Marginal Field Development Advances in 3D Geological Modeling: How it can help?

Marginal Field Development

Advances in 3D Geological Modeling: How it can help?

Economic Drivers

How much oil or gas is there? How much is recoverable? How fast it can be recovered? How much capital expenditure required? What will be return on investment?

Economics is constrained & guided by technical complexities & challenges…..how well we understand the field

Thrust Areas: New Technology

Data Acquisition & Processing Seismic Interpretation Formation Evaluation, Well Stimulation & Well Control Reservoir Modeling & Simulation Drilling & Related Services Facilities & logistics Information Technology

Marginal fields have constraints on heavy data acquisition program

- Field understanding is based on limited data - Dealing with Risk when limited data pose high uncertainty

The real challenge with marginal field is probably not in selecting the best technology but in the way these technologies will be managed.

Technological Drivers

New algorithms New Workflows Powerful computing capabilities Improved integration of various type of data Improvement in existing algorithms Improved workflows Efforts are directed towards development of technologies that are faster, automated, scalable, reproducible and provide realistic representations

Technological Innovations

3D Geological Modeling Seismic Technology Formation Evaluation Strategy Drilling Technology Extended Well Tests (EWT) Early Production Systems (EPS) Intelligent Completions

Aim of technological innovation is to reduce economic & project risk

3D Geological Modeling

Challenges Reservoir pose challenge –structure & stratigraphy Challenge is to realistically represent reservoirs Data explosion Reservoir quality & Volumetric Challenges are related to- scale, technology, & skill

Understanding the reservoir and the associated uncertainty/ risk is key….even in marginal fields

3D Geological Modeling Workflow

StratigraphicModeling

PillarGridding

Well Log Upscale

Facies & Petrophysical

Modeling

Make contacts & Volume Calculation

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Property Modeling

Make Horizons Zones & Layering

3D Grid Construction: Structural Modeling S

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3D Grid ConstructionStructural Framework

Fault Modeling

3D Grid ConstructionStructural Gridding

Introduction Surfaces and Data edit

New Algorithms- Structural Modeling

9

New Algorithm- Model Update

Facies updated in region around new well

Petrophysics updated in region around new well

New well shows low NTG compared to 3D model

New Algorithm-Model Update

Porosity

Facies

Updated modelOriginal model

Improved Algorithm-Integration with Seismic

Seismic Technology can identify Geobodies Geobodies can be incorporated in reservoir models for better

charchaterization Move from stochastic to semi-deterministic

Improved Algorithms- Integration of Various Data

Initial Model Built from geological data, geophysical and petrophysical data

Well Testing provides additional information

Models can be calibrated to handle additional information

No Distance conditioning Distance conditioning

New Algorithms- Capturing Reality

• 15 biggest geobodies extracted

• Well match

Conditioned Simulation (Hard Data)

Dealing with Uncertainty

Uncertainty spectrum is very important for marginal fields Evaluation of scenario uncertainty is more important than generating

multiple realizations for marginal fields

Handling Different Scenarios and Realizations in Petrel

Scenario 1: Petrel geo model 1

Realizations:

Scenario 2: Petrel geo model 2

Scenario 3: Petrel geo model 3

1_11_2

1_N 2_12_2

2_N 3_13_2

3_N

3_3

Volume distributions:

. . . . . .. . .

•Use nested approach: For each scenario, run multiple realizations.•The Cases pane is used to organize the results.

Technical Advantages

Fast Model Building Better integration with various data Rapid model updates Easy and Simple Workflow Faster & Better Decision Making

Conclusion

New geological concepts development New Data Acquisitions Technology (Logs, Seismic) New & Improved Interpretation techniques Integrated Solutions & Multidisciplinary studies Project Management