Enhance depositional environment and

conceptual model understanding.
 Refine stratigraphic model.
 Assess fault partition.
 Identify new prospects.
 Use the model as a data/information
store.
Reservoir Modeling According to the Stages of the
Reservoir Life Cycle
Development Stage:

 Build more-detailed structural and stratigraphic

model.
 Plan and design wells, including well path.
 Computing the production profiles (oil, gas, and
water).
 Estimating the oil and gas technical reserves.
 Assess intermediate-scale reservoir heterogeneities
and connectivity
Reservoir Modeling According to the Stages the
Reservoir Life Cycle
Production Stage:

Assess small-scale heterogeneities, including flow

units modeling.
 Use for reservoir management.
 Matching of the past production history (fluid
rates, GOR, WC, pressures, etc).
 Optimize production in the field.
 Perform enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
 Reservoir simulators help us answer several
questions
[Link] should a field be developed to maximize economic recovery?

[Link] is the best enhanced recovery scheme for the reservoir?

[Link] is the reservoir not behaving according to predictions made by

previous engineering studies?

[Link] is the ultimate economic recovery of the field?

[Link] type of laboratory data is required?

[Link] is the best completion scheme for wells?

[Link] what portion of the reservoir is the production coming?
The calculation of oil recovery factors is a complex
process that involves several factors. The primary
factors that affect oil recovery are the porosity and
permeability of the reservoir rock, the viscosity of
the oil, and the pressure in the reservoir. The
formula for calculating oil recovery factors is as
follows:

Oil Recovery Factor = (Oil Recovered / Original

Oil in Place) x 100
What is Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR)?
Estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) refers to the amount
of oil and gas expected to be recovered from a well (or
field) by the end of its producing life.

Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR) is not a resource

category as such, but a term which may be applied to an
individual accumulation of any status/maturity
(discovered or undiscovered). Estimated Ultimate
Recovery is defined as those quantities of petroleum
which are estimated, on a given date, to be potentially
recoverable from an accumulation, plus those quantities
already produced therefrom.
Proven Reserves: Oil reserves with a 90% chance of
recovering the oil
Probable Reserves: Oil reserves with a 50% chance or
greater of recovering the oil.
Possible Reserves: Oil reserves with a recovery potential
but of a less than 50% chance of recovering the oil.
 Reservoir model purposes

• Estimate field performance

• Development Planning
• Visualisation
• Volumetric calculation
• Well planning
Reservoir simulation elements

• Geological description • Fluid Type

• Probabilistic or deterministic • Black oil / Compositiona
• Reservoir depletion mechanism
What is a model?

• A model is a, three-dimensional conceptual representation

of a reservoir. Modeling is a relatively new discipline that
integrates, geology, geophysics, reservoir, and production
engineering with the aim of streamlining the exploitation
of hydrocarbon reserves.

Why is modeling important?

• Modeling allows us to understand assess and predict our
reservoir by incorporating all available data/ information
into a quantitative digital representation.
Static models

• Static reservoir models are three-dimensional

representations of the geological structure, facies, and
petrophysical properties of the reservoir. They are based
on data from seismic surveys, well logs, core samples, and
analogs. Static models are used to estimate the volume and
distribution of hydrocarbons in place, the heterogeneity
and connectivity of the reservoir, and the initial pressure
and saturation conditions. Static models are often the
starting point for building dynamic models, but they can
also be updated with dynamic data to improve their
accuracy and reliability.
The Modelling Workflow
1- Data collection, analysis and loading.

- Collect the input data

- sedimentological and stratigraphic studies.

2- Build the reservoir framework.

- Structural Model
- Stratigraphic Model
- Geocellular Model
The Modelling Workflow
3- Build the facies model.
- Facies Model.

4- Build the property model.

- Property Model-
- Volumetric Model.

5- Build the dynamic simulation model.

• Simulation Model
• Uncertainty Model
Static reservoir properties:- are those rock and fluid
properties that normally do not change during the
life of a field. They are the result of primary
depositional processes coupled with postdepositional
burial, diagenesis, and tectonics.
• Stratigraphy
• Geometry
• Size
• Lithologies
• Structure Framework,
• Initial Porosity and Permeability
• Temperature
Dynamic reservoir properties :- are those that do
change significantly during the life of a field.
- Fluid saturations
- Fluid contacts
- Production and fluid-flow rates
- Pressure
- Fluid compositions, including gas-to-oil ratio
(GOR) and water-to-oil ratio (WOR)
Key Elements of Reservoir Modelling
TYPES OF RESERVOIR SIMULATION MODEL
The Black Oil Model
It treats the three phases - oil, gas and water - as if they were mass
components where only the gas is allowed to dissolve in the oil and
water.
Reservoir processes that can be modelled using the black oil model
include:

• Recovery by fluid expansion - solution gas drive (primary

depletion).
• Waterflooding including viscous, capillary and gravity forces
(secondary recovery).
• Immiscible gas injection.
• Some three phase recovery processes such as immiscible water-
alternating-gas (WAG).
TYPES OF RESERVOIR SIMULATION MODEL
The Compositional Model:
A compositional reservoir simulation model is required when
significant inter-phase mass transfer effects occur in the fluid
displacement process.

Examples of reservoir processes that can be modelled using a

compositional model include:
• Gas injection with oil mobilisation by first contact or developed
(multi- contact) miscibility (e.g. in CO2 flooding).
• The modelling of gas injection into near critical reservoirs.
• Gas recycling processes in condensate reservoirs.
TYPES OF RESERVOIR SIMULATION MODEL
The Chemical Flood Model:
This model has been developed primarily to model polymer and surfactant
(or combined) displacement processes.
Examples of reservoir processes that can be modelled using a chemical flood
model include:

• Polymer flooding which can be thought of as an “enhanced waterflood” to

improve the mobility ratio .
• Polymer/surfactant flooding where the main purpose of the surfactant is
to lower interfacial tension (IFT) between the oil and water phases and hence
to “release” or “mobilise” trapped residual oil.
• Low-tension polymer flooding (LTPF) where a more viscous polymer
containing injected solution also contains some surfactant to reduce IFT; the
combined effect of the lower IFT and viscous drive fluid improves the sweep
and also helps to mobilise some of the residual oil.
TYPES OF RESERVOIR SIMULATION MODEL
Thermal Models:
In all thermal models heat is added to the reservoir either by injecting steam
or by actually combusting the oil (by air injection, for example). The purpose
of this is generally to reduce the viscosity of heavy oil which may have μo of
order 100s or 1000s of cP.

Examples of reservoir processes that can be modelled using thermal models

include:

• Steam “soaks” where steam in injected into the formation, the well is shut
in for a time to allow heat dissipation into the oil and then the well is back
produced to obtain the mobilised oil (because of lower viscosity). This is
known as a “Huff n’ Puff” process.
• Steam “drive” where the steam is injected continuously into the formation
from an injector to the producer. Again, the objective is to lower oil viscosity
by the penetration of the heat front deep into the reservoir.
Driving Forces
The movement of the fluids in a typical reservoir is
controlled by three kinds of forces.
The gravity forces tend to segregate the fluid
vertically and is proportional to the difference in
densities. Viscous forces, induced by production and
injection,tend to move the fluids in the direction of the
induced movement and the forces are proportional
to the Darcy velocity and inversely proportional to
mobility. The capillary forces tend to spread
out the saturations according to the slope of the
capillary pressure curve and the saturation
gradients. In the segregated flow case, the saturation
gradients of interest are vertical.
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:

1D linear grids may be used to simulate 1D Buckley-Leverett type water

displacement calculations (x-direction) or for single column vertical
displacements (z-direction) such as gravity stable gas displacement of oil
(Figures 3(a) and 3(b));
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:

2D Cartesian grids: 2D cross-sectional (x/z) grids may be used to; (a) study
vertical sweep efficiency in a heterogeneous layered system; (b) calculate
water/oil displacements in a geostatistically generated cross-section; (c)
generate pseudo-relative permeabilites (can be used to collapse a 3D
calculation down to a 2D system); (d) to study the mechanism of a gas
displacement process - e.g. to determine the importance of gravity etc.
(Figure 3(e));
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:

2D areal (x/y) grids may be used to; (a) calculate areal sweep efficiencies in
a waterflood or a gas flood; (b) to examine the stability of a near-miscible
gas injection within a heterogeneous reservoir layer; (c) examine the benefits
of infill drilling in an areal pattern flood etc. (Figures 3(c) and 3(d));
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:

3D (x/y/z) Cartesian grids are used to model a very wide range of field wide
reservoir production processes and would often be the default type of
calculation for a typical full field simulation of waterflooding, gas flooding,
etc. (Figure 3(f)).
GRIDDING IN RESERVOIR SIMULATION:
 Input Data
Reservoir simulation models require a specified amount of input data.
Because of reservoirs’ extreme heterogeneity the modelling will be divided
into so-called grid cells, or grid blocks. Each of these grid blocks must be
filled with information to provide an image of the
actual reservoir.
Flow between adjacent grid blocks is computed using Darcy’s law

where q represents the volumetric flow rate, subscript I denotes the fluid
phase (I = oil, gas or water), A represent the cross section area between the
blocks, and Δxij the distance between the block centres. μ is viscosity, ρ is
density, while k and krI are absolute and relative permeabilities, respectively.
pj - pi represents the pressure difference between the two grid blocks.
Rock Properties
Rock properties like absolute permeability (k) and porosity (ϕ) are assigned
to each grid block.
Absolute permeability and porosity data are obtained from core analysis,
logging, well testing and seismic interpretation. Porosity is independent of
direction.
Therefore, only one porosity value is required as input for each grid block.
The pressure dependence is accounted for by introducing rock
compressibility.

Absolute permeability, on the other hand, is dependent on direction

and independent of pressure, and three permeability values are
required as input for each grid block, one value for each of the
directions kx, ky and kz.
 Fluid Data
The amount of input data needed for fluid property calculations depends on
the type of simulation model to be used, a Black Oil model or a
Compositional simulation model.
compositional models require fluid compositions as additional fluid input
data.
Volume factors are also required as input to the simulator, which is defined
as the volume ratio of the liquid phase at reservoir conditions (RC)
compared to “standard conditions” (ST), or surface conditions,
Viscosity is also an important fluid parameter, and phase viscosities, must be
defined to the simulator. In addition also gas-oil (Rs)
Factors Affecting Relative Permeabilities
• Fluid saturations
• Geometry of the pore spaces and pore size
distribution
• Fluid saturation history (i.e., imbibition or
drainage)
Characteristics of Relative Permeability
Functions
• Relative permeability is unique for different rocks
and fluids.
• Relative permeability affects the flow
characteristics of reservoir fluids.
• Relative permeability affects the recovery
efficiency of oil and/or gas.
Applications of Relative Permeability
Functions
• Reservoir simulation
• Flow calculations that involve multi-phase flow in
reservoirs
• Estimation of residual oil (and/or gas) saturation
Rule of thumb of wettability
Rule of thumb of wettability
 History matching
History matching

The main objective of the history match is to achieve a reasonable agreement

between the simulated and observed historical field/well behavior to establish
a satisfactory quality reservoir management tool. This is done under the
premises that the geological model, the reservoir parameters, and other static
and dynamic data used have a “defendable” quality.

History matching input data

The following historical (measured) input data for individual wells or

reservoirs are typically used in history matching process:

RFT pressures (measured pressure points vs. depth)

Shut-in pressure (measured pressure vs time)
Historical production / injection rates vs. time
Allocated or measured well GOR and WCT vs. time
Fluid saturation profiles from well logs
 History Matching vs. Prediction

History matching refers to the process of matching previously observed

measured reservoir production data to the reservoir simulation model for the
purpose of increasing the reliability of the model.
It is a very time consuming trial-and-error process and it often accounts for a big
portion of the cost in a reservoir study. Only one parameter is adjusted at a time
to observe the effects
on the simulation
 History Matching vs. Prediction

During prediction runs the engineer can examine different scenarios and help
select a profitable strategy for future production and field development, either
following directly from a history match using the reservoir descriptions
estimated during history matching, or by predicting the production from
undrilled structures
 History matching
Manual vs. assisted history matching

Two approaches can be applied for performing history matching study: manual history
matching and assisted history matching using specialized software. Traditionally, history
matching is performed by a trial-and-error approach. In this case, a lot of manual tasks are
involved, such as changing the reservoir simulation model, running reservoir simulations,
plotting curves and comparing to observed data. The main advantage of assisted history
matching is to automate those manual tasks, such as reservoir simulation model modifications,
running reservoir simulations, comparison of observed and reservoir simulation data, etc.
however care should be taken in setting parameter range limits, etc. in automated history
match to ensure any solutions are physically valid.

History matching steps

The following steps are recommended for performing history matching:

Match average reservoir pressure and field rates to have a good understanding about material
balance in the reservoir.
Match individual well RFT pressure to have control on compartmentalization and flow
barriers.
Match individual well gas/oil ratio, water-cut and shut-in pressure to have a good control on
flow dynamics in reservoir and well performance.
 DATA-file Structure

Eclipse is a reservoir simulator developed by Schlumberger and is considered

one of the most recognized reservoir simulators in the industry. Several oil and
gas companies are using Eclipse worldwide.
An Eclipse DATA-file is a text file used as an input file to the simulator,
comprised of eight sections started by a section header, which all must be
presented in a prescribed order. A few thousand keywords are available to best
describe the reservoir conditions.
DATA-file Structure
DATA-file Structure
Accuracy of Simulations :
Numerical Dispersion:
Numerical dispersion is essentially an error due to the fact that we use a grid
block approximation for solving the flow equations. Ideally, we would like to
capture all the main reservoir processes (e.g. frontal displacement, crossflow,
gravity segregation etc.) and accurately forecast recovery to some acceptable
percentage error, for the minimum number of grid blocks.
 Numerical Dispersion
• Artifact of numerical analysis techniques
• Can cause severe distortions in simulations,
especially in rapid saturation changes
1 2 3 4

Sw Sw

x x

If upstream mobility, then water will

flow From Blocks 2 to 3. Next time step,
water Flows from 3 to 4.
 Gridsize Guidelines
• No general rule for proper cell size
• Perform sensitivity analysis
• Rule of thumb
– 3to 5 blocks between producers
– 5to 10 between producers/injectors
 Limiting Numerical Dispersion
1. Increase number of gridblocks
2. Improved upstream, mobility weighting
3. Apply pseudofunctions
relative permeability curves in areal models are modified to restrict the
movement of the displacing phase until saturation reaches the finely
gridded simulation value.
4. Finite Element Modelling (FEM)
Upscaling of grid properties in reservoir simulation

Upscaling, or homogenization, is substituting a heterogeneous property

region consisting of fine grid cells with an equivalent homogeneous region
made up of a single coarse-grid cell with an effective property value.
(Equivalent in this case means either volume or flux vice, depending on the
type of property that is to be upscaled.)
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