Technology Focus: Reservoir Performance and Modeling (September 2011)

Abstract

Technology Focus The Future Is Already Here, Today! What are the future trends in reservoir management and monitoring, and how will new technology and new ways of communicating change the way we manage our reservoirs? Over the past couple of decades, we have seen significant progress in surveillance, data gathering, and computing capabilities. What are the biggest challenges and opportunities going forward? As the light-oil component of global production decreases, increasing the emphasis on heavy-oil, oil-sand, and natural-gas production will pose new challenges. The number of sensors is increasing, the amount of data is increasing, real-time data are common, and automated analysis is becoming commonplace. How do reservoir-management practices change to accommodate this trend? As technology advances and as nanotechnology enters the stage, our ability to translate data into information and our ability to make decisions on the basis of this information may improve. How will automation and closed-loop reservoir management influence our risk-handling and management decisions? These were among the questions discussed at the SPE Reservoir Surveillance and Data Acquisition 2020 Forum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 2011. Automated adjustment of chokes and automated choking of zones are possible today. To use this automation fully, we need to trust the data flow, the analysis of the information, and that the correct action is implemented. Safety concerns are another key aspect to consider. Regardless of the challenges, automation is an emerging trend. Spatial gathering of data also is getting increasingly more focused. This gathering could be crosswell information, data along the well path, or a collection of time-lapse (4D) or electromagnetic data. Integration of different information and data is key to future success. Geological and reservoir models still are the most common way of integration, but generation of data-driven models honoring the physics is one of the new trends. Integration is mostly about the integration of people, making all data available to everybody at the same time and in a format that can be understood by everyone. The selected papers are excellent examples of emerging trends and represent the shape of things to come in reservoir management and performance monitoring. Reservoir Performance and Monitoring additional reading available at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org SPE 131370 • “Using Downhole-Temperature Measurements To Assist Reservoir Characterization and Optimization” by Zhuoyi Li, SPE, Texas A&M University, et al. SPE 134313 • “Large-Scale Laboratory Testing of Petroleum-Reservoir Processes” by David P. Yale, ExxonMobil, et al. SPE 136378 • “Selection of Decision Variables for Large-Scale Production-Optimization Problems Applied to Brugge Field” by Masoud Asadollahi, IRIS/NTNU, et al. SPE 137750 • “Unconventional Imaging for Unconventional Reservoirs” by C.J. Leskiw, University of Calgary, et al.