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Petroleum Engineering, University of Houston, 2. Metarock Laboratories, 3. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston) 16:00-16:30 Break and Walk to Bizzell Museum 16:30-17:30 Tour: History of Science Collections, Bizzell Memorial Library, The University of Oklahoma 17:30-19:00 Networking Reception: Thurman J. White Forum Building
- Research Report > New Finding (0.93)
- Overview (0.68)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Mineral (0.72)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate Rock (0.68)
- (2 more...)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Seismic Modeling > Velocity Modeling (0.93)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Storage Reservoir Engineering > CO2 capture and sequestration (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation (1.00)
- (20 more...)
- North America > United States > Texas (1.00)
- Europe (0.93)
- Research Report > New Finding (0.93)
- Overview (0.88)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate Rock (0.68)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Rock > Sandstone (0.47)
- Geophysics > Borehole Geophysics (1.00)
- Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Seismic Modeling > Velocity Modeling (0.93)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Shale gas (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Storage Reservoir Engineering > CO2 capture and sequestration (1.00)
- (20 more...)
General Optimization Framework of Water Huff-n-Puff Based on Embedded Discrete Fracture Model Technology in Fractured Tight Oil Reservoir: A Case Study of Mazhong Reservoir in the Santanghu Basin in China
Xiang, Yangyue (School of Earth Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan) | Wang, Lei (School of Earth Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan (Corresponding author)) | Si, Bao (Tuha Oilfield Company, Petro China, Hami) | Zhu, Yongxian (Tuha Oilfield Company, Petro China, Hami) | Yu, Jiayi (Research Institute of Exploration and Development, Tuha Oilfield Company, Petro China, Hami) | Pan, Zhejun (Key Laboratory of Continental Shale Hydrocarbon Accumulation and Efficient Development, Ministry of Education, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing)
Summary Water injection huff-n-puff (WHnP) is currently an important technology to improve the recovery of tight reservoirs. On the one hand, this technology can replenish the formation energy, and on the other hand, it can effectively replace the oil in a tight reservoir. In this paper, the effect of WHnP on cumulative oil production and oil increase rate is simulated and analyzed by comparing depleted development and WHnP scenarios, using numerical simulation methods. A field-scale numerical simulation was modeled based on typical fluid, reservoir, and fracture characteristics of Mazhong tight oil, coupled with geomechanical effects, stress sensitivity, and embedded discrete fractures. The result of different WHnP cycles is studied, and the limiting WHnP cycle is determined to be four cycles. The WHnP efficiency is compared for different permeability scales from 0.005 to 1 md, and it is determined that WHnP at a permeability of 0.01 md resulted in the largest production enhancement. Subsequently, sensitivity studies are conducted using an orthogonal experimental design for six uncertain parameters, including the WHnP cycle, production pressure difference, permeability, natural fracture density, hydraulic fracture half-length, and conductivity. The results show that throughput period and permeability are important parameters affecting cumulative oil production, and permeability and natural fracture density are important parameters affecting oil increase rate. In addition, contour plots of permeability and WHnP cycle, hydraulic fracture half-length, and conductivity are generated. Based on these plots, the optimal conditions with better enhanced recovery results in different WHnP scenarios can be easily determined. This study can better solve the problems encountered in WHnP of tight reservoirs and provide a theoretical basis for stable and efficient development.
- Research Report > New Finding (0.48)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (0.34)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Economic Geology > Petroleum Geology (0.42)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Water & Waste Management > Water Management > Lifecycle > Disposal/Injection (0.35)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Naturally-fractured reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation (1.00)
- (2 more...)
Subsurface Injection Monitoring in Complex Geologic Media Using Pathline, Source Cloud and Time Cloud
Li, Ao (Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA) | Chen, Hongquan (Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA) | Jalali, Ridwan (Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) | Al-Darrab, Abdulaziz (Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia)
Abstract Monitoring of subsurface fluid motion is critical for optimizing hydrocarbon production and CO2 sequestration. Streamlines are frequently employed to visualize fluid flow; however, they provide only an instantaneous snapshot of the velocity field and do not offer an exact representation of fluid movement under varying field conditions. In contrast, pathlines are constructed by tracking individual particles within the fluid, enabling us to trace the movement of these particles as they traverse through changing velocity fields. This paper presents the development and application of pathlines for flow visualization in complex geologic media. The flow visualization is further aided by source cloud (streak lines) and time cloud (isochrones representing moving fluid fronts). We demonstrate the power and utility of the developed tool in fractured media using Embedded Discrete Fracture Model (EDFM). Pathlines track the history of flowing particles in the reservoir. Pathlines can be spliced from streamline segments over time, tracing the trajectory of a particle under changing velocity fields. For each interval, a pathlineโs end is extended with a streamline segement whose elapsed time of flight (TOF) equals the time interval. Based on the pathlines, streaklines and timelines can also be visualized. Streakline is formed by all fluid particles emitted at the same location. Timeline is the contour formed by all fluid particles emitted at the same instant and represents the fluid front movement. In 3D, these two concepts are more generally visualized in groups of points rather than lines, so we refer to them as source cloud and time cloud. The proposed injection monitoring methods - Pathline, Source Cloud and Time Cloud - are tested using a 3D field-scale model with complex geologic features to demonstrate its power and utility. The pathlines were compared with streamlines, time of flight and the water saturation distribution. Three scenarios are tested: a constant well schedule, a changing well schedule with shut-ins, and a changing well schedule with fully injection cease. Results indicate that the pathline provides more accurate swept volume, consistent with saturation distribution. The robustness of our algorithm and implementation is demonstrated with a complex Embedded Discrete Fracature Model (EDFM) with non-neighbor connections to visualize flow patterns in discrete facture network. Pathlines display the fluid flow across fractures and are subsequently used to examine the sweep efficiency and the well connectivity.
- Asia > Middle East > Saudi Arabia (0.46)
- North America > United States > Texas (0.28)
- Asia > India > Rajasthan > Rajasthan Basin > Barmer Basin > Rajasthan Block > Mangala Field > Fatehgarh Formation (0.99)
- Asia > India > Rajasthan > Rajasthan Basin > Barmer Basin > Rajasthan Block > Mangala Field > Barmer Hill Formation (0.99)
- Asia > India > Rajasthan > Rajasthan Basin > Barmer Basin > Block RJ/ON-90/1 > Mangala Field > Fatehgarh Formation (0.99)
- Asia > India > Rajasthan > Rajasthan Basin > Barmer Basin > Block RJ/ON-90/1 > Mangala Field > Barmer Hill Formation (0.99)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation > Streamline simulation (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Fluid Dynamics > Flow in porous media (1.00)
- (4 more...)
Data Integration for Fracture Model Characterization in a Middle East Carbonate Reservoir
Colombi, N. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Bigoni, F. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Colin, R. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Bombaci, F. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Giamminonni, D. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Spaggiari, L. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy) | Mattonelli, V. (Eni Spa, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy)
Abstract The work is about the challenge of modelling a complex carbonate reservoir, where the fractures network represents large part of the flow capacity. The case study is an offshore field in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Emirate developed by primary depletion. The objective is to integrate the fracture system identified by the 3D seismic attribute with the available well data, quite old and with only an image log, to obtain a good match of the production history. A regional assessment was performed to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the study area and to identify the main structural domains. A final Discrete Fracture Network Model was obtained considering seismic and sub-seismic faults, through a proprietary workflow. The resulting fracture network, representing the larger scale fracture set, is not enough connected. An additional set of genetically similar fractures, at lower scale, was stochastically added to increase the intra field connectivity. Sensitivities were performed testing different ranges of the input parameters such as intensity and geometry, fitting the fracture power-law distribution. Multiple scenarios were verified within history match. The automatic lineaments features extracted were geometrical validated through a proprietary tool that allows to increase the signal/noise ratio and check the internal consistency of the lineament dataset. A calibration process, aimed to find the best parameters set-up, was performed, changing the input constraints matching the DFN with the few recorded wells mud losses. The results of the computation were the filtered set of consistent lineaments and a DFN composed by rectangular shape planes linked to them. An additional set of fractures, below the seismic resolution, was stochastically added to increase the system connectivity. Three different DFNs, with increasing number of discrete fractures, were obtained varying the fracture intensity driver. The fractures were then petrophysical characterized getting a Dual Porosity Dual Permeability model. A strong relationship between fracture intensity and well performance was observed, therefore the fracture petrophysical properties were straightforwardly tuned according to the available well test data. The DFN was able to capture the reservoir behavior in terms of gas rate, pressure and water break trough. Without the use of any numerical transmissibility barrier, the DFN allowed to reproduce the different depletion in the various areas of the reservoir. The approach proposed in this paper describes the workflow used in the company to estimate fractures contribution in a very complex environment integrating all the available data. Main challenges were represented by the description of the fractures and their permeability calibration. Simulation results confirmed the quality of the fractures characterization and observed flow capacity of the system. The adopted workflow can be helpful in similar fields with paucity of data, but long production life.
- Asia > Middle East > Yemen (1.00)
- Asia > Middle East > Saudi Arabia (1.00)
- Africa > Middle East > Djibouti (1.00)
- (4 more...)
- Geology > Structural Geology > Tectonics > Compressional Tectonics (1.00)
- Geology > Structural Geology > Fault (1.00)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (0.90)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Naturally-fractured reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation (1.00)
- (5 more...)
- Information Technology > Data Science > Data Integration (0.40)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning > Information Fusion (0.40)
A Study on Well Placement and Performance Forecasting in Uinta Basin Considering Geological Uncertainty
Eltahan, Esmail (The University of Texas at Austin) | Fiallos-Torres, Mauricio (The University of Texas at Austin / SLB) | Ganjdanesh, Reza (The University of Texas at Austin) | Sepehrnoori, Kamy (The University of Texas at Austin)
Abstract Reservoir uncertainty can be represented by an ensemble of physics-based models, each producing a satisfactory match to production history. Deterministic assumptions are often made for a subset of the uncertain parameters to make the problem more feasible. A key issue is that, even if the models accurately reproduce past production, different assumptions can lead to vastly different predictions for future production. Using three different modeling scenarios, we quantified the uncertainty in the reservoir/completion properties and initial conditions for two horizontal wells in the Uinta Basin. The obtained uncertainty is propagated further to report probabilistic production forecast and assess the well-spacing impact on oil recovery both for individual wells and for the whole field. We built a 1-by-2-mile reservoir-simulation model for the two wells of interest. We hypothesized three scenarios: (1) non-planar fracture geometry obtained by a fracture-propagation model (FPM), (2) planar fractures with uniform geometry, and (3) stimulated rock volume (SRV) region surrounding uniform fractures. The remaining uncertain parameters include fracture properties, initial saturations, relative permeability, and matrix and SRV permeability if applicable. We obtained multiple realizations using an assisted-history-matching method, and then production forecast is recorded over a 20-year period. The impact of well spacing is studied considering two cases: singly bounded, by placing only a pair of wells in the section, and fully bounded, by placing as many wells as possible. We showed that the modeling approach has a profound impact on the recovery estimates. We see a 30% decrease in oil recovery as we implement SRV permeability. Such a decrease in recovery is caused by the less permeable far-acting zone. Since fracture size is important for spacing effects, we consider the cases with longest half-length. Oil recovery starts to degrade only when spacing is less than 600 ft for scenario 3, or 700 ft for the others. We explain that the high permeability SRV regions dampen the pressure depletion, and hence interference effects. The degradation is observed to be 1.3 to 1.9 more severe if a well is fully bounded as opposed to singly bounded. Implementing a staggered (also known as modified zipper) configuration results in considerably better performance, particularly for short-term recovery.
- North America > United States > Texas (1.00)
- North America > United States > Colorado (0.84)
- North America > United States > Utah (0.70)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (1.00)
- Geology > Petroleum Play Type > Unconventional Play > Shale Play (0.46)
- North America > United States > Wyoming > Uinta Basin (0.99)
- North America > United States > Utah > Uinta Basin > Altamont-Bluebell Field > Altamont Field (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Eagle Ford Shale Formation (0.99)
- (33 more...)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation > History matching (1.00)
- (5 more...)
- Information Technology > Modeling & Simulation (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning > Statistical Learning (0.67)
Abstract Many geo-energy related applications involve predicting the behavior of fluid flow in fractured subsurface reservoirs. Naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs are particularly important for being a major source of the world's hydrocarbon production. These reservoirs are also currently being considered as potential CO2 storage sites that will support net zero emissions goal. Simulation of flow in fractured reservoirs is a challenging task that typically involves upscaling the effective permeability of the fracture network and matrix into continuum models that consider the reservoir scale. The most accurate way to obtain such upscaled permeability for fracture networks is to perform single-phase flow simulations in statistical realizations of the fracture network using three-dimensional unstructured grids and explicit modelling of fractures. This step can be computationally challenging for highly dense fracture networks due to the difficulty in meshing the fractures and the rock matrix. Here, we present a method to reduce the complexity of the fracture network while still preserving the behavior of its effective permeability. Our approach involves a fracture merging algorithm that reduces the number of fractures allowing for faster meshing and upscaling. The fracture merging algorithm uses three different similarity metrics: fracture orientation, fracture area and distance between fractures. These metrics are used to identify similar fractures that can be merged into one single fracture with increased permeability. The upscaling algorithm to obtain the effective permeability of a grid cell containing a fracture network relies on flow simulations in three-dimensional unstructured meshes. We applied our method to different sub-networks extracted from a stochastically generated fracture network of a Brazilian Pre-Salt carbonate reservoir. We found that the average permeability of all fractures of the resulting fracture network increases with merging intensity, i.e., with decreasing the number of fractures, while the resulting upscaled effective permeability for the network remains in the same order of magnitude. This shows that the flow-based upscaling workflow including the merging algorithm leads to a significant reduction of complexity of fracture networks and consequently their 3D unstructured meshes while maintaining the structural and topological features that account for the fracture network effective permeability. Our proposed method is simple to implement and relies only on geometrical properties of the fractures. Other machine-learning based models have been proposed to achieve similar simplification of fracture networks, however, they are not easily incorporated into existing reservoir simulation tools and codes like the method presented in this work. Moreover, such previously published approaches do not consider flow in matrix and thus haven't been tested in scenarios where the matrix also contributes to flow.
- Europe > United Kingdom > England (0.28)
- Europe > Austria (0.28)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Naturally-fractured reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation > Scaling methods (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Fluid Dynamics > Flow in porous media (1.00)
- Information Technology > Software (0.68)
- Information Technology > Modeling & Simulation (0.49)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning (0.48)
Abstract In this work, we develop a non-conforming reinterpreted discrete fracture model for the compressible miscible displacement and multicomponent gas flow in porous media containing high-permeability fractures and/or low-permeability barriers based on the hybrid-dimensional Darcy's law established in our previous work. The key idea of the model is to describe the permeability of codimension-one fractures and barriers by the Dirac-delta functions. When there are only fractures, delta functions are added to the permeability tensor on the right-hand side of the Darcy's law. In contrast, when there are only barriers, delta functions are added to the inverse of the permeability tensor, which represents the resistance to fluids, on the left-hand side of the Darcy's law. When both appear, delta functions are contained on both sides by the principle of superposition. Thereby, we establish partial differential equations (PDEs) to model fluid flow in fractured porous media, which exempts any requirements on meshes. We adopt the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method to discretize the model in space and the second order implicit pressure explicit concentration (SIMPEC) method to march in time. The resulting non-conforming discrete fracture model is local mass conservative, flexible for complex geometry and easy to implement. The good performance of the method is demonstrated by several numerical examples.
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Fluid Dynamics > Flow in porous media (1.00)
- Information Technology > Mathematics of Computing (0.46)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence (0.46)
A Hybrid Embedded Discrete Fracture Model and Dual-Porosity, Dual-Permeability Workflow for Hierarchical Treatment of Fractures in Practical Field Studies
Hui, Mun-Hong (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc (Corresponding author)) | Mallison, Bradley (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Thomas, Sunil (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Muron, Pierre (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Rousset, Matthieu (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Earnest, Evan (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Playton, Ted (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Vo, Hai (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc) | Jensen, Clair (Chevron Technical Center, a division of Chevron USA Inc)
Summary Natural fracture systems comprise numerous small features and relatively few large ones. At field scale, it is impractical to treat all fractures explicitly. We represent the largest fractures using an embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM) and account for smaller ones using a dual-porosity, dual-permeability (DPDK) idealized representation of the fracture network. The hybrid EDFM + DPDK approach uses consistent discretization schemes and efficiently simulates realistic field cases. Further speedup can be obtained using aggregation-based upscaling. Capabilities to visualize and post-process simulation results facilitate understanding for effective management of fractured reservoirs. The proposed approach embeds large discrete fractures as EDFM within a DPDK grid (which contains both matrix and idealized fracture continua for smaller fractures) and captures all connections among the triple media. In contrast with existing EDFM formulations, we account for discrete fracture spacing within each matrix cell via a new matrix-fracture transfer term and use consistent assumptions for classical EDFM and DPDK calculations. In addition, the workflow enables coarse EDFM representations using flow-based cell-aggregation upscaling for computational efficiency. Using a synthetic case, we show that the proposed EDFM + DPDK approach provides a close match of simulation results from a reference model that represents all fractures explicitly, while providing runtime speedup. It is also more accurate than previous standard EDFM and DPDK models. We demonstrate that the matrix-fracture transfer function agrees with flow-based upscaling of high-resolution fracture models. Next, the automated workflow is applied to a waterflooding study for a giant carbonate reservoir, with an ensemble of stochastic fracture realizations. The overall workflow provides the computational efficiency needed for performance forecasts in practical field studies, and the 3D visualization allows for the derivation of insights into recovery mechanisms. Finally, we apply a finite-volume tracer-based flux post-processing scheme on simulation results to analyze production allocation and sweep for understanding expected waterflood performance.
- North America > United States > Texas (1.00)
- Europe (1.00)
- Asia > Middle East (0.67)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline > Geomechanics (0.93)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate Rock (0.67)
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Naturally-fractured reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation > Scaling methods (1.00)
- (2 more...)
- Information Technology > Modeling & Simulation (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning (0.46)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning (0.46)
Summary Simulating unconventional reservoirs efficiently and accurately poses a big challenge. Transient flow can last for a long period and sharp solution gradients appear because of the severe permeability contrast between fracture and matrix. Although high-resolution well and fracture models are required to achieve sufficient accuracy, they are computationally too demanding for field models with many hydraulic-fracture stages. This paper aims to develop a nonlinear solution method, which is applicable to discrete fracture models (DFMs) for unconventional reservoirs. The localization algorithm takes advantage of solution locality on timestep and Newton iteration levels. We study the new method through multiple natural-depletion cases containing discrete fractures and compositional models. It is found that a large extent of solution locality displays over iterations as well as timesteps. The developed nonlinear solver exhibits outstanding simulation efficiency compared with a standard solver. A significant speedup is achieved by focusing computations to the locales that undergo considerable solution changes. Moreover, nonlinear convergence performance is maintained, with no degradation of the solution results.
- Well Completion > Hydraulic Fracturing (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs > Naturally-fractured reservoirs (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Simulation (1.00)
- (2 more...)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence (0.68)
- Information Technology > Modeling & Simulation (0.47)