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Petroleum Geoscience

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Unstructured 3D gridding and upscaling for coarse modelling of geometrically complex reservoirs

¹ Total E&P Syria, BP730, DHL Nanterre, 92007 Nanterre, France (e-mail: mathieu.prevost@total.com)
² IGEOSS, Cap Omega Rond Point B. Franklin CS3951 34960 Montpellier cedex 2 France(e-mail: francois.lepage@igeoss.com)
³ Stanford University, Green Earth Sciences Bldg, Stanford, CA 94305-2220, USA (e-mail: lou@stanford.edu)
⁴ CRPG, BP 20, 54501 Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy Cedex, France (e-mail: mallet@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr)

The generation of accurate and reliable unstructured 3D models for reservoir simulation remains a challenge. In this paper, new developments for grid generation, upscaling and streamline simulation for such models are described. In combination, these techniques provide a prototype workflow for the construction of unstructured simulation models. The grid generation framework described here allows the incorporation of both geometrical constraints and grid-resolution targets. Flow adaptation of the unstructured grid (i.e. higher grid density in key regions) is accomplished through the use of single-phase flow calculations on the underlying geocellular grid, which are used to generate target grid resolution maps for the unstructured coarse model. A novel transmissibility upscaling procedure is introduced to capture the effects of fine-scale heterogeneity. A new method for streamline simulation on unstructured grids is also introduced. This technique provides an efficient flow-based diagnostic for the assessment of the coarse simulation model in terms of flow response. The performance of the various components of the methodology is demonstrated using several examples.

KEYWORDS: unstructured grids, upscaling, streamline simulation, reservoir simulation, grid generation