Parallel Computation for Complex Wells Modeling in Full-Field Reservoir Simulation

In the current practice, ICD/ICV design parameters (e.g., number of compartments, compartment size, number of nozzles, and nozzle sizes) are optimized by a manual trial-and-error approach that requires tens to hundreds of iterations. To make the design process efficient and effective, an automated optimizer is desired. In addition, as more and more ICD/ICV wells are completed, reservoir simulation faces a challenge on how to efficiently run full field models with multiple ICD/ICV wells. This paper presents a new automated ICD/ICV design optimizer and an efficient way to run full field reservoir simulation with hundreds of ICD/ICV wells. The new optimizer uses oil recovery efficiency as its objective function. The optimizer works on injectors and producers separately. For injectors, the optimizer adjusts the packer locations, number of nozzles, and nozzle sizes to make the injection velocity along the wellbore as uniform as possible to ensure a uniform injection front. For producers, a five step optimization process is applied. Step 1 is to generate injected fluid flow travel times in 3D from injectors to producers and all major flow "highways" are identified. Step 2, the optimizer uses fluid travel times in a producer to automatically estimate number of compartments needed and adjust the compartment boundaries (packers) to match the "highways" identified, estimate number of nozzles needed and initial nozzle sizes to maximize oil production rate. No reservoir simulation is required in steps 1 and 2. Step 3 is to run a full field reservoir simulation with all design wells to tune and achieve the final nozzle sizes. Step 4 is to QC and analyze the results of all ICD/ICV wells and select all successful candidates for the final step, i.e., step 5 reconciliation of the designs with all other drilling/completion constraints. The optimizer is fully supported by the efficient well management logic which accurately and efficiently links ICDs/ICVs with reservoir simulation. Using the well management logic removes the needs of coupling between well simulation tools (e.g., NETool) and reservoir simulation software, and then makes full field simulations efficient. The new optimizer and well management logic have been applied and demonstrated significant values in a giant oil field in UAE. Compared to the traditional one-well-at-a-time well design, the new optimizer optimizes multiple ICD/ICV design wells at a time and results in better and faster designs with speedups in a range of several factors to an order of magnitude. The optimization is global and within the context of full field model. Running 370 ICD/ICV wells with the well management logic for a multi-million-cell reservoir simulation model only slows down the full field simulation around 10%.

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Optimization Based Well Management for Coupling Giant Reservoir Models

Middya

Crumpton

Tariq

2019

Day 1 Wed, April 10, 2019

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The objective is to couple tens of full-field giant reservoirs and apply optimized-based well management system to the all the flowing wells to manage a high level production plateau and injection system. In this work each individual reservoir simulation model is a giant field, with a large historical (70y) and prediction (200y) time periods, 10s of millions of cells and thousands of wells, many injection and production constraints and drilling targets. Each of these giant fields requires a parallel supercomputer to run each individual model in a reasonable time. To couple many of these models they are all executed as one combined parallel job, which is subdivided in groups of processes dedicated for individual reservoirs. A layered communication hierarchy is used, which facilitates coordination and synchronization of the individual reservoirs and the optimization and allocation of the production and injection targets of every well and group of wells in the coupled system. Great effort was placed on making the user workflow very simple; having established a history and prediction field-scale model, the coupling can be achieved by a straightforward manipulation of the individual field-scale models, and high-level constraints and targets can be added to the coupled system. To alleviate some run time/resource issues, the level of detail required for each model was chosen by activating a coarsening facility within the reservoir simulator. This reduced the simulation resources needed for individual fields, but exacerbated the potential bottleneck of the optimization engine, as all well and group constraints were preserved in the coupled model. To stress test this system, up to 15 giant models were coupled, with over 15 thousand wells managed by an optimized based well management system. The single node responsible for allocation of all the wells was not found to be a bottleneck in the system. The journey from the detailed full-field giant model to a coupled super-giant coupled model has many challenges. Here, these are alleviated by tight and efficient integration of the coupling optimized-based well management system and the massively parallel reservoir simulator. This paper demonstrates a new industry high water mark for the coupling of reservoir models.

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Parallel Computation for Complex Wells Modeling in Full-Field Reservoir Simulation

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

Towards HPC simulations of billion-cell reservoirs by multiscale mixed methods

Towards HPC simulations of billion-cell reservoirs by multiscale mixed methods

A New ICD/ICV Well Completion Design Optimizer and Well Management Logic for Full Field Reservoir Simulation with Multiple ICD/ICV wells

Optimization Based Well Management for Coupling Giant Reservoir Models

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