Synthetic Fractal Modelling of Heterogeneous and Anisotropic Reservoirs for Use in Simulation Studies: Implications on Their Hydrocarbon Recovery Prediction

Optimising production from heterogeneous and anisotropic reservoirs challenges the modern hydrocarbon industry because such reservoirs exhibit extreme inter-well variability making them very hard to model. Reasonable reservoir models can be obtained using modern geostatistical techniques, but all of them rely on significant variability in the reservoir only occurring at a scale at or larger than the inter-well spacing. In this paper we take a different, generic approach. We have developed a method for constructing realistic synthetic heterogeneous and anisotropic reservoirs which can be made to represent the reservoir under test. The main physical properties of these synthetic reservoirs are distributed fractally. The models are fully controlled and reproducible and can be extended to model multiple facies reservoir types. This paper shows how the models can be constructed and how they have been tested. Reservoir simulation results of a number of generated 3-D heterogeneous and anisotropic models show that heterogeneity, in terms of only the geometric distribution of reservoir properties, has a little effect on oil production from high and moderate quality reservoirs. However, if the effect of heterogeneity on capillary pressure is taken into account, the effect becomes striking, where varying the heterogeneity of reservoirs properties can lead to a 70 % change in the predicted oil production rate and a significant early shift of water breakthrough time. Hence, it is the heterogeneity consequences that are really substantial if not taken into account. These are very significant uncertainties for a hydrocarbon company if the heterogeneity of their reservoir is not well defined.