Reservoir Evaluation Time Reduction (RETR): An Iterative, Common-Scale Modeling Approach

Lester H. Landis¹ and Peter N. Glenton^2
1 ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Houston, TX
² ESSO AUSTRALIA LTD, Melbourne, Australia

The typical industry process for evaluating the economic recovery of hydrocarbon resources using geologic modeling and flow simulation is sequential, involving several disciplines. Each discipline in the chain has a desire to do an excellent job, but may spend more time than is warranted given the quality of the data available at the time.

Speeding up the process while maintaining high quality, RETR is an iterative, parallel work process using a common-scale modeling approach. RETR allows an integrated team of geoscientists and engineers to more efficiently extract information from the primary data sets available. The RETR approach is a more parallel process. Instead of waiting until we've built a large, detailed model before we run flow simulations, we build simpler models early to get feedback from flow simulation to guide construction of more detailed subsequent passes.

Fine-scale well data and geologic interpretations are accurately included using Effective Property Simulation (EPSIM). Effective property simulation is a fast way to integrate fine-scale geologic information directly into a flow simulation model. And, because the RETR process is designed to accommodate change, we can generate multiple models quickly, thereby permitting us to look at multiple scenarios.

The RETR work process significantly reduces cycle time by: focusing an integrated team on a common objective, using common-scale modeling to provide early feedback from flow simulation, and accommodating rapid model updates as additional data become available.

Case studies demonstrating the applicability of RETR will be presented.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90039©2005 AAPG Calgary, Alberta, June 16-19, 2005