An Integrated Approach to Characterizing Bypassed Oil in Heterogeneous and Fractured Reservoirs Using Partitioning Tracers
We explore the use of efficient streamline-based simulation approaches for modeling and analysis partitioning interwell tracer tests in heterogeneous and fractured hydrocarbon reservoirs. We compare the streamline-based history matching techniques developed during the first two years of the project with the industry standard assisted history matching. We enhance the widely used assisted history matching in two important aspects that can significantly improve its efficiency and effectiveness. First, we utilize streamline-derived analytic sensitivities to relate the changes in reservoir properties to the production response. These sensitivities can be computed analytically and contain much more information than that used in the assisted history matching. Second, we utilize the sensitivities in an optimization procedure to determine the spatial distribution and magnitude of the changes in reservoir parameters needed to improve the history-match. By intervening at each iteration during the optimization process, we can retain control over the history matching process as in assisted history matching. This allows us to accept, reject, or modify changes during the automatic history matching process. We demonstrate the power of our method using two field examples with model sizes ranging from 10{sup 5} to 10{sup 6} grid blocks and with over one hundred wells. We have also extended the streamline-based production data integration technique to naturally fractured reservoirs using the dual porosity approach. The principal features of our method are the extension of streamline-derived analytic sensitivities to account for matrix-fracture interactions and the use of our previously proposed generalized travel time inversion for history matching. Our proposed workflow has been demonstrated by using both a dual porosity streamline simulator and a commercial finite difference simulator. Our approach is computationally efficient and well suited for large scale field applications in naturally fractured reservoirs with changing field conditions. This considerably broadens the applicability of the streamline-based analysis of tracer data and field production history for characterization of heterogeneous and fractured reservoirs.
- Research Organization:
- Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-02NT15345
- OSTI ID:
- 887489
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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An Integrated Approach to Characterizing Bypassed Oil in Heterogeneous and Fractured Reservoirs Using Partitioning Tracers
AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO CHARACTERIZING BYPASSED OIL IN HETEROGENEOUS AND FRACTURED RESERVOIRS USING PARTITIONING TRACERS