Patent ID: 11952891
Assignee: SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC E  G | IPC E  G

Claim 0:
1. A method of drilling a well in a subsurface geological structure to a location in a subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir indicated by a natural fracture network model of the reservoir, the method comprising:
obtaining a core plug from the subsurface geological structure;
obtaining an image of a sample from the core plug using X-ray micro-computed tomography;
determining, using the image, a first fracture porosity and a first fracture effective permeability of the subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir;
obtaining reservoir parameters representing properties of the subsurface reservoir for processing in a data processing system;
forming a natural fracture model by processing the obtained reservoir parameters to identify the presence and extent of natural fractures at locations in the subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir;
identifying a fluid flow path using a shear stress, a normal stress, and an aperture of a fracture;
determining a discrete natural fracture network in the natural fracture model using the fluid flow path;
determining a second fracture porosity and a second fracture effective permeability from the nature fracture model;
comparing the second fracture porosity to the first fracture porosity and the second fracture effective permeability to the first fracture effective permeability;
calibrating the natural fracture model based on the comparison; and
drilling a well in the subsurface geological structure to a location in the subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir based on the identified presence and extent of natural fractures from the natural fracture model.