Abstract
The oil and gas industry has a long history of model construction relying on the integration on multiple disciplines including seismic, sedimentology, geology and petrophysics. It is undeniable that all steps are required to lead to a good characterization of the studied reservoir and to provide reliable and realistic predictions. However the necessary time to finalize each step often leads to a modeling process of several years. This paper therefore discusses an alternative workflow, or Fast-Track modeling approach, which allows generating a representative and matched reservoir model in a considerably reduced time. This approach consists in:
Using in-house technology for porosity/permeability prediction and property population.
Introducing a new capillary pressure design and dynamic rock-typing concept.
Using automated history matching tools to fine tune the match at the well level.
This workflow ensures achieving a better petrophysical properties consistency between logs, cores and models, a more representative asset volume estimates and also prevents utilization of non-measured parameters such as irreducible water saturation (Swc's) or unproven and extensive permeability multipliers. This altogether contributes in reducing convergences problems as well as providing more consistent dynamic model setup.
This workflow was applied on a complex offshore reservoir consisting of a large gas cap and significant oil rim. The results and achievements are presented within this paper and demonstrate the suitability of this workflow as a short term alternative and shortcut to complex simulation modeling, in waiting of all adequate studies to be completed and integrated in a detailed reservoir model.