Applications of 3D Streamline Simulation To Assist History Matching

Abstract

Summary The use of 3D streamline methodologies as an alternative to finite-difference (FD) simulation has become more common in the oil industry during the past few years. When the assumptions for its application are satisfied, results from streamline simulation compare very well with those from FD and typically require less than 10% of the central processing unit (CPU) resources. The speed of 3D streamline simulation (3DSM) lends itself not just to simulation, but also to other components of the reservoir simulation work process. This characteristic is particularly true of history matching. History matching is frequently the most tedious and time-consuming part of a reservoir simulation study. In this paper, we describe a novel method that uses 3D streamline paths to assist in history matching either 3D streamline or FD models. We designated this technique Assisted History Matching (AHM) to distinguish it from automated history-matching techniques. In this manuscript, we describe this technique and its application to three reservoir simulation studies. The example models range in size from 105 to 106 gridblocks and contain as many as several hundred wells. These applications have led to refinements of the AHM methodology, the incorporation of several new algorithms, and some insights into the processes typically employed in history matching.