Chapter 6: Fact-Based Reservoir Management

This book is about data-driven reservoir modeling and its implementation by the author in the form of top-down modeling (TDM). It is important to put data-driven reservoir modeling and TDM in perspective from a reservoir management point of view. In this chapter, we visit the impact of this reservoir-modeling technology in reservoir management and call it data-driven reservoir management or fact-based reservoir management.

Reservoir management has been defined as use of financial, technological, and human resources to minimize capital investments and operating expenses and to maximize economic recovery of oil and gas from a reservoir. The purpose of reservoir management is to control operations in order to obtain the maximum possible economic recovery from a reservoir on the basis of facts, information, and knowledge (Thakur 1996). Historically, tools that have been successfully and effectively used in reservoir management integrate geology, petrophysics, geophysics, and petroleum engineering throughout the life cycle of a hydrocarbon asset. Through the use of technologies such as remote sensors and simulation modeling, reservoir management can improve production rates and increase the total amount of oil and gas recovered from a field (Chevron Corporation 2012).