Stochastic models are widely used in the petroleum industry for reservoir characterization. Although there is now an extensive literature on the subject either presenting new models or revisiting older ones, most of these papers have been written with the professional geostatistician in mind. This makes it rather difficult for potential users to understand the methods and to work out their strong and weak points. This paper reviews the broad families of stochastic models that are currently available from a practical point of view. Users are faced with a number of questions like whether to use pixels or object based methods, or how to incorporate various type of information. These points will be addressed in this paper.

Keywords:
information, probability, upstream oil & gas, simulation, correlation, indicator, reservoir characterization, algorithm, geology, facies
Subjects:
Reservoir Characterization, Reservoir Simulation, Formation Evaluation & Management, Information Management and Systems, Geologic modeling, Seismic processing and interpretation, Artificial intelligence
Copyright 1997, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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