SPE 51896

Delumping Compositional Reservoir Simulation Results: Theory and Applications

John W. Barker, SPE, and Claude F. Leibovici (Elf Exploration Production)

Copyright 1999, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Inc.

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 1999 SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium
held in Houston, Texas, 1417 February 1999.
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Abstract
A recently published method for delumping the results of a
compositional reservoir simulation is used to predict variations
in composition of the produced fluids during the life of a real
gas condensate reservoir.
Introduction
In compositional reservoir simulation, a relatively small
number of components are used to describe the reservoir fluid,
because of the computing costs involved. However, the
compositions of the produced fluids calculated by the reservoir
simulation are used as input for the design of the surface
facilities. These latter calculations typically require use of a
larger number of components. It is therefore necessary to
delump the results of the reservoir simulation (i.e. to estimate
the composition of the produced fluids in terms of the larger
number of detailed components given only the composition
in terms of the smaller number of lumped components)1,2.
In a previous paper1, Leibovici, Barker and Wach (LBW)
described a new method for performing this delumping. The
method involves delumping the results of the flash calculation
made in each grid block at each time step during the reservoir
simulation using a previously published algorithm3 and
computing the flow of each component between grid blocks
using the phase fluxes already calculated by the reservoir
simulator. The additional components in the detailed fluid
description are effectively treated as tracers that partition
between the oil and gas phases, the partition coefficients being
recalculated in each grid block at each time step from the
delumping of the corresponding flash. For more details, the
reviewer is referred to the original paper1.
Prior to publication of the LBW method, no satisfactory
alternative method was available. The standard procedure is to

assume that the proportions of each detailed component within

a lumped component remain constant throughout the field life.
In the previous paper1, the method was tested very
successfully on a number of synthetic test problems. In this
paper, we describe an application of the method to a real gas
condensate reservoir.
Background
The reservoir in question is an onshore one in the Middle East.
It is essentially a gas reservoir though there is an oil rim in
part of the field. The gas contains about 1 sm3 of condensate
per 3000 sm3 (less at the top of the reservoir, more near the
gas-oil contact). The initial fluids in place are about 30109
sm3 of gas and 20106 sm3 of liquids (oil and condensate). At
the time of the study, initial production of gas and condensate
had already begun from a single well. The aim of the study
was to design a development plan, involving the drilling of
further production wells and assessing the benefits of gas
cycling. It was also necessary to tie in the development with
that of neighbouring oil fields that would share the facilities
for processing produced gas.
The study was already nearing completion when the new
delumping method became available for use. The design of the
surface facilities was already almost completed. The results of
the delumping were therefore used simply as a check on this
design.
Equation of State (EOS) Models
An 8-component lumped EOS model was developed for the
compositional reservoir simulations. A 16-component
detailed EOS model was used for the surface facility
calculations. Table 1 shows the correspondence between the
two models.
Ideally, the following two conditions should be respected
to get best results from the LBW method:
1. Binary interaction coefficients (BICs) should not be used
in either the lumped or the detailed fluid EOS.
2. The EOS properties of the lumped fluid should be
derived from those of the detailed fluid by a rigorous
lumping procedure.
Neither of these conditions was respected in the current study,
because the EOS models were developed before use of the
delumping method was envisaged.
The BIC values for the detailed EOS model are shown in
Table 2 (those for the lumped model are no larger). Non-zero

J.W. BARKER AND C.F. LEIBOVICI

BICs of similar size were used in test problems presented by

Leibovici et al1. They found that the non-zero BICs did not
degrade the accuracy of the LBW method significantly in
those cases. Violation of condition 1 is therefore probably
acceptable in this case.
Violation of condition 2 is potentially more serious. The
two EOS models were tuned separately to different sets of
data. Further, the detailed EOS model was tuned mainly to
data appropriate to the surface calculations, and its accuracy at
reservoir conditions is not as good as would be desired.
Because of these concerns with the EOS models, it was
decided to try and assess the accuracy of the delumping
method on a small quality control problem before applying it
to the full reservoir model.
Quality Control Model
This test problem used the same EOS models as the full field
model but a simplified geometry with only 269 grid blocks.
The production scheme is also similar to that used in the full
field model, involving initial production through one well
only, a period of increased production from 3 wells with gas
cycling, and finally continued production with no gas
reinjection until the reservoir is depleted.
Reservoir simulations were run (using ECLIPSE-3003)
with both the lumped (8-component) and the detailed (16component) EOS models. The LBW delumping method was
applied to the results of the 8-component simulation to obtain
detailed compositions for the produced fluid as a function of
time. These compositions are compared with those given by
the 16-component simulation in Figure 1.
Figure 1(a) concerns the production from one of the gas
producing wells of the component iC5 in the detailed fluid
description (the behaviour of the other wells is very similar).
This component is lumped with two other detailed fluid
components, nC5 and C6, to form one component in the
lumped fluid description. Figure 1(a) shows the amount of iC5
in the produced fluid as a fraction of the total amount of iC5,
nC5 and C6 in the produced fluid. This quantity is constant
during the initial production period, rises during the gas
injection period, falls abruptly when gas injection stops and
finally rises again towards the end of the simulation. In a
conventional delumping procedure, this quantity would be
assumed to remain constant. With the LBW delumping
procedure, the variations are qualitatively captured but, for
iC5, the magnitude of the variations is over-estimated by
comparison with the results of the reservoir simulation made
with the detailed fluid description.
Looking at similar graphs for all the detailed components
reveals that variations in composition within the iC4-nC4
lumped component are under-estimated (Figure 1(b)). On the
other hand, those within the iC5-nC5-C6 lumped component
are over-estimated (Figure 1(a)), while those within the C7C8-C9-C10 lumped component are predicted accurately by the
delumping (Figures 1(c) and 1(d)). (There are no significant
variations within the N2-C1 and CO2-C2 lumped
components). For all the lumped components, the trends

SPE 51896

predicted by the delumping method are correct.

These results give confidence that, although the results
from applying the LBW delumping method to the full field
model will not be exact in this case, the trends predicted are
likely to be correct.
The Full Field Model
The full field model contains over 50000 grid cells but only
about 16000 are active. The model is faulted, resulting in
about 5000 non-neighbour connections.
A base case run from the study was chosen for application
of the delumping method. This run involves continued gas
production from the existing well at a low rate until the gas
processing facilities become ready at about 3400 days after
initial production began. At this time, 2 further production
wells are brought on stream and the total field production rate
is dramatically increased. At the same time, gas cycling begins
with 95% of the produced gas being reinjected through 3
injection wells for a period of 5 years (to about 5300 days
from the start of production). After this, the produced gas is
exported: production continues with no reinjection until the
reservoir is fully depleted after a further 20 years.
The delumping method is currently implemented as a
post-processor to the reservoir simulator. Large quantities of
data have to be saved at each time step during the reservoir
simulation for later use by the delumping program. The base
case run was therefore repeated with all the necessary output
being requested. Because of a minor bug in the output from
the reservoir simulator, it was necessary to prevent wells or
individual completions shutting during the course of the
simulation. Where a well was automatically shut in the base
case run, it was manually set to remain open with a very low
production rate. Where a completion was automatically shut, it
was manually reopened and its skin set to a very high value.
The LBW delumping method was then applied to the
results of this 8-component reservoir simulation. The detailed
(16-component) composition of the reinjected gas is a
necessary input to the delumping program. In principle, this
composition is not known in advance as it depends on the
detailed composition of the produced gas, which is the output
of the delumping program. However, because the reinjected
gas has been through the gas plant, its composition is in fact
almost independent of the produced gas composition and this
is therefore not a major problem.
The results of the delumping are shown in Figures 2 and 3.
The quantities plotted are the same as in Figure 1, i.e. the
proportion of each detailed component within its lumped
component in the produced fluid. Results are shown for each
of the 3 gas producing wells, all of which show very similar
behaviour. Data for well P2 after 7500 days should be ignored,
because the well would be shut at this time but is kept open at
a very low rate for the reason already mentioned.
During the gas injection period (3400 to 5300 days), there
is essentially no change in the composition of the lumped
components in the produced fluid, apart from a slight incease
in the iC4:nC4 ratio from 4500 days onwards.

SPE 51896

DELUMPING COMPOSITIONAL RESERVOIR SIMULATION RESULTS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS

After the end of gas injection, as the reservoir pressure

declines, there is a progressive lightening of all the lumped
components. The proportion of iC4 increases at the expense of
nC4. The proportions of iC5 and nC5 increase at the expense
of C6. The proportions of C7 and C8 increase at the expense
of C9 and C10. The changes are not all that great, however,
the largest being for C7 (from 31% to 40% of the C7-C10
lumped component) and C10 (from 18% to 12% of the C7C10 lumped component).
The results of the quality control test problem indicate that
these trends will be correct, but that the magnitude of the
changes may be under- or over-estimated.
As already mentioned, the design of the gas handling
facilities had already been almost completed at the time the
delumping was performed. It was verified that the
performance of the facilities as designed would be satisfactory
if these predicted compositional changes were to occur.
Computing Considerations
Some details of the computing times for both the small quality
control problem and the full field model are shown in Table 3.
For the smaller problem, the delumping took only 7 seconds
compared to simulation times of 99 second with the 8component lumped fluid model and 450 seconds for the 16component detailed fluid model. The delumping obviously
provides detailed compositional information much more
rapidly than the reservoir simulation with the detailed fluid.
For the full field model, the cpu time required to perform
the delumping calculations was about 80 minutes. However,
since the study was performed, the delumping program has
been optimised and run times divided by a factor of 3 or more.
Today, the time required would probably be around 20
minutes. This compares to 6 hours to perform the reservoir
simulation itself (with 8 components). The time to perform the
reservoir simulation with the 16-component EOS model can
be estimated at about 24 hours and in practice it might not run
first time without convergence problems. The saving in
computing time is therefore substantial. The main
inconvenience is the need to store an 800 MB output file, but
it is well within the scope of current hard disk capabilities to
do this.
Discussion
This was the first application of the LBW delumping method
to a real field case. In future cases, more care would be taken
in the development of the EOS models to ensure consistency
between the lumped and detailed fluid descriptions. The
delumping would be applied earlier in the study so that
detailed fluid compositions would be available for designing
the surface facilities much sooner.
Another improvement would be implementation of the
method inside the reservoir simulator rather than as a postprocessor. This would avoid the inconvenience of having to
store a very large output file during the reservoir simulation,
but would not otherwise affect the results.

Conclusions
We have applied the LBW method for delumping the results
of a compositional reservoir simulation to a real field case for
the first time.
Because the application was not foreseen at the beginning
of the reservoir study, conditions for use of the method were
not ideal. A quality control test was made used to assess the
likely accuracy of the results, and this suggested that trends in
composition would likely be accurately predicted though the
magnitude of changes may be under- or over-estimated.
The results were achieved more rapidly and conveniently
than would have been possible by running the reservoir
simulation with a large number of components.
The results increased confidence that the design of the
surface facilities was adequate.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank managements of Elf Exploration Production
and Elf Exploration UK for permission to publish this paper.
References
1.

Leibovici, C.F., Barker, J.W., and Wach, D., A Method for

Delumping the Results of a Compositional Reservoir
Simulation, SPE 49068, Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, New Orleans, 2730 September 1998*.
2. Faissat, B., and Duzan, M-C., Fluid Modelling Consistency
in Reservoir and Process Simulations, SPE 36932, European
Petroleum Conference, Milan, Italy, Oct. 22-24, 1996.
3. ECLIPSE is a mark of Schlumberger.
*Copies of reference 1 may be obtained by writing to J. Barker, Elf
Exploration UK, 30 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6NN, UK; email John.Barker@elfexp.co.uk

TABLE 1. EOS MODELS

Lumped Fluid Model Detailed Fluid Model
N2C1
CO2C2

N2

Initial Proportion Within

Lumped Component
0.0128

C1

0.9872

CO2

0.4153

C2

0.5847

C3

C3

1.0

C4

IC4

0.2975

C5C6

C7-C10

NC4

0.7025

IC5

0.2273

NC5

0.25

C6

0.5227

C7

0.3078

C8

0.2938

C9

0.2153

C10

0.1831

C11+ (GAS)

C11+ (GAS)

1.0

C11+ (OIL)

C11+ (OIL)

1.0

J.W. BARKER AND C.F. LEIBOVICI

TABLE 2. DETAILED FLUID BICS

N2

CO2

C1

SPE 51896

TABLE 3. COMPUTING TIME*

C2

Model

IC5

0.01

0.01

0.01

0.01

NC5

0.01

0.01

0.01

0.01

C6

0.01

0.01

0.01

0.01

C7

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

C8

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

C9

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

C10

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

C11+ (GAS)

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

C11+ (OIL)

0.10

0.10

0.10

0.10

Reservoir
Simulation
Lumped fluid
99

Reservoir
Simulation
Detailed fluid
450

Delumping

7$
Quality
Control
5000+
Full
21000
Field
*All timings are in seconds on a DEC Alpha workstation
$
Optimised code
+
Non-optimised code

Size of
Output File
(MB)
40
800