Enhancing the Geological Models Consistency in Ensemble Based History Matching an Integrated Approach
Authors: Perrone A. , Pennadoro F. , Tiani A. , Della Rossa E. , Saetrom J. 
Published: May 2017

The aim of this work is to present the effectiveness of a fully integrated approach for ensemble-based history matching on a complex real field application. We show that the predictive ability of the ensemble of models is greatly enhanced through an integrated workflow promoting multidisciplinary collaboration between all subsurface disciplines. Consistent integration of geological and engineering understanding within the dynamic data conditioning phase of a reservoir study is a challenging task. The ensemble-based approach offers an efficient solution to this challenge, especially when it is tied in with an appropriate reservoir modeling approach, suitable parameterization and repeatable workflows. All these are key factors to ensure geological consistency while improving the match quality and reliability of the generated reservoir models. One key feature of the ensemble-based method is that it overcomes the typical limitation of the traditional approaches where the number of uncertainty parameters often has to be reduced resulting from practical or algorithm constraints. This is especially important on complex reservoirs, where the subsurface uncertainties cannot be represented in a handful of scalar multipliers while honoring the static and dynamic data measurements.

We organize the proposed methodology in four main steps: firstly, an initial ensemble of models able to capture the model uncertainties in all parts of the modeling processes are generated. Next, the match level for different observed data specifying the likelihood error is assigned. Then the uncertainty parameters that should be modified in the history matching process are identified. Finally, we perform a computational intensive step on large-scale computing facilities, where a state-of-art iterative ensemble algorithm, tightly connected with standard geo-modeling tools, is used to consistently update the full set of models. The result is an ensemble of reservoir models where we can quantify both the uncertainty in the production forecast and in the reservoir model parameters. The methodology has been applied on a challenging History Matching problem for a turbiditic channel complex reservoir. We demonstrate the efficiency of the method, by generating an ensemble of reservoir models that offer geologically consistent explanations of the currently measured static and dynamic data. The model forecasts reliability is confirmed through a validation process using dynamic data that have been left out of the history matching process. More importantly, however, is that the proposed workflow, and resulting models provides a good starting point for a more efficient update of the reservoir models as new static and dynamic data become available. With the proposed approach is possible to move from sporadic updates of reservoir models towards frequent model updates when the new data arrive. Utilizing all available data in a consistent manner - when the data are collected - is the key to making more robust reservoir management decisions, especially for complex reservoirs.