Abstract: Development of a Geostatistical Model for Reservoir Simulation of a Peripheral Waterflood in the Main Body B Turbidite Reservoir, Elk Hills Field, California

WIGHTMAN, JEFF, MALCOLM E. ALLAN, and MARK L. WILSON

The Main Body B waterflood project at the Elk Hills giant oil field currently produces about 14,500 BOPD. It is a mature waterflood and as a consequence is continually being examined for improvement of reserves recovery. As a result of the need to examine the efficiency of the flooding process, a simulation of a segment of the project was conducted.

Using a commercially available geostatistical program, a reservoir model was developed that very accurately depicts the extreme variability of a complex turbidite reservoir. The model was subsequently used to conduct a 60,000 cell simulator and that simulator appears to accurately depict the production history of the area examined.

Step-by-step construction of the model will illustrate variogram development, reservoir property estimation, and upscaling from the geostatistical scale to model layer definition.

Search and Discovery Article #90945©1997 AAPG Pacific Section Meeting, Bakersfield, California