Ninth SPE Comparative Solution Project: A Reexamination of Black-Oil Simulation

Abstract

Abstract The Ninth SPE Comparative Solution Project presented in the following paper provides a reexamination of black-oil simulation based on a model of moderate size (9,000 cells) and with a high degree of heterogeneity provided by a geostatistically-based permeability field. Nine participants provided data for the comparison which is based on a dipping reservoir with twenty-five somewhat randomly placed producers and a single water injector. Results showed that significant agreement could be achieved for this problem on the basis of total production rates, saturations, and reservoir pressures. On the other hand, rates for some individual wells did show variations of as much as 30% due to differing treatments of well flowing bottomhole pressures. All participants were able to simulate the study in fewer than sixty time-steps with an average of 4-5 Newton iterations per step. In addition, the results showed that this moderate-sized problem could be simulated in only a few minutes in a workstation environment for the two plus years of data.