Oil and gas asset teams and managers are realising that improved reservoir management requires an interdisciplinary, integrated and iterative approach to assess field development opportunities. Integrated reservoir characterisation-simulation studies have repeatedly demonstrated reservoir management productivity gains. This is recorded in the literature, (1,2) and demonstrated by the increasing use of integrated three-dimensional (3-D) project software for characterising reservoir assets. An integrated workflow is depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Depiction of the
Reservoir Characterisation Process as a Linear Workflow
Note: Reservoir characterisation technical workflows are
usually not linear. Each of the disciplines’ results are improved
by iteratively using the initial results from all associated reservoir
characterisation areas, including geology, geophysics, petrophysics and reservoir engineering.
Additional productivity gains for integrated reservoir studies require improved ‘technical workflow management’ of this complex, multidisciplinary, iterative process. Technical workflow management is required to reduce project cycle time, improve reservoir model quality, provide early access to the most current interpretation and help the operator select the appropriate level of reservoir technology for field optimisation. The workflow depicted in Figure 1 is highly non-linear because of the iterative nature of the process and workflow management must address this non-linear workflow.
Increased bandwidth and improved hardware and software are making the Web an ideal environment in which all project disciplines can share project data, access up-to-date technical interpretations and document their workflow. A Web-based environment can facilitate rapid and documented communication between all team members no matter where they are located. The team members could be employed with one of the various partners of a field development project or a team member could be a contractor who works on one specific aspect of the integrated study. The complex make-up of such a ‘team’ and the confidential nature of the data requires special handling in a Web-based environment including encryption during data transfer, strict control of data access, connection to corporate databases to access the necessary technical data and the ability to view data and results without requiring all team members to access the costly, complex and proprietary software that was used during the characterisation study.
Category:
Reservoir Engineering
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