Accurate modeling of flow path connectivity is critical toreservoir flow performance prediction. Flow pathconnectivity is controlled by the complex shape, extent andspatial relationships between pay intervals, their intersectionwith wells, and the existence of flow barriers between wells.This reservoir heterogeneity can be captured in a flowsimulation model as facies patterns among cells and aseffective properties within cells (porosity and permeability).However, fine-scale, irregularly-shaped flow barriers betweencells cannot be accurately represented with pixel-basedmodeling techniques.To preserve these important fine-scale geological features atthe flow simulation block scale, an additional modelingvariable is introduced as the edge of a model cell. This celledge is a continuous or categorical value associated with thecell face and is defined in conjunction with the cell centeredproperty which is often reserved for facies types and/orpetrophysical properties. An edge model is created thatcaptures the facies and edge properties as a vector ofinformation at each cell location. For the flow simulationmodel, the edge properties are easily translated intotransmissibility multipliers.Using the example of 3D shale-drapes attached to channelsandbodies in a deep water depositional setting, amethodology is presented in which these shale drapes areaccurately upscaled and history matched to production datawhile maintaining the geological concept that describes thedrape geometry. The perturbation parameter in historymatching is the continuity of the shales as an edge property.More generally, this coupled modeling of cell-center and celledgeallows for more flexible reservoir modeling, opening upthe potential for modeling and history matching complexgeological features effectively at the scale that they arerelevant, without additional computational cost of flowsimulation.
展开▼
