Evaluation on Explicit Coupling Between Reservoir Simulators and Production System

Abstract

Various methodologies to model the coupling of reservoirs and production systems have been applied in the oil industry in recent years due to the need to model properly the integrated solution of models that represent the flow of fluids through the reservoir to the surface. These methodologies are used to solve the production forecast of multiple reservoirs, sharing production platforms with limited production e injection capacities ruled by complex production systems. They can be grouped into two basic types: implicit and explicit coupling methodologies. Explicit methodology can be an efficient choice to integrate simulations because allows coupling adequate simulators to model the whole system and also to grant flexibility in study of well management alternatives. However, it is necessary to test this type of procedure to check the quality of the results. Therefore, a validation study of explicit coupling methodology is presented in this work where the production system is tested on common operating conditions during production and injection of fluids, verifying benefits and limitations of explicit methodology. Some methods for improving the explicit response are proposed and evaluated. An example of application verifies the gain of flexibility in well prioritization by the group management obtained by use of an external methodology for reservoir simulator. The explicit coupling, as implemented, has shown a satisfactory result for the integration between the simulators, honoring all operating constraints set in evaluation cases. Some correction methodologies are necessaries to obtain stabilized results.