Patent ID: 7565243

Claim:
A method for analyzing the connected quality of a hydrocarbon reservoir, said method comprising: (a) obtaining a model of a portion of the reservoir and dividing it into cells, each cell having a volume and some attributes; (b) assigning a speed function to a portion of the cells, the speed function representing how hydrocarbons or other fluids flow through the cells; (c) choosing a reference cell; (d) determining a connectivity between cells in the reservoir by solving an Eikonal equation, describing a propagating front in a heterogeneous medium, said front progressing outward from the reference cell until an ending condition is met, said Eikonal equation being solved by a fast marching method with propagation velocity as a function of spatial position being provided by the speed function; and (e) characterizing regions of the reservoir by their connective quality to the reference cell using the connectivity.