Eighth SPE Comparative Solution Project: Gridding Techniques in Reservoir Simulation

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports the results of a Comparative Solution Project (CSP) which compares different flexible gridding techniques now available in some reservoir simulators. This CSP was performed by five participants and the problem posed is a 3D simulation of oil production associated with gas injection in a four layer reservoir. The participants were asked to provide two sets of results with the same simulator : the first set corresponding to a simulation run with a regular 10x10x4 Cartesian grid, and a second set corresponding to a simulation run with a flexible grid optimised to have as few grid nodes as possible. Two different types of flexible grid have been used by the participants, Control Volume grids (CVG) [1,2], and Locally Refined Cartesian grids (LRCG) [3,4], These grids are shown in the paper. With flexible grids, all participants could reduce the number of grid nodes by a factor four or more, while keeping the simulation results close to those obtained with the regular 10x10x4 Cartesian grid.