Powerful Suite for Geomechanics Analysis for Hydrocarbon Production and Recovery Processes

The present challenges in exploitation of oil and gas reservoirs demand simulation tools that incorporate the geomechanics in order to manage the hydrocarbon reserves minimizing the risks. The exploitation and production of reservoirs such as heavy oil reservoirs are typical productive scenarios of recovery, in which the geomechanical risks can reach consequences such as compaction and subsidence, among other geomechanical events. To face these challenges the Research Group in Applied Geomechanics (GIGA) from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellin Campus has been developed the GIGA THOR (Thermal Heavy Oil Recovery), a complete and powerful suite for geomechanics analysis during developments of production and recovery of hydrocarbon reservoirs under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions, i.e., primary and thermal recovery techniques. The main core of the suite is a numerical simulator with 3D single well model that fully couples a fluid flow model with an elastoplastic stress-strain model including temperature. The temperature inclusion as a variable spread to applications as thermal recovery techniques with steam as cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam flooding. The geomechanics analysis let to evaluate the integrity of the reservoir formation and the caprock during cold and thermal recovery scenarios, including compaction and subsidence, and increasing the recovery factor and reducing these geohazard risks. An additional module of the suite is included for the sand production analysis that evaluates and predicts the sand production during cold and thermal recovery processes displaying as results the sand production envelope for each productive interval and the critical borehole pressure log. The module even quantifies the produced sand. This paper presents in detail the features and capacities of the complete and integrated suite and some application cases to illustrate its value and potential of the suite as a reservoir surveillance tool to optimize and increase the oil productivity under stable geomechanical conditions.