SPE 92381
Field Planning Using Integrated Surface/Subsurface Modeling
K. Ghorayeb, SPE, J. Holmes, SPE, and R. Torrens, Schlumberger
Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 14th SPE Middle East Oil & Gas Show and
Conference held in Bahrain International Exhibition Centre, Bahrain, 12–15 March 2005.
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Abstract
Integrated surface/subsurface modeling has been shown to
have a critical impact on field development. Integrated
modeling aims to capture the interaction between the surface
facilities, the production/injection system, and the reservoir(s).
Among other issues, an integrated surface/subsurface
model addresses the following:
• Pressure interaction between a reservoir and a surface
facility network model.
• Pressure interaction between different reservoirs in the
case of multiple reservoirs sharing a surface facility.
• Improved calculation of pressure and temperature
gradients in the wellbore.
• Influence of facility constraints and equipment on a set
of reservoirs sharing a surface facility.
• Mixing of fluids from reservoirs with different fluid
descriptions sharing a common production network.
• Applying global production and injection constraints
to the coupled system (including the transfer of
reinjection fluids between reservoirs).
In this paper, a set of examples is presented illustrating the
use of the above surface/subsurface modeling capabilities and
their impact on field planning. The study mainly focuses on
the following issues:
• Multiple reservoirs coupling in a compositional mode
involving black oil delumping. Reservoir/network
coupling takes place at both the well bottomhole and
tubinghead.
• Integrated surface/subsurface system response to
various network choke-setting scenarios.
• Field events scheduling in response to the behavior of
the integrated surface/subsurface system.
The results presented in this paper complement those
presented in a previous study.1
Introduction
Integrated surface/subsurface modeling has a critical impact
on production operations optimization and the improvement of
field development planning of production assets.1–17 Integrated
solutions dynamically couple reservoir models to surface
facility models. These solutions enable engineers to simulate
typical field development scenarios, such as drilling additional
development wells or sidetracks during the life of the field,
developing and connecting new satellite production, adding to
the production facilities, and choking back or shutting-in
wells.
In the past, surface facility design and field production
planning have often been performed in isolation from each
other. While both facility designers and reservoir engineers
used simulation models to predict the behavior of their
segment of the production process, they each depended on an
elementary representation of the upstream or downstream
segment to provide a rough estimation of its response. For
example, the response of the production system to changes in
a well’s flow rate may be represented by a wellbore hydraulics
table with a particular downstream pressure, while the
response of the reservoir to fluid extraction through a well
may be represented by a table of pressure, water cut
(water/liquid ratio, WCT) and gas/oil ratio (GOR) vs.
cumulative production. However, tables have a major
shortcoming. While they may provide a reasonable estimate of
what will happen in a specific well if a specific node on the
production stream is altered, they do not tell the engineer how
the change affects the remainder of the wells in the reservoir
or the surface facility network.
As a result, a decision to change out a separator or
compressor that may seem perfectly logical and economically
supportable to the production engineer may cause a pressure
or flow rate change that could propagate all the way back to
the reservoir level and have an adverse effect on the ultimate
recovery. This is particularly true for fields with clustered
wells tied into large gathering systems and for wells with
commingled production. Conversely, a seemingly valid
decision by the reservoir engineer to commingle fluids may
cause significant problems with the production system and
drive costs higher for the life of the field.
An integrated solution overcomes these problems by
enabling the engineer to use the appropriate simulation models
for both the reservoir and the production system while keeping
them coupled at their interface. The coupling between a
reservoir model and a surface network model may be1,14,16:
• Implicit: the equations describing the multiphase flow
2 SPE 92381
in the reservoir, the wells, and the surface facility
network are solved simultaneously.
• Explicit: the network model is solved at the beginning
of each synchronization time step and the wells’
bottomhole pressure limits (or tubinghead pressure
limits) are set accordingly.
• Iteratively lagged: at each Newton iteration of the
reservoir model, the surface network is balanced with
the well/reservoir model using the latest iterate of the
reservoir solution.
The solution used in this work is based on the explicit and
iteratively lagged strategies. An iteratively lagged strategy is
used in the case of a single reservoir coupled to a surface
facility network, while explicit coupling is used in the case of
multiple reservoirs coupled to a surface facility network.
Communication between the reservoir models and surface
facility network model takes place through a message passing
open interface (using MPI)18 as described in Ref. 1 (see Fig.
1).
Communication through an open interface offers flexibility
of software choice when coupling independent simulators,
provided that these simulators are “opened,” i.e. they can
exchange data with external software during the simulation.14
Explicit and iteratively lagged coupling are naturally well
adapted for communication through an open interface because
they require a relatively small amount of information to be
exchanged at each balancing iteration: namely the boundary
conditions at the coupling locations. This is not the case for
fully implicit coupling, which requires the exchange of the
system’s Jacobian matrix at each Newton iteration. Implicit
coupling also requires an intimate level of understanding of
the formulation and numerical algorithm of each simulator
being coupled. It is further complicated if the models have
different pressure/volume/temperature (PVT) descriptions for
their fluids. Moreover, when multiple reservoir simulation
models are coupled implicitly, they are forced to take the same
time steps. An explicit coupling scheme, on the other hand,
allows each reservoir to advance through time at its own pace,
subject to the need to synchronize with each other at specific
intervals.1 Thus the potential for improved convergence and
stability of fully implicit integrated surface/subsurface
schemes over the other schemes is traded off by the flexibility
and simplicity of the explicit and iteratively lagged techniques.
A further advantage of the open interface coupling
methodology is the ability to move between high- and low-
fidelity simulation models without making modifications to
the coupling algorithm. As long as the high- and low-fidelity
models expose the same interface to the controller, the
coupling algorithm does not need to differentiate between
them. This has a tremendous effect on production
optimization, facility design, and debottlenecking. In an
optimization process, for example, the engineer can switch
back and forth from a fine grid model to a proxy model
without worrying about the details of different models.
Illustrated in this paper is some of the functionality that is
enabled by integrated surface/subsurface modeling. In the
following examples, advanced black oil and compositional
reservoir simulators are used. Production system analysis
software is used for modeling the surface facility networks. A
general-purpose controller is used for surface/subsurface
integration and field events planning.
Example Applications
Presented in a previous work was a general-purpose controller
to couple single and multiple reservoir simulation models to
surface facility network models.1 The following aspects of an
integrated surface/subsurface model were illustrated through
examples:
• Multiple black oil reservoirs coupling to surface
facility networks, with coupling taking place at the
well tubinghead.
• Black oil and compositional reservoirs with global
production, injection, and reinjection constraints.
• The delumping of a black oil wellstream into a
compositional wellstream.
Three examples are presented in this paper illustrating the
following additional capabilities enabled by an integrated
surface/subsurface solution.
• Example I: Two reservoir models (a black oil model
and a compositional model) are coupled to a
compositional surface network model. A black oil
delumping scheme is used to convert the black oil
wellstream into a compositional stream. The
reservoir/network coupling takes place at the well
tubinghead in the black oil reservoir model and at the
well bottomhole in the compositional reservoir
model. Coupling at the bottomhole allows the
network to calculate the wellbore pressure and
temperature gradients, giving greater accuracy than
the use of precalculated wellbore hydraulics tables.
• Example II: Various choke setting scenarios are used
to test the response of a reservoir model coupled to a
surface pipeline network. These show that the
production plateau can be extended while obeying
water and gas handling limits by selectively adjusting
chokes that control the production from individual
manifolds.
• Example III: The scheduling of field events in
response to the behavior of the integrated system is
illustrated. Choke diameters are dynamically
regulated to limit the erosional velocity ratio within
selected network branches. Wells are opened from a
drilling queue whenever the reservoir production rate
falls below a given value.
Example I
Two reservoir models:
• Reservoir I: a near-critical gas condensate
compositional model with 11 components or
pseudocomponents
• Reservoir II: a wet-gas black oil model
are coupled to a compositional surface network model. The
PVT description of the network model is the same as
Reservoir I. The pressure at the network terminal node
EXPORT (see Fig. 2) is fixed at 500 psia. A black oil
delumping scheme1 is used to convert the black oil well stream
into a compositional stream at every network balancing
iteration. Following the black oil delumping, both reservoir
models have the same set of components/pseudocomponents
SPE 92381
as the network model. The reservoir/network coupling takes
place at the well tubinghead in the black oil reservoir model
and at the well bottomhole in the compositional reservoir
model. Note that coupling at the bottomhole implies that the
network model calculates the wellbore pressure and
temperature gradients. This gives greater accuracy than the
use of precalculated wellbore hydraulics tables, especially in
the case of the compositional model.
A gas production limit of 15 MMscf is applied to Reservoir
II. This limit is applied through a choke setting as illustrated in
Fig. 2. The following voidage replacement scheme is applied:
• Reservoir II: 100% voidage replacement by water
injection.
• Reservoir I: 100% voidage replacement by gas
injection. The fluid mixture produced from Reservoirs
I and II at the EXPORT node (represented by
component molar rates) is separated using a flash at
T = 80 °F and p = 65 psi followed by another flash of
the resulting liquid at T = 60 °F and p = 14.7 psi. The
resulting gas from the two-stage separator constitutes
the source of the gas injected in Reservoir I. The
injected gas in Reservoir I is limited by the amount of
vapor produced from the two-stage separator and a gas
compression capacity of 150 MMscf/D.
Fig. 3 shows the oil and gas production rates at the
EXPORT node and the manifolds MAN-I (Reservoir I) and
MAN-II (Reservoir II). A period of 2 production years is
shown. The initial overall oil production is approximately
27,000 STB/D. It declines to around 16,000 STB/D at the end
of the second production year. The initial GOR in Reservoir II
(the black oil model) is 1.5 Mscf/STB while it is over 10
Mscf/STB in Reservoir I (the gas condensate model). This
explains why most of the gas produced at the EXPORT node
is provided by Reservoir I.
Fig. 4 presents the oil rate vs. production time from all the
wells in Reservoir II. The following economic limits apply to
the production wells of this reservoir:
• Minimum oil production rate of 500 STB/D.
• A maximum WCT of 0.7.
• A maximum GOR of 4.0.
The worst offending connections are shut to obey these limits.
The entire well is shut whenever the remedial actions fail to
keep the well’s production within the economic limits. This
explains the production vs. time behavior in this figure.
Fig. 5 depicts the methane mole fraction and the overall
C7-C12 pseudocomponent mole fraction vs. time at EXPORT,
MAN-I and MAN-II. The oscillatory behavior observed for
the composition vs. time from Reservoir II is caused by the
actions on the wells when they hit their economic limits,
explained above. Reservoir II has a higher methane
composition and lower heavy fraction composition than
Reservoir I. However, because of the substantially greater
molar production rate from Reservoir I, the overall
composition (at EXPORT) is much closer to that of Reservoir
I than Reservoir II.
Example II
Three black oil reservoir models are coupled to a network
model at the tubinghead (see Fig. 6). Reservoir A is twice the
3
size of Reservoir B. Reservoirs B and C are of equal size. The
following injection scheme is applied in the three reservoirs:
1. Reservoir A: 100% voidage replacement by gas
injection.
2. Reservoir B: 100% voidage replacement by water
injection.
3. Reservoir C: 50% voidage replacement by water
injection.
Following this injection scheme, Reservoir C depressurizes
earlier than the other two reservoirs while the production from
Reservoir A becomes increasingly gas dominated as time
progresses.
The following economic limits apply to the production
wells in all three reservoirs:
• Minimum oil production rate of 300 STB/D.
• A maximum GOR of 10.0.
A production well is shut whenever its oil production rate
falls below the economic limit, while the worst offending
connections are shut to obey the GOR limit.
The overall production is limited to an oil rate of 30,000
STB/D and a gas rate of 60 MMscf/D. These limits are applied
by setting network chokes through the following two
scenarios:
• Scenario I: The two limits are applied by a single
choke in the Line_Export network branch near the
GATHER node (see Fig. 6).
• Scenario II: The oil and gas production limits are met
by adjusting three chokes that control the production
of each manifold independently. The chokes are
located in the network branches Line_A, Line_B, and
Line_C near manifolds MAN-A, MAN-B, and MAN-
C, respectively (see Fig. 6). Each manifold is allocated
a share of the overall production target, which is
calculated from a ‘guide rate’ formula that biases
against high-GOR manifolds (predominantly
production from Reservoir A). Guide rates for the
manifolds are calculated based on well productivities
at the beginning of each synchronization time step.
The maximum synchronization time step is set to 15
days (see Ref. 1 for details about multiple reservoir
synchronisation).
Fig. 7 presents the overall oil and gas production rates, and
the rates from the three individual reservoirs. Results from
both choke setting scenarios are presented in this figure.
In both choke setting scenarios, the oil production limit is
initially reached while the gas production rate is below the
prescribed limit. The increase of the GOR over time
eventually causes the gas production limit to be reached. As a
consequence of obeying the gas limit, the overall oil
production then falls below 30,000 STB/D. The aim of this
example is to show that the use of choke setting through
Scenario II can extend the oil production plateau by delaying
the point at which the gas production limit is reached. This is
shown clearly in Fig. 7. The application of chokes through this
method results in an oil production plateau that extends more
than 5 months longer than the plateau resulting from choke
setting Scenario I.
The three reservoirs have an initial GOR of 1.5 Mscf/STB.
Because of the voidage replacement gas injection scheme, the
4 SPE 92381
GOR in Reservoir A increases substantially compared to
Reservoirs B and C in the choke setting Scenario I. However,
by biasing against high GOR manifolds in the choke setting
Scenario II, more fluid is produced from Reservoirs B and C
compared to Reservoir A, which decreases the overall GOR.
This results in an extended oil production plateau duration.
Fig. 8 depicts the pressure drop applied across the chokes
to regulate production so that the production limits are obeyed
for both choke setting scenarios.
In the choke setting Scenario I, the choke at the
Line_Export network branch is operational throughout the
entire production period. Initially, it chokes back to obey the
oil limit. During the fourth production year, it operates to limit
the overall gas production rate.
In the choke setting Scenario II, only the choke at manifold
MAN-A (Reservoir A) is operational for the entire production
period. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, Reservoir A is
significantly larger than the other two reservoirs. Secondly,
the production allocation is biased against Reservoir A
because of its high GOR. With regard to the chokes at
manifolds MAN-B and MAN-C, these chokes operate up to
the end of the fourth production year (for MAN-B) and the
middle of the fourth year (for MAN-C). At this time, the oil
production from these reservoirs falls below their calculated
guide rate allocation. While trying to make up the oil
production shortfall, Reservoir A causes the overall gas
production to hit the limit, thus ending the oil production
plateau.
Fig. 9 shows the cumulative oil and gas production at
EXPORT, MAN-A, MAN-B, and MAN-C. Results from both
the choke setting scenarios are presented in this figure. As
shown from this figure, because of the extension of the oil
production plateau in the choke setting Scenario II, a greater
cumulative oil production is obtained compared to the choke
setting Scenario I.
Example III
A black oil reservoir model is coupled to a network model
at the tubinghead (see Fig. 10). Three wells are initially open:
PA1, PB1, and PC1 (one well from each platform). The
remaining wells are placed in a drilling queue to be opened as
needed, in a prescribed order, to keep the overall oil
production rate above 10,000 STB/D.
The following economic limits apply to the production
wells:
• Minimum oil production rate of 500 STB/D.
• A maximum WCT of 0.7.
• A maximum GOR of 4.0.
Chokes at each well tubinghead are dynamically adjusted
to keep the erosional velocity ratio (EVR) below 1.0. At the
beginning of each time step, the field oil production rate is
checked; whenever the oil rate is below 10,000 STB/D, as
many wells as needed from the drilling queue are opened to
make up the oil production shortfall. In addition, the EVR in
the tubing of each production well is checked. The well with
the highest EVR above 1.0 has its choke size at the well
tubinghead decremented by 0.25 in. and the coupled
reservoir/network system is balanced again (see Ref. 1 for the
details of the balancing process). This process of checking the
EVR and choking back the network branches is repeated as
many times as necessary (within a preselected limit) until the
EVR for all the wells is within the limit. The time step is then
processed.
Fig. 11 depicts the variation of oil and gas rates at the
EXPORT node in the network during the simulation. Both the
oil and gas figures display a characteristic sawtooth profile.
This profile results from the opening of a new well each time
the total oil production rate falls below 10,000 STB/D. The
initial total oil production is 14,000 STB/D; hence the
condition for triggering the field event is not met. As the
simulation progresses, the total production decreases until it
falls below the threshold value. At the beginning of the next
time step, a second well is opened to maintain production.
This causes the step change in the total oil production
observed at 1.5 years. The field event is triggered five times
during the course of the simulation, giving rise to the sawtooth
profile. The shape of the gas production profile may be
explained by the same reason.
Fig. 12 illustrates the oil production rate of each well in the
coupled system. As explained in the introduction to this
example, only three wells are initially open: PA1, PB1, and
PC1. After 1.5 years, a fourth well is opened to keep the total
production above the 10,000 STB/D threshold. This is
consistent with Fig. 11. When the well is opened, the
controller dynamically adjusts the choke at the well’s
tubinghead. The choke adjustment is a second type of field
event, which is triggered by the well tubing’s EVR. When the
EVR reaches a threshold value, the well with the highest EVR
is choked back until its EVR falls below the threshold value.
Also in Fig. 12 we see that the three wells that were initially
open are shut in approximately 4 years after the start of the
simulation. This occurs when the wells’ oil production rate
falls below the minimum economic limit.
Fig. 13 illustrates the EVR for all the wells in the coupled
simulation. The wells are opened one by one to maintain the
total oil production. If a well’s EVR is initially above the
threshold value of 1.0, the well branch choking enforced by
the field event brings its EVR below this threshold.
Fig. 14 shows the tubinghead choke diameter for each
well. When the wells are brought online, the initial choke
diameter is 3 in. The figure shows how the choke diameters
are reduced by the field event logic to bring the EVR within
the limit. All wells are choked to some degree. The least
productive well (PB3) is choked down to 1.0-in. diameter,
while the most productive well (PA1) is choked down to 0.5-
in. diameter.
All the figures shown in this example illustrate the effects
of the field event logic imposed on the simulation by the
controller. Figs. 11 and 12 illustrate the opening of new wells
whenever the total oil production rate falls below 10,000
STB/D. Figs. 13 and 14 show the effects of choking the well
branches to maintain the EVR in the network below 1.0.
Note that, since field events are consecutively triggered,
remedial actions taken as a result of one event might nullify
those taken in a preceding event, causing the triggering
condition of the latter to be violated once again. In this
example, each well that is opened whenever the total oil
production rate falls below 10,000 still has sufficient
productivity, following its choking-back to obey the EVR
limit, to lift the overall flow rate above the threshold.
SPE 92381
However, in principle, this is not guaranteed. Furthermore, the
order in which the field event criteria are processed can have a
significant effect on the overall outcome.
Remarks and Conclusions
• Field planning capabilities enabled by integrated
reservoir simulations and surface facility network
models are illustrated.
• The coupling of multiple reservoirs having different
PVT descriptions and different coupling locations to a
surface facility network is made possible through the
use of an open interface combined with an accurate
black oil delumping functionality.
• The duration of the oil production plateau may be
extended using an advanced network choke setting
technique that aims to meet a set of field production
constraints by choking at the individual manifolds; the
field production target is shared between the manifolds
while biasing against those with a high water or gas
fraction.
• The scheduling of multiple field events in response to
the behavior of the surface/subsurface integrated
system is illustrated.
Nomenclature
EVR = Erosional velocity ratio, dimensionless
GOR = gas/oil ratio, m3/ m3, Mscf/STB
PVT = pressure/volume/temperature
p = pressure, m/Lt2, psi
T = temperature, T, °F
t = time, t, D or yr
WCT = water/liquid ratio, dimensionless
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Schlumberger for permission
to publish this paper.
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SI Metric Coversion Factors
°
F (°F+459.67)/1.8 = K
Mscf х 3.048* E+02 = m3
MMscf х 3.048* E+05 = m3
STB х 1.589 873 E–01 = m3
psi х 6.894 757 E+00 = pa
*Conversion factor is exact
6 SPE 92381

Fig. 1. Architecture of a system of multiple reservoirs and

surface networks coupled through an open interface.

Fig. 3. Example I: Oil and gas production rates from

Reservoirs I and II together with the overall oil and gas
production rates at the network terminal node.
Fig. 2. Example I: A representation of the network model
showing the boundary nodes coupling at the well
bottomhole in the compositional reservoir model and at the
well tubinghead in the black oil reservoir model.

Fig. 4. Example I: Oil rates from each well in Reservoir II.

The sudden increases in oil production rate correspond to
well workovers.
SPE 92381 7

Fig. 5. Example I: Methane mole fraction (top) and C7- Fig. 7. Example II: Oil and gas production rates from the
C12 pseudocomponent mole fraction (bottom) vs. three reservoirs and the overall rates at the network
production time from Reservoir I, Reservoir II, and the terminal node. The solid and dotted lines correspond to
network terminal node. Scenario I and Scenario II, respectively.

Fig. 8. Example II: Pressure drop across the chokes in

Fig. 6. Example II: Network configuration showing the Scenario I (solid line) and Scenario II (dotted lines).
wells belonging to the three reservoirs.
8 SPE 92381

Fig. 9. Example II: Cumulative oil and gas production Fig. 11. Example III: Oil (top) and gas (bottom) field
from the three reservoirs and the overall production from production rate.
the network terminal node. The solid and dotted lines
correspond to Scenario I and Scenario II, respectively.

Fig. 10. Example III: Network configuration.

Fig. 12. Example III: Oil production rate for each well.
SPE 92381 9

Fig. 13. Example III: Erosional velocity ratio in the well

tubing for each well.

Fig. 14- Example III: Diameter of the well tubinghead

choke for each well.