Patent ID: 7627461

Claim:
A method for enhancing the allocation of fluid flow rates among a plurality of well bores in fluid communication with at least one subterranean reservoir, the method comprising: (a) simulating fluid flow of a fluid containing multiple components in at least one subterranean reservoir and in a plurality of well bores which are in fluid communication with the at least one subterranean reservoir; (b) selecting production constraints including at least one hard constraint wherein the at least one hard constraint is observed and at least one soft constraint wherein the at least one soft constraint may be violated; (c) generating system equations including component flow rate equations corresponding to the simulated fluid flow in the well bores including comparing characteristics of fluid flow in at least two well bores and if the characteristics are within a predetermined range of one another, then relating the fluid flow rates of the at least two well bores together by generating rate relating equations in the system equations so that the at least two well bores will have related allocated flow rates and constraint equations including at least one soft constraint equation associated with the at least one soft constraint, the at least one soft constraint equation including a constraint violation penalty (CVP) which allows the at least on soft constraint equation to satisfy the soft constraint; (d) generating an objective function corresponding to the fluid flow in the well bores and to the constraint violation penalty; (e) optimizing the objective function utilizing an optimizer and the system equations to determine an enhanced allocation of fluid flow rates among the plurality of well bores wherein the at least one soft constraint may be violated if necessary to achieve a physically deployable solution to the optimization and violating the at least one hard constraint causes the optimization to be physically non-deployable; and (f) allocating the fluid flow rates among the plurality of well bores as determined in step (e) by adjusting well control devices to control fluid flow in the plurality of well bores.