Reservoir simulation

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Reservoir simulation is an area of reservoir engineering in which computer models are used to predict the flow of fluids (typically, oil, water, and gas) through porous media.

1 Uses
2 Fundamentals
3 Applications
4 See also

[edit] Uses

Reservoir simulation models are predominantly used by major oil and gas companies in the development of new oil fields. As building and maintaining robust, reliable models of fields is often time-consuming and expensive, models are typically only constructed where large investment decisions are at stake.

[edit] Fundamentals

Traditional finite difference simulators dominate both theoretical and practical work in reservoir simulation. Conventional FD simulation is underpinned by three physical concepts: conservation of mass, isothermal fluid phase behavior, and the Darcy approximation of fluid flow through porous media. Thermal simulators (most commonly used for heavy-oil applications) add conservation of energy to this list, allowing temperatures to change within the reservoir. Finite difference models come in both structured and more complicated unstructured grids, as well as a variety of different fluid formulations, including black oil and compositional.

Other types of simulators include finite element and streamline.

[edit] Applications

Several reservoir simulators have been written over the years. Vendor software includes (alphabetically):

ECLIPSE, by SIS, a division of Schlumberger
GREAT and WFlood by SiteLark
MKT, by TimeZYX
Sensor, by Coats Engineering, with original funding from Phillips Petroleum Company (now ConocoPhillips)
STARS,IMEX and GEM by Computer Modeling Group
SURE, by SMT
Tempest, by Roxar
tNavigator, by Rock Flow Dynamics
VIP and Nexus, by Landmark, a division of Halliburton
3DSL, by Streamsim Technologies

So-called "in-house" packages have been developed by several major oil and gas companies, including (again, alphabetically):

CHEARS, by Chevron
EMpower, by ExxonMobil
MoReS, by Royal Dutch Shell
POWERS, by Saudi Aramco

The structural and reservoir property information required for many simulations is often provided by geologic modelling software. Many reservoir simulators are part of a software suite that assists data input and results analysis. Separate systems that rely on reservoir simulators also exist. They assist the performance of such tasks as history matching, making multiple simulations and analysis of forecasts.