Nested Gridding and Streamline-Based Simulation for Fast Reservoir Performance Prediction

Gautier, Yann; Blunt, Martin J.; Christie, Michael

doi:10.2118/51931-ms

Cited by 33 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Upscaling methods offer an opportunity to reduce the size of the problem by decreasing the spatial resolution needed to adequately represent the simulation problem. As stated by de Marsily et al (2005) and demonstrated by several authors (e.g., Renard and de Marsily 1997;Ewing 1998;Gautier et al 1999), the goal of upscaling is to average the fine-scale properties such that flow calculations made at the upscaled level using the upscaled parameters provide a solution as close as possible to the one that could have been calculated in a high-resolution simulation on the finer grid with the original parameter values. Thus, the solution to this problem may lie in the development of appropriate upscaling methodologies.…”

Section: Models One Approach Is To Incorporate Only the Large-scale mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vadose Zone Transport Field Study: Summary Report

Ward¹,

Conrad²,

Daily³

et al. 2006

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SummaryA series of field studies were conducted at the Hanford Site, near Richland, Washington, from FY 2000 through FY 2003 at two different locations to develop data sets to test models of flow and transport in the vadose zone. The field studies were also done to investigate advanced monitoring techniques for evaluating flow-and-transport mechanisms and delineating contaminant plumes in the vadose zone at the Hanford Site. The studies were conducted as part of the Groundwater/Vadose Zone Integration Project Science and Technology Project, now known as the Remediation and Closure Science Project, managed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office. This report summarizes the key findings from the field studies and demonstrates how data collected from these studies are being used to improve conceptual models and develop numerical models of flow and transport in Hanford's vadose zone. Results from the field studies and associated analysis have appeared in more than 46 publications generated over the past 4 years. These publications include test plans and status reports in addition to numerous technical notes and papers.Two major field campaigns were performed, one at a well injection test site and a second at a clastic dike test site. Both field studies have resulted in field-scale transport parameters for Hanford conditions, which are useful for improving predictions of subsurface flow and transport at the Hanford Site. In addition, advanced geophysical methods, including high resolution electrical resistivity measurements, were successfully tested and are now being deployed at Hanford for subsurface investigations and tank retrieval detection. The most useful information gained from these studies has been a better understanding of flow and transport in the vadose zone, and this has been specifically related to the impact of small-scale stratigraphic features (e.g., sediment layering) on water flow and contaminant transport. Conceptual models have been developed that take into account the lateral spreading of water and contaminants observed in the field studies. Numerical models of unsaturated flow and transport have been revised to account for lateral spreading of subsurface contaminant plumes.The key results from these studies include: 1) Greater understanding of the complexity of plume migration in the vadose zone at Hanford. Finescale geologic heterogeneities, including grain fabric and lamination, were observed to have a strong effect on the large-scale behavior of contaminant plumes, primarily through increased lateral spreading resulting from anisotropy.2) Observations of anion exclusion in Hanford sediments. Anion exclusion is a mechanism by which negatively charged ions are repelled from the surfaces of negatively charged soil particles, thereby increasing their velocity. Thus, the travel time of ions like pertechnetate, the stable form of 99 Tc found in oxidized environments, may decrease over that of unsaturated water f...

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Section: Models One Approach Is To Incorporate Only the Large-scale mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vadose Zone Transport Field Study: Summary Report

Ward¹,

Conrad²,

Daily³

et al. 2006

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show abstract

“…Since the pressure equation is elliptic, a coarse grid can be used to solve it. It was introduced by Ramiˊe and Killough (1991) and has been used for two-phase flow by Guèrillot and Verdière (1995), and Gautier et al (1999).…”

Section: Dual Mesh Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling for Thermal Recovery

Abubakar¹,

Muggeridge²,

King³

2014

SPE International Heavy Oil Conference and Exhibition

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Thermal recovery is one of the most widely applied EOR methods worldwide. It is used mainly to improve the recovery of more viscous oils. Heat is used primarily to reduce the viscosity of oil but may also improve recovery by other mechanisms such as oil expansion, steam distillation and reduction in capillary forces. As a result, the prediction of thermal recovery performance requires more complex and computationally demanding numerical simulations than is the case when evaluating a waterflood. The simulator has to evaluate the impact of both heat transfer and compositional behaviour on the fluid flows.In most cases the engineer will have to use coarser grids in the simulation models than would be needed for a waterflood in order to keep simulation times within acceptable limits. However, it has been shown in the modelling of other EOR processes that in fact much finer grids may be needed to capture the frontal dynamics of the displacement than would be the case in waterflooding. As a result, the simulation of steamflooding on the field scale is unlikely to capture the impact of small scale heterogeneity on flow, as well as being severely affected by numerical dispersion. The ideal solution is to use homogenization to capture the effects of sub-grid-block heterogeneity combined with advanced numerical techniques such as dynamic/adaptive gridding or higher order schemes to reduce the impact of numerical diffusion and dispersion. However, such methods are not currently available in the commercial simulators available to most engineers.The alternative is to use upscaling, but as yet there are no upscaling methodologies suitable for thermal oil recovery methods. Upscaling is a way of altering the inputs to numerical flow models so that simulations run on a coarse grid. These will a) predict the impacts on flow of sub-grid heterogeneity (homogenization) and b) will be less affected by numerical dispersion. For waterflooding this is typically achieved by calculating the effective absolute permeability for each coarse grid cell. In many cases, it is also necessary to upscale the well index and the transmissibilities of the well blocks. Upscaling the absolute permeability, the well index and the well block transmissibilities, ensures that the overall pressure drop for single phase flow between wells is correctly predicted in the coarse grid, whilst upscaling the relative permeabilities ensures that the two-phase flow effects (pressure drop, breakthrough time and water cut development) are correctly modelled. Although there is a significant literature on single-phase upscaling and the development of pseudo relative permeabilities for waterflooding applications, these methods do not capture the heat transport or the impact of temperature on the oil mobility. ivIn this research, a combination of pseudoisation procedures (by making reasonable assumptions) with the Buckley-Leverett solution approximated for thermal EOR processes is used to derive analytical pseudo-relative permeabilities for both hot water and steam ...

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“…However, the permeability of the coarse cells must be evaluated dynamically by flow calculations so that the upscaled models produce simulation results adequately close to the fine grid models. Streamline simulation is suitable both for designing non-uniform grid configuration aligned with streamlines 13) and for validation of the upscaled models readily visualizing streamlines 14) . We have developed a technique for the upscaling application implementing full-tensor permeability and non-orthogonal grids.…”

Section: Upscalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reservoir Simulation Technology by Streamline-based Methods

Arihara

2005

J. Jpn. Petrol. Inst.

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Detailed geological models can now be developed by interpreting different data in a consistent and integrated manner with the advances in computer technology and stochastic methods. Reservoir simulation is important for reducing uncertainties in geological models by history matching with dynamic data. Streamline-based simulation has advantages over conventional finite-difference models in computation speed, accuracy, and visualization. Faster computation is attributed to less frequent solutions of the pressure equation, one-dimensional solutions along streamlines replacing three-dimensional flow calculations, and operator splitting. Streamline-based simulation is particularly suited to repeated history matching for multiple equi-probable geological models. Applications are demonstrated with model development for upscaling, tracer flow simulation, automatic history matching, and dual-porosity modeling.

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Nested Gridding and Streamline-Based Simulation for Fast Reservoir Performance Prediction

Abstract: This paper was prepared for presentation at the 1999 Reservoir Simulation Symposium, held in Houston, Texas, 14-17 February 1999.

Cited by 33 publications

References 13 publications

Vadose Zone Transport Field Study: Summary Report

Vadose Zone Transport Field Study: Summary Report

Upscaling for Thermal Recovery

Reservoir Simulation Technology by Streamline-based Methods

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