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Abstract
Well test analysis represent an essential component of
reservoir engineering analysis and management. It provides
estimates of reserves, heterogeneties, permeabilities, and
information on the status of wellbore conditions. A well
testing program can become prohibitively costly due to
equipment and personnel costs and lost production. It may not
be possible to design an effective well testing program that
includes all the important wells in a specific field. In this
paper, a novel Virtual Well Testing approach is presented.
The new method uses artificial neural networks (ANNs) to
generate virtual transient pressure data. The proposed method
does not eliminate the need for traditional well tests, but
provides a basis to extract more information from the existing
sets of transient pressure data. In virtual well testing, transient
pressure data from selected wells in the field are used to train
a neural network that is capable of predicting transient
pressure responses at other well locations where well tests
have not been conducted. The proposed methodology can also
be used for designing well tests and for completing the
partially recorded pressure measurements due to malfunction
of testing equipment.
This paper provides guidelines for selecting actual well
test locations, for choosing input parameter neurons and for
training the ANN. Several simulated case studies are used to
train and evaluate virtual well testing capabilities of the ANN.
The effects of the number of wells tested, well locations and
production histories are evaluated. The ANN is successful in
predicting interference effects and reservoir permeabilities.
The ANN generates reliable virtual transient pressure data in a
matter of seconds and is an effective reservoir engineering
analysis and management tool.
Introduction
Well testing is an important engineering tool in the petroleum
industry.
However, well testing can be prohibitively
expensive as it may demand a large amount of time,
equipment, and manpower. The work presented in this paper
deals with the application of neural networks to well testing.
The main objective of this work is to develop an artificial
neural network, which is capable of predicting transient
pressure responses without conducting an actual test. The
virtual pressure data generated by the neural network can be
used for the determination of reservoir characteristics with
traditional analysis procedures. The investigation presented in
this paper lays emphasis on providing guidelines for selecting
input to the network, and for selecting wells in the field for
conducting actual well tests. Parameters and well locations
are presented and the predictive capabilities of the network are
demonstrated.
The artificial neural network
A neural network is a non-algorithmic, non-digital, and
intensely parallel information processing system. A
backpropagation network (BPN)1 is used in this paper. A
backpropagation network is multilayered and information
flows from the input to the output through at least one
hidden/middle layer. Each layer contains neurons that are
connected to all neurons in the neighboring layers. The
connections have numerical values (weights) associated with
them. During the training phase, the weights are adjusted
according to the generalized delta rule1. Training is completed
when the network is able to predict the given output.
A simple BPN with one middle layer is shown in Fig. 1.
In a BPN, the input activity is transmitted forward while the
error is propagated backwards. The neurons in the BPN use a
transfer function that is sigmoid or S shaped. A key feature of
the sigmoid function is that it has a minimum value of 0 and a
maximum value of 1 and is differentiable everywhere with a
positive slope. The derivative of the transfer function is
required to calculate the error that is backpropagated and the
derivative of the sigmoid function is easy to calculate. The
sigmoid transfer function1 is given by
1
f (I ) =
.(1)
1 + e I
where I is the input to the neurons.
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h
B
tp
t
Dmod
Dist(well-adjwell)
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Network input
Flow-rate of the well, bpd
Flow-rate of the adjacent well, bpd
Dimensionless time
Oil viscosity, cp
Formation thickness, ft
Formation volume factor, RB/STB
Producing time, hours
Time after shut-in, hours
Modified distance
Distance between well and its adjacent
well
Well
1 (t)
2 (p)
3 (t)
4 (t)
5 (t)
6 (t)
7 (t)
8 (t)
9 (p)
10 (p)
11 (t)
12 (p)
13 (t)
14 (p)
15 (t)
16 (p)
17 (p)
18 (t)
19 (p)
20 (p)
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