Modelling Compositional Flows in Oil Reservoirs using Gocad Streamline Simulator and HT-Splitting Technique

Sergey Oladyshkin and Jean-Jacques Royer and Mikhail Panfilov. ( 2007 )
in: 27th gOcad Meeting, ASGA

Abstract

Streamline simulators are often used as an alternative effective method to classical finite difference technique for solving large heterogeneous fluid flow models in petroleum reservoirs. In the case of complex multi-component fluid system, this approach is scarcely used because the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic flow equations are strongly coupled through non independent variables including the pressure, the saturation and the species concentration. It has been shown recently [17], [18] that assuming quasi steady state for the pressure field, the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic parts can be split into a set of equations that is referred as HT-split compositional model. In this work, the HT-split model is combined with the streamline technique. This approach has been implemented in gOcad using the StreamLab plugin. The pressure field and the streamlines are computed using the StreamLab finite flow simulator. The equations that govern the equilibrium between phases are solved separately using a classical non-linear solver. A multi-component 1D solver has been implemented as a StreamLab plug-into solve the HT-split equations along the streamlines. Tools for visualizing the time evolution of species compositions have been also developed. Finally a simple case study illustrating the technique is presented. It is shown that the HT6splitting method coupled to the streamline technology provides an effective tool to solve complex problems involving multi-compositional flow for any 3D reservoir geometry and for any gas-liquid system. The advantage of such a technology is that the number of components is not limited.

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    BibTeX Reference

    @inproceedings{OladyshkinRM2007,
     abstract = { Streamline simulators are often used as an alternative effective method to classical finite difference technique for solving large heterogeneous fluid flow models in petroleum reservoirs. In the case of complex multi-component fluid system, this approach is scarcely used because the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic flow equations are strongly coupled through non independent variables including the pressure, the saturation and the species concentration. It has been shown recently [17], [18] that assuming quasi steady state for the pressure field, the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic parts can be split into a set of equations that is referred as HT-split compositional model.
    In this work, the HT-split model is combined with the streamline technique. This approach has been implemented in gOcad using the StreamLab plugin. The pressure field and the streamlines are computed using the StreamLab finite flow simulator. The equations that govern the equilibrium between phases are solved separately using a classical non-linear solver. A multi-component 1D solver has been implemented as a StreamLab plug-into solve the HT-split equations along the streamlines. Tools for visualizing the time evolution of species compositions have been also developed. Finally a simple case study illustrating the technique is presented.
    It is shown that the HT6splitting method coupled to the streamline technology provides an effective tool to solve complex problems involving multi-compositional flow for any 3D reservoir geometry and for any gas-liquid system. The advantage of such a technology is that the number of components is not limited. },
     author = { Oladyshkin, Sergey AND Royer, Jean-Jacques AND Panfilov, Mikhail },
     booktitle = { 27th gOcad Meeting },
     month = { "june" },
     publisher = { ASGA },
     title = { Modelling Compositional Flows in Oil Reservoirs using Gocad Streamline Simulator and HT-Splitting Technique },
     year = { 2007 }
    }