Data-based support for petroleum prospect evaluation

Abstract

We consider the challenging task of evaluating the commercial viability of hydrocarbon prospects based on limited information, and in limited time. We investigate purely data-driven approaches to predicting key reservoir parameters and obtain a negative result: the information that is typically available for prospect evaluation and is suitable for data-based methods, cannot be used for the required predictions. We can show however that the same information is sufficient to produce a limited list of potentially similar well-explored reservoirs (known as analogues) that can support the prospect evaluation work of human geoscientists. We base the proposal of analogues on similarity measures on the data available about prospects. Technically, the challenge is to define suitable similarity measures on categorical data like depositional environment or rock types. Existing data-based similarity measures for categorical data do not perform well, since they do not take geological domain knowledge into account. We propose two novel similarity measures that use domain knowledge in the form of hierarchies on categorical values. Comparative evaluation shows that the semantic-based similarity measures outperform the existing data-driven approaches and are effective in comparison to the human analogue selection.

Oil reservoir recovery factor assessment using Bayesian networks based on advanced approaches to analogues clustering

“…There have been several attempts to tackle this problem based solely on data-driven approaches. Mumtaz et al [35] used different similarity measures, especially for categorical variables, to handle conceptual geological knowledge. Although the search for analogues reservoirs outperformed human selection, the authors claimed that there is no possibility of directly predicting the field's production and commercial outcomes based on reservoirs data only.…”

Risk Assessment of Atmospheric Pressure Storage Tank Groups Based on AST RBI

“…A group of atmospheric storage tanks is a collection of several atmospheric storage tanks for the storage and handling of liquid or gaseous substances [6][7]. These tanks usually have a similar structure and function to meet specific industrial requirements.…”

Avaliação de recursos de gás em folhelho (Shale Gas) na Formação Barreirinha, Bacia do Amazonas, e suas perspectivas para a Amazônia

“…Ainda que as analogias para recursos de GF apresentem restrições quanto às informações dos prospectos, bem como de interpretação e de escala física e temporal -dada a heterogeneidade dos reservatórios (MUMTAZ et al, 2020;OLIVEIRA, 2015;SANTOS, 2015) -; seu uso provê direcionamentos para a exploração de acumulações mais bem definidas e para decisões de investimentos ao integrar analogias entre áreas correlatas e entre seus respectivos volumes de gás (SCHMOKER, 2002;XINJUN et al, 2012) validação do potencial para gás em folhelho na Bacia do Amazonas. Isso é observado pela delimitação de uma zona prospectiva (Fig.…”