A Data-Driven Model

for History Matching and Prediction

I n this paper, the authors derive and

implement an interwell numerical
sufficiently well that, when INSIM is
used for history matching, the result-
2

simulation model (INSIM) that ing history-matched model can be en- (Ti,2 ,Vp,i,2) (Ti,1 ,Vp,i,1)
can be used as a calculation tool to tered into INSIM to provide reasonable
approximate the performance of a future predictions and provide informa-
reservoir under waterflooding. In tion on the flow dynamics of the res-
INSIM, the reservoir is characterized ervoir. It is hoped that the model and
1
as a coarse model consisting of a methodology presented here will prove i
number of interwell control units, useful for monitoring and understand-
and each unit has two specific
parameters: transmissibility and
ing waterflooding operations conducted
on a black-oil reservoir and that INSIM
(Ti,3 ,Vp,i,3)
3
control pore volume. INSIM is will ultimately be useful for waterflood-
applied to perform history matching ing optimization. Fig. 1—Illustration of modeling
for parameter estimation and to Models based on the statistical cor- of volume-flow-unit connections
infer interwell connectivity and relation or the connectivity between in- between wells. Ti=transmissibility
of Node i.
geological characteristics. jectors and producers estimated from
flow-rate data have been used previ-
Introduction ously to characterize reservoirs for the to injectors. At the same time, INSIM
History matching with a reservoir simu- purpose of waterflooding management. retains the computational efficien-
lator is the most common way to con- Unlike previous correlation-based mod- cy of previous correlation-based mod-
dition rock-property fields to produc- els, INSIM is able to effectively predict els that incur far less computational
tion data. However, production data are the water cut and oil-production rate cost than a traditional numerical reser-
never sufficient to resolve the reservoir and hence can be used as the forward voir simulator.
properties (e.g., gridblock permeabili- model for assisted history matching of
ties), and few assisted-history-matching these data. Specifically, the model can INSIM
tools exist in commercial reservoir sim- be used in automatic history match- In INSIM, the reservoir is first con-
ulators. Consequently, when a reservoir ing. Moreover, the model is derived di- sidered as a network model consist-
simulator is used as the forward model rectly from the correct two-phase-flow ing of a series of units connecting well
when history matching, the number of mass-balance equations, and thus the pairs. Unlike correlation-based models,
reservoir parameters is often reduced transmissibilities derived from histo- INSIM allows not only for injector/pro-
to a small number on the basis of com- ry matching reflect an average trans- ducer connections but also for injector/
putational experiments and physical missibility between wells. In addition, injector and producer/producer connec-
insight. Although the INSIM method- because INSIM is based on simulation tions. Thus, it is expected that INSIM
ology introduced here does limit the flow equations, it can incorporate large can better resolve the flow that occurs
number of history-matching parame- changes in flow rates, flow directions, in the region between pairs of wells of
ters, the primary objective of INSIM is and injector allocation factors—the the same type.
to provide a fast, simplified simulation interaction between pairs of produc- As shown in Fig. 1, Well Node i is as-
model to calculate flow and transport ers and the conversion of producers signed a volume denoted by Vp,i depict-
ed by the dashed red circle. At present,
This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights only fully penetrating vertical wells and
2D flow are considered; thus, in Fig. 1,
of paper SPE 173213, “INSIM: A Data-Driven Model for History Matching and
Vp,i is the cylindrical volume enclosed
Prediction for Waterflooding Monitoring and Management With a Field Application,”
by the red-dashed circle extended over
by Hui Zhao, SPE, Yangtze University; Zhijiang Kang, China Petroleum and Chemical the reservoir thickness. Flow in the in-
Corporation; Xiansong Zhang, China National Offshore Oil Corporation; Haitao Sun terwell area between Well i and its con-
and Lin Cao, Yangtze University; and Albert C. Reynolds, The University of Tulsa, nected well nodes is modeled as flow
prepared for the 2015 SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, The Woodlands, Texas, within a region characterized by two
USA, 23–25 February. The paper has not been peer reviewed. parameters, transmissibility and a con-

For a limited time, the complete paper is free to SPE members at www.spe.org/jpt.

JPT • APRIL 2016 81

 trol pore volume, where the transmissi-
bility controls flow between Well j and
Well i in the interwell volume. For Fig. 1,
j=1,2,3, but there is no limit to how
many wells can be connected to Well i.
However, the connections have to be de-
fined before any computations can be
performed. For each single Well Node
i, there is a well-controlled pore vol-
ume such that the summation of all Vp,i
should be equal to the pore volume of
the reservoir. Practically, one can gen-
erally use the area enclosed by link-
ing all the middle points between Well i
and its connected adjacent wells to de-
fine Well i’s controlled area and hence
define Vp,i.
The connections between wells must
be specified a priori in INSIM. The com-
plete paper contains a discussion of the
material-balance equation and the pres-
sure calculation.
Saturation Tracking and Well-
Dynamic-Data Prediction. Because the
reservoir is modeled as a series of con-
trol units between well pairs, the satu-
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82
ration tracking for each control unit can
be viewed as a 1D problem. For oil/water
two-phase flow, Buckley-Leverett theo-
ry provides a relationship between the
cumulative water injected and the loca-
tion of the flood front. In the tradition-
al way, Buckley-Leverett theory is used
for saturation tracking from injector to
producer. In the computation of the sat-
uration distribution in INSIM, standard
Buckley-Leverett theory is applied if the
flow direction along a connection be-
tween a well pair does not change. How-
ever, for the case where flow reversal
occurs—for example, because of con-
version of a producer to an injector—
the Buckley-Leverett computations are
applied in an ad hoc manner to track the
flow of injected water. Buckley-Leverett
theory is also used to track flow from
producer to producer. This last option is
useful when two producers (P-a and P-b)
are connected, but only one of these
producers—say, P-a—is connected to
a certain water injector, I-a. In this sce-
nario, injected water flows along the
connection from I-a to P-a until break-
through. After breakthrough, if all of
the water cannot be produced by P-a,
in the INSIM model, some of this water
will flow along the connection from P-a
to P-b if the pressure at P-b is lower than
the pressure of P-a.
Well-Rate-Allocation Factors. Results
from INSIM can be used to calculate
the allocation factor for the fluid rate
between each injector/producer well
pair by use of the same basic proce-
dure used in correlation-based mod-
els. However, unlike the results from
correlation-based methods, the alloca-
tion factor changes with time and thus
reflects the dynamic interactions be-
tween wells. For an injector/producer
pair, the allocation factor of the liquid-
flow rate from Injector i is defined as
the liquid flow from Injector i to the pro-
ducer divided by the total injection rate
of the injector.
History Matching Phase-Rate
or Water-Cut Data
Predictions with INSIM depend on
the sets of the two parameters defined
for each connected well pair. In histo-
ry matching the phase-rate or water-
cut data at producers, these parame-
ters represent the reservoir parameters
(optimization parameters or history-
matching parameters). In general, the
inverse problem is ill-posed and some
regularization is required. However, be-
cause of the limited number of con-
nections used to date, the authors have
been able to generate reasonable results
without regularization.
Because the computational time re-
quired to run INSIM is small, the au-
thors simply use a gradient-based op-
timization algorithm with derivatives
computed by the finite-difference meth-
od to optimize the objective function.
The algorithm used is an interior-point
method from commercially available
optimization tools. In the complete
paper, the authors investigate the vi-
ability of INSIM by considering two
examples, a synthetic example and a
field example.
Conclusions
Despite the ad hoc computation of satu-
ration at well nodes after flow-direction
reversals, the computational results
suggest that INSIM is a simple, compu-
tationally efficient forward model that
can replace a reservoir simulator when
history matching phase-rate data or
water-cut data obtained during water-
flooding operations. Although the re-
sults illustrate the validity of the INSIM
model, it may be possible to improve
this model significantly by adding a
more rigorous front-tracking computa-
tion and by the use of the parameters of
power-law relative permeability curves
as history-matching parameters.
The INSIM process for solving for
pressure and saturation is fast and sta-
ble. History-matched results obtained
by the combination of INSIM with an
optimization algorithm allow one to de-
termine the formation characteristics
between well pairs, the rate allocation
factors for each injector (the fraction
of injected water that flows to each pro-
ducer connected to the injector), and
the principal directions of the flow of
water from each injection well. Unlike
correlation-based models, INSIM can
produce reasonably accurate phase-flow
rates and water cut and handle chang-
es in flow directions caused by closing
wells or by the conversion of producers
to injectors. JPT
JPT • APRIL 2016