Real-world reservoirs are layered, heterogeneous and anisotropic,
exposed to water and gas drives, faults, barriers and fractures. They
are produced by systems of vertical, deviated, horizontal and
multilateral wells whose locations, sizes, shapes and topologies are
dictated "on the fly, at random"by petroleum engineers and drillers at
well sites. Wells may be pressure or rate-constrained, with these roles
re-assigned during simulation with older laterals shut-in, newer wells
drilled and brought on stream, and so on. And all are subject to steady
and transient production, each satisfying different physical and
mathematical laws, making reservoir simulation an art difficult to
master and introducing numerous barriers to entry. All of these
important processes can now be simulated in any order using rapid,
stable and accurate computational models developed over two decades.
And what if it were further possible to sketch complicated geologies and
lithologies, plus equally complex systems of general wells,
layer-by-layer using Windows Notepad? And with no prior reservoir
simulation experience and only passing exposure to reservoir engineering
principles? Have the user press "Simulate," and literally, within
minutes, produce complicated field-wide results, production forecasts,
and detailed three-dimensional color pressure plots from integrated
graphics algorithms?
Developed over years of research, this possibility has become reality.
The author, an M.I.T. trained scientist who has authored fifteen
original research books, over a hundred papers and forty patents, winner
of a prestigious British Petroleum Chairman's Innovation Award in
reservoir engineering and a record five awards from the United States
Department of Energy, has delivered just such a product, making
real-time planning at the well-site simple and practical. Workflows
developed from experience as a practicing reservoir engineer are
incorporated into "intelligent menus" that make in-depth understanding
of simulation principles and readings of user manuals unnecessary. This
volume describes new technology for down-to-earth problems using
numerous examples performed with our state-of-the-art simulator, one
that is available separately at affordable cost and requiring only
simple Intel Core i5 computers without specialized graphics boards. The
new methods are rigorous, validated and well-documented and are now
available for broad petroleum industry application.
