A large scale network model to obtain interwell formation characteristics
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2017
Abstract
Limited data availability and poor data quality make it difficult to characterise many reservoirs. For waterflooded reservoirs, production and injection data provide information from which injector-to-producer connections can be inferred. In this research, well locations and injection and production rate data are used to develop a reservoir-scale network model. A Voronoi mesh divides the reservoir into node volumes, each of which contains a well. Bonds connect the nodes with conductance values that are inferred from the rate data. The inverse problem minimises the mean-squared difference between computed and observed production data by adjusting the conductances between nodes. A derivative free optimisation algorithm is used to minimise the mean-squared difference. This coarse network model approach is fast and efficient because it solves for a small number of unknowns and is less underdetermined than correlation-based methods. The reservoir network model has promise as a reservoir description tool because of its modest data requirements, flexibility, efficiency, interpretability, and dynamism.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology
First Page
1
Last Page
24
Recommended Citation
Gherabati, S., Hughes, R., White, C., & Zhang, H. (2017). A large scale network model to obtain interwell formation characteristics. International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 15 (1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJOGCT.2017.083856