Reservoir Simulation

Lecture 3: Reservoir Simulator

Haval Hawez
Petroleum Engineering Department
Faculty of Engineering
Koya University

01.11.2018
Outline:

• Grid Modelling Data

• Porosity
• Permeability
• Saturation
• Pressure
• Data as a function of pressure
• Data required as a function of saturation

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 Upscaling

• Engineers usually refer to upscaling the geological

mode.

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 Upscaling

Effective Permeability
Permeability of a single homogeneous cell which gives
rise to the same flow as the fine scale model when the
same pressure gradient is applied

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 Upscaling

Upscaling Procedure
• An effective permeability is calculated for each coarse
cell

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 Required Data for Reservoir Simulation

Grid Modelling (cell data):

• Length
• Width
• Thickness
• Porosity
• Permeability (x,y,z)
• Elevation
• Pressure
• Saturation

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Required Data for Reservoir Simulation

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 Porosity
• Total porosity is a measure of total void space to
bulk volume
• Effective porosity is the ratio of interconnected pore
space to bulk volume
• In sandstone, the effective porosity may approach
the total porosity
• limestones, large variances may occur between
effective and total porosity
• In shales, total porosity may approach 40% whereas
the effective porosity is usually less than 2%.

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 Porosity

• Hydrocarbon porosity is a measure of the pore space

occupied by oil and gas to bulk volume and may be
defined as

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 Average Porosity

Upscaling Porosity and Water Saturation

Some quantities easily upscaled by averaging
• Porosity

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 Permeability

• Absolute permeability (k or ka) is a measure of the

rock capability to transmit fluids

• Relative permeability (kr) is a reduction due to the

presence of other fluids
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 Permeability
• Permeabilities may have directional trends
(anisotropy);
• For example, in an areal model, the North– South
permeability may be greater than the East–West
permeability.
• In standard cartesian gridding, there may only be
two areal permeabilities which must be orthogonal
and as such, the grid must be aligned with any
directional trends

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 Permeability

• In cross-sectional and 3-D models, vertical

permeabilities are required;
• For example, a sealing shale in a cross-sectional
model would have a vertical permeability of zero

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 Averaging Permeability
Three flow patterns have been considered for this

• Flow parallel to uniform layers

• Flow across uniform layers
• Flow through random permeability distributions

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 Averaging Permeability
1. Flow parallel to uniform layers

• Use the arithmetic average

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 Averaging Permeability
Example 1

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 Averaging Permeability
2. Flow Across Uniform Layers

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 Averaging Permeability
Example 2

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 Averaging Permeability
3. Flow through Correlated Random Fields

Use the Geometric average

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 Averaging Permeability
Example 3

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 Pressure
Pressure

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 Pressure

• In multiphase flow (Oil, Water and Gas) the pressure

of each phase must be calculated.

For oil-water system 𝑃𝑐𝑤𝑜 = 𝑃𝑜 − 𝑃𝑤

For gas-oil system 𝑃𝑐𝑔𝑜 = 𝑃𝑔 − 𝑃𝑜

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 Pressure
• Example: Determine the pressure for an oil-water
system a 10ft above the WOC, for 50 Ib/ft3 oil and 65
Ib/ft3 water if the pressure at the WOC is 3000 psi.

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Pressure

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Pressure

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 Saturations

• Water Saturation

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 Required Data for Reservoir Simulation

Data required as a function of pressure

• Solution gas-oil ratio

• Formation volume factor

• Viscosities

• Densities

• Compressibility

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 Solution gas-oil ratio & Formation
volume factor
• Solution gas-oil ratio (Rs)
Dissolved gas is required as a function of pressure and
based on pressure in each cell. The majority of fields
have Rs of 200-1000 SCF/STB.
• Formation volume factor
Relate the reservoir volume to the surface volume. The
reasonable range is between 1.05-1.4.

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Required Data for Reservoir Simulation

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 Densities
Oil density (ρo) is almost always reported in terms of a
stock tank gravity (which is a dead oil); most simulators
adjust this value to reservoir conditions using the
following relationship below the bubble point.

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 Densities
Gas density (ρg) is usually input as a gas gravity (gg or
γg) or in units of lb/MCF. The relationship between
these two quantities at standard conditions is

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 Required Data for Reservoir Simulation

Data required as a function of pressure:

• Relative permeability
• Capillary pressure
Well data:
• Production/injection rates
• Well locations
• Productions limitations

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 Relative Permeability
Relative permeability (kr) is a reduction due to the
presence of another fluids and based on:

• Pore geometry
• Wettability
• Fluid distribution
• Saturation history

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 Relative Permeability
Water-oil relative permeability
Is plotted as a function of water saturation and at the
Swc, the Kr=0.

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 Wettability
Wettability is a measurement of the ability of a fluid to
coat the rock surface. Classical definitions of wettability
are based on the contact angle of water surrounded by
oil and are defined as

Θ < 90◦ water–wet

Θ > 90◦ oil–wet
Θ = 90 ◦ intermediate or mixed wettability.
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Wettability

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Wettability

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