NUMERICAL SIMULATION Introduction

Most reservoir engineering, production, formation evaluation, and drilling issues are ultimately reduced to the nature and spatial distribution of rock properties. This observation provides the incentive for this course; about 90% of the insight into such properties can be captured through fairly simple theoretical and mathematical relations. This course reviews fundamental principles dealing with rock properties and introduces advanced concepts about displacements, residual phase saturations, and effective properties. We will rely strongly on conceptual and simplified mathematical models. Readers interested in more depth on these aspects should consult the references. As will be emphasized in this Introduction, the entire course will focus on the petrophysical properties that go into the input of a numerical simulator.

Course Objectives
When you finish you should:

Understand permeability and its origins, Be able to illustrate capillary pressure and how to use it, Find out what factors affect relative permeability, Illustrate heterogeneity measures, Understand the difference between heterogeneity and correlation, and Show the benefits of statistical assignments.

In each case, we will attempt to make some specific points which should be useful in evaluating data, making recommendations about laboratory procedures and in using information to its best extent. As the outline shows, we will concentrate on single-phase and water/oil properties although we will refer to gas/oil and more exotic properties from time to time.

Numerical Simulation
Since this course deals with the quantities that go into the input of a simulator, its appropriate to spend a few minutes talking about simulation in general. Most knowledge progresses through the building, testing, and reformulating of models or representations of reality. This statement is true regardless of the field of study.

Models -- Four basic types

Conceptual -- e.g., Fluvial deltaic Physical -- e.g., Hele-Shaw cells, corefloods Numerical -- State of the art for engineers Philosophical -- Whether we know it or not

Geologists are quite comfortable with the idea of model building even though their models (like models in many other fields) are rarely numerical. Physical models were very common in the early days of the petroleum industry, but these have been supplanted by numerical models.

Actually, numerical models have had a long pedigree in hydrocarbon production prediction as the following illustrates.

Numerical models -A short history

Tank type -Emphasis on fluids o Volumetrics o Primary depletion Streamline -Emphasis on patterns and rates, permeability anisotropy o Areal sweep o Oil in place Simulators -- All of the above plus heterogeneity

Tank type models are still useful today in determining primary drive mechanisms, oil and gas originally in place and even in the initial stages of an involved simulation study. Streamline models, invented in the mid 1950s, have experienced a resurgence in interest because, in part, of the ability to assist in fluid flow visualization and the ability to solve very large problems. The image to the right is a classical illustration of the streamlines in a 5-spot pattern. This figure also illustrates one of the best uses of streamline modeling: identifying the amount of fluid that will pass outside of a given area. What we mean by a numerical model or simulator in this course is something which represents the behavior of one system through the use of another (Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)

First system -- Reservoir and process Second system -- A model

A model or numerical simulator is a sequence of numerical operations whose output represents the behavior of a particular process in a particular reservoir. It is, therefore, an integrating tool for combining, in their proper weight, all of the factors that influence production in a reservoir.

Models are nothing more than solutions to conservation equations that are coupled to several phenomenological laws that are needed to make the number of equations and unknowns equation. Listed below are the basic equations and laws associated with our models.

Basic Equations

Conservation of o Mass o Energy Empirical laws o Darcy o Capillary pressure o Phase behavior o Fick o Reaction rates

For the purposes of this course, Darcy's law (covered in Module 1) and the capillary pressure and relative permeability behavior (covered in Module 2) are the most important ones. Even though the number and type of equations can be said briefly, there is enormous complexity in the laws as the image to the right illustrates. This is a portion of a table from Lake (1989) that shows the equations solved by a simulator. (Don't be concerned about reading the details in the table. The idea here is to impress rather than inform.) In general, there is one partial differential equation to be solved for each component and these must be solved in three spatial dimensions. These equations are far too complicated to be solved analytically (directly). Instead, what is done, when solving for a reservoir, is to divide it up into a number of cells or grid blocks and the equations solved on these much smaller volumes. This division is, of course, arbitrary but it is the only way to proceed. It would be no surprise to find that the division into grid blocks leads to a number of artifacts in the simulator results. But it should equally be of no surprise to realize that these artifacts tend to disappear as the number of blocks increase; with current simulation technology and with newer simulation technology the artifacts seem to comprise less of a problem than simply not knowing the simulator input to begin with.

It has historically not been possible to write a single simulator to deal with all possible cases of flow. The following lists some of the simulator classifications.

Simulators -- Classified by:

Dimensionality (1-D,...,3-D) Numerical algorithm, e.g., o Finite difference o IMPES o Implicit o Direct solvers Vectorization Physical properties o Single-phase (aquifers or gas) o Black oil o Compositional o Thermal o Dual porosity

It is good to know what each of these terms mean, but we won't discuss them here. What is discussed in this course is the petrophysical and geological parameters that are common inputs to all types of simulators. Although there are some variations, the following is a typical simulator structure:

Simulator structure
1. Nonrecurrent data a. Fluid properties b. Reservoir properties c. Block or cell assignments 2. Recurrent data a. Well properties b. Output control 3. Calculation 4. Output A simulator run progresses through the nonrecurrent data simulator directly and only once. The items between the recurrent data and output may be processed several times as well conditions and/or the manner of calculation changes. This course is mainly concerned with the block assignments under the recurrent data, but we provide a brief summary of the other types for completeness. Typical Inputs 1(a) Fluids The fluid input, summarized below, ranges from the basic properties of viscosity, solubility and volume relations, through much more complicated

pressure-volume-temperature relationships embodied in and equation of state simulator. Viscosities Densities Surface tensions Phase behavior The properties are normally input via table or equation as functions of pressure and, for thermal simulators, functions of temperature. Compositional simulators will calculate these properties as functions of pressure and fluid composition. 1(b) Reservoir The reservoir input deals with properties that define the gross volume of the fluids in a reservoir.

Depth (top surface) Thickness (bottom surface) Lateral extent Original contacts

For complicated geometries, as are now commonly modeled, the depth and thicknesses can be input by cell--a subject we discuss below. The discussion in Module 2 about capillary pressure shows how the original contacts used to estimate original hydrocarbon in place. 1(c) Blocks What this course deals with the most are the block-by-block petrophysical assignments.

Initial pressure and saturations Porosity Permeability (three values) Relative permeability Capillary pressure

2(a) Wells Well properties can be among the most important to a simulation run because it is through these that the operational decisions about how to deplete a field are quantified.

Location Completion interval Productivity (e.g. skin factor) Status (e.g. producer) How operated

The bullet location can include some quite complicated geometries for horizontal or deviated wells. Many times a great deal of the simulator is devoted to modeling effects in the wellbore and it is becoming common for the well model to be hooked up to separate models of surface facilities.

These things constitute the great bulk of the input: a typical simulation run might have more than 10,000 cells so it is easy to see how this type of data can run into the millions of values. This input, furthermore, constitutes the main way that the geology is input into a simulator. The lack of quantitative detail in the geological description coupled with the sheer volume of data means that this type of input has historically been among the most overlooked in simulator input. This neglect forms one of the prime motivations for this course.

Difficulties with numerical simulation

Though it is the only one discussed here, the assignment of grid block properties is only one of several difficulties with numerical simulation. Some of these are:

Truncation errors Stability Grid orientation effects Property assignments Scale adjustment

Property assignments to cells away from measurements (usually at wells) form the culmination of the material in Module 3. The last item, adjustment for scale or scaling up, is truly a simulator data input also. It involves the fact that the size of the blocks in a typical simulation run is invariably much larger than the size of the measurements. The following table illustrates some of the typical grid block sizes.
Typical Grid Block Sizes Process DX (meters) 500 671 457 610 DZ (meters) 7 6 34 3 9 229 61 61 18

min max min max Undersaturated oil reservoir 500 Gas reservoir Simulation of well test Retrograde gas reservoir Solution gas drive reservoir 244 236 610 1500 1500 70

Where DX and DZ are the lengths of the sides of the grid blocks. From Haldorsen (1983). Rather than speaking of grid blocks we should be speaking of grid pancakes. And the size of these blocks are those of a modest sized building.

Notation
Much of the following material comes from Chapters 3 and 6 of a text on enhanced oil recovery (Lake, 1989). This manual adopts certain conventions from that work, particularly regarding subscript conventions of the various fluids. SUBSCRIPT CONVENTIONS 1 Water or aqueous phase

2 Oil or oleic phase 3 Gas phase nw Nonwetting w Wetting r Residual R Remaining Other symbols are Society of Petroleum Engineers or industry standards. Thus, Swr means the wetting phase residual saturation and S2R means the remaining oil saturation. We will attempt to maintain consistency in definitions and to define each as near to the first usage as possible.

References
1. Haldorsen, Helge Hove, Reservoir Characterization Procedures for Numerical Simulation, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, May 1983 2. Lake, Larry W., Enhanced Oil Recovery, Prentice Hall, 1989

Introduction
In this module we discuss the following properties. The properties are all engineering properties (as opposed to geologic or geophysical) because they are needed in flow calculations. Most specifically, they form a central part of the input to numerical simulators. Indeed, it is the single-phase properties and their distributions that allow geology and geophysics to be inserted into such models. Single phase petrophysical properties

Porosity Permeability Permeability-Porosity Relationships Tensorial Character of Permeability

The single-phase porosity is an important predictor of hydrocarbon in place; the permeability as an indicator of production rate. Their understanding provides a basis for more advanced concepts which we will treat in later modules. Of course the great advantage in treating single-phase flow separately is that it delays the need to consider multiphase flow, which is itself a complicated topic. The objectives for Module 1 are given below. As always, the emphasis will be on conceptual models which generally give correct trends, but are not always quantitative predictors. Such models can frequently be corrected for real-world effects, but they are always good aids to understanding.

Module 1 Objectives

Understand a Representative Elementary Volume (REV) Illustrate importance of specific surface area and tortuosity to permeability Give effects of grain size distribution on permeability Examine relationship between permeability and porosity Illustrate the origins of anisotropy

As stated in the Introduction, the emphasis here is on transport properties, those properties which govern fluid flow. The transport properties form the lion's share of the input to a numerical simulator although they play other roles as well.

Representative Elementary Volume (REV)

We will follow the same basic procedure in developing each single-phase property.

First, the property will be described mathematically in terms of simplified physical laws, usually based on incompressible, steady-state flow in even simpler geometries. The simple geometry represents the smallest element of the permeable medium -- the connected pore or the microscopic Approach to Property Development scale. Second, the petrophysical Describe on pore (microscopic) scale property for the connected pore is then modified to account for the Translate to local (REV) scale actual permeable medium local geometry -- variable pore (or particle) cross-sections, variable flow lengths (tortuosity), and multiple connections of one pore with another. This step translates the microscopic relation from the actual permeable medium flow domain to that of the locallycontinuous representative elementary volume (REV). Unfortunately, this step constitutes a great deal of art, and is invariably restricted to fairly simple idealizations about the local pore geometry. The very idea of a REV is difficult. Consider the following figure.

The plot shows the trend in a particular medium property (porosity is easiest to visualize) measured over some volume V as V shrinks to zero. For large V the curve changes smoothly but distinctly; we call this change heterogeneity and discuss it separately in Module 3. For intermediate V, the curve becomes stable at some fairly precise value of porosity and then becomes erratic at an even smaller V where porescale variations become important. The REV is the value of V (indicated in the figure above) above which the fluctuations are negligible. The existence of the REV is tenuous, because it has never been identified in real media despite some fairly serious efforts (Goggin et al., 1988). There probably are several plateaus in which case the REV would be defined as the volume at the smallest of these. The size of the REV is related to how locally correlated the property is on the microscopic scale. Our best guess is the REV is somewhere around 100-1000 grain diameters--large enough for averages to be statistically meaningful but small enough to

avoid heterogeneity. There is a school of thought based on the concept of continuous variation (fractals) that admits no such plateaus as V decreases. Magic Numbers 1. Typical REV size = 100 - 1000 grain diameters (sandstones)

But, despite all the hurdles, the notion of the REV is absolutely essential for reservoir engineering work because it allows us to use continuous mathematics (limits taken to zero are really taken to the REV). We pay for this through the introduction of various non-standard (and perhaps ill-defined) physical properties some of which we are about to cover in this module.

Porosity

Porosity is the ratio of void or pore volume to macroscopic or bulk volume; the rock or solid phase volume is the bulk volume less the pore volume. Porosity is a static property--can be measured in the absence of flow. For most naturally-occurring media the porosity is between 0.10 to 0.40 although on occasion values outside this range have been observed. Many times porosity is reported as a percent, but it should always be used in calculations as a fraction. From these typical values the rock "phase" clearly occupies the largest volume in any medium. The porosity of a permeable medium is a strong function of the variance of the local pore or grain size distribution, and a weak function of the average pore size itself. For sandstones the porosity is usually determined by the sedimentological processes under which the medium was originally deposited. For carbonate media, on the other hand, the porosity is mainly the result of changes that took place after deposition. The pore space as well as the porosity can be divided into an interconnected or effective porosity that is available to fluid flow and a disconnected porosity that is unavailable to

fluid flow. Certain of the enhanced oil recovery processes exhibit behavior whereby some of the effective porosity (dead end pores) is shielded from the displacing agent. At the other end of the flow scale is the fracture porosity that expresses the fraction of the volume of a particular medium that is tied up in large-scale voids. One could easily argue that a volume that contains large-scale voids is below the REV for that medium. In what follows, the word porosity references to a volume that is substantially larger than the smallest discrete feature in the rock.

Permeability
Permeability is also a basic permeable medium property that, unlike porosity, cannot be defined apart from fluid flow. We use it most commonly to estimate production/injection rates from which comes estimates of economic lives. Definition - Permeability is the proportionality "constant" between the fluid flow rate and an applied pressure or potential gradient. The figure on the right illustrates this for flow of a single incompressible fluid. The last line of this figure is one for of Darcy's law, which for single-phase, one dimensional flow, constitutes a definition of permeability. The other terms in the equation are the superficial velocity (the flow rate) and the fluid viscosity . Darcy's law contains the superficial or Darcy velocity. This is the volumetric flow rate divided by the cross-sectional area normal to flow (q/A).

Velocities in Reservoir Engineering Superficial velocity o u = Flow rate/area normal to flow Interstitial velocity
o

v = Superficial velocity/porosity

The interstitial or front velocity is the rate a fluid particle actually moves through the medium. The two velocities are frequently confused. To illustrate some features of the permeability definition more clearly, write Darcys law as

This simple form of Darcy's law is as important for what it does not say as it is for what it does say. For example, if we increase the rate q, we find that the pressure drop P increases apace; k is not a function of either flow rate or P. Doubling (for example) the fluid viscosity results in a doubling of P and no change in k. Permeability is not a function of the fluid viscosity, nor, indeed, of the fluid identity. Increasing L for the same P results in a decrease in q so that k is again unchanged. Permeability is not a function of the size of the sample. We say that k is an intrinsic function of the medium, or rather of the medium's properties. We delve into this in the remainder of this module. In truth, all of the above negations are only approximately true. k does depend on the fluid identity, water vs. oil, or fresh water vs. brine, in may cases. Similarly, k also depends on the scale of the measurement L. That is why we use the term absolute permeability with caution When k depends on rate or P, the phenomena are referred to as non-Darcy effects. Such deviations are important in many cases, but we shall continue the exposition for the ideal case to focus on rock properties.

We will use the following slide as organization for our treatment of permeability. (Absolute) Permeability . . . The Basic Flow Property of a Medium Depends on porosity and o Grain size o Local heterogeneity (sorting) o Cement amount and type Is direction dependent (tensorial)

Depends strongly on position (heterogeneity)

The following paragraphs briefly discuss each of these items. Heterogeneity (aside from the pore scale) is treated in Module 3.

Carman-Kozeny Equation

We derive most of our insights from the Carman-Kozeny (CK) equation because it lends itself to more physical reasoning than some of the other equations (Dullien, 1991). As we shall see, the CK equation introduces a direct dependence between porosity and permeability, but also, through the concepts of specific surface area and tortuosity, leads to an explanation of how k depends on local rock texture. To develop the CK equation the local pore model is the capillary tube, probably the most common such model in permeable media studies. Consider the single-phase, steady-state, laminar flow of a constant viscosity Newtonian fluid through a horizontal capillary of radius R and length Lt as shown above. These conditions will lead to a parabolic velocity profile in the tube. The maximum velocity at the tube centerline is twice the mean velocity; the minimum velocity is zero (no slip) at the wall. Laminar flow is worthy of separate discussion both because it is an important fundamental concept and because its application to flow through permeable media is so iffy. Laminar flow just means that fluid flow elements don't cross. For the condition of laminar flow in a tube this means that the fluid elements are slipping past each other in exactly the same manner as the layers in a telescope do as it is being extended. The simplicity of laminar flow is very appealing because it is easy to visualize and, hence understand. But it is extremely rare in practice, being limited to very slow flows, very viscous fluids or flows in simple geometries. These conditions are combined in the familiar Reynolds number. We always have very slow flow rates in our applications (about 10 cm/day is typical) and many times we are dealing with viscous fluids. But the flow is rarely truly laminar because the local geometry of the rock grains and its surfaces are so irregular that fluid flow lines will cross except at very small flow rates. Magic Numbers 1. Typical REV size = 100- 1000 grain diameters (sandstones) 2. Typical reservoir flow rate = 1 ft/day It is misleading to think of laminar flow as being measured solely by low Reynolds number. The idea here is correct -- the Reynolds number is the ratio of inertial to viscous forces and laminar flow always occurs at a sufficiently low Reynolds number. However, the specific Reynolds number limit depends on the flow geometry; for example, the laminar-turbulent transition occurs at about 2100 for flow in a tube and at about 600 for flow in a slit. We have no way of knowing where it would occur in flow through permeable media, but we think it is about 0.1 to 0.5 (the length scale being the

grain diameter) for most of the flows we are interested in. Such flows are sometimes characterized as creeping flows.

With some manipulations of a force balance on the fluid flowing through the tube we arrive at the following relationship between the average velocity and the tube dimensions and the pressure drop. Average Velocity of a Fluid in Laminar Flow

Hagen-Poiseuille Equation

Single-phase, horizontal flow Laminar flow No entrance or exit effects Capillary tube model The basic equation for REV translation

This is the celebrated Hagen-Poiseuille equation for laminar flow in a tube. In order for this equation to apply, the tube must be long enough for the flow to be free of entrance or exit effects. This condition certainly does not hold in a permeable medium pore, but the simplicity of the equation as well as its similarity to Darcy's law encourages us to proceed. As simple as it is, the Hagen-Poiseuille equation tells us two things about permeability, which in this equation is the R2/8 term. First, k has units of square length (L2). The historical unit is Darcys (D) which is nearly equal to the SI unit of m2 (= 10-12 m2). Second, we see that k is a reflection of the size of the channels or holes through which fluids are flowing. A k = 1 m2 rock, for example, nominally quite permeable, has an approximate hole size of a very small 1 m Productive naturally-occurring media have permeabilities ranging from 0.1 mD to 20 D for liquid flow and down to 10 D for gas flow. Magic Numbers 1. Typical REV size = 100- 1000 grain diameters (sandstones) 2. Typical reservoir flow rate = 1 ft/day 3. 1 Darcy = 1 m/s (hydraulic conductivity) Handy conversion factor: wg= 0.433 psi/ft

To convert to Darcy's law we eliminate the length from the Hagen-Poiseuille equation with the concept of tortuosity and replace the radius with the hydraulic radius. The equation is then solved for the pressure difference which is inserted in Darcy's law to give the following for permeability (Lake, 1989). The Carman-Kozeny equation in terms of specific surface area

This is the most fundamental form of the CK equation because it deals with quantities that can be defined for nearly any permeable medium. The tortuosity is the squared ratio of the mean flow path length to the medium length. It is related to the formation resistivity factor and tabulated in Pirson (1979 ). The specific surface area av, with units of inverse length, is the internal surface of the medium per unit volume, an intrinsic and highly characteristic property of the medium. Unfortunately, it is not routinely measured. The CK equation also illustrates the rather elementary observation that zero porosity rocks will also have zero permeability. Unfortunately, this is about as far as we can go with this equation without more work for it is certainly true that there is not a one-toone correspondence between porosity and permeability. The physical basis for the dependency on surface area in this equation is that all of the pressure drop (flow resistance) is caused through viscous interactions between adjacent lamella of fluids as they "slip" past each other. The slippage is, in turn, caused by the pore walls where there is no slip. Thus, if we are considering locally creeping flows the entire surface area of a particle should enter into the flow resistance. This is suggested by the image to the right.

Even at low fluid rates, however, flow can separate in the wake of a particle as shown on the right panel. This is particularly likely to be the case because the approach velocity is unlikely to be anything but uniform. If separation occurs, the surface area to be used in the CK equation should be the exposed area rather than the total area. In the formulas encountered thus far using the exposed area has only the effect of reducing av However, for nonspherical particles it can provide at least a partial explanation for the directional dependence of permeability. At even higher rates an appreciable amount of energy begins to be expelled in the flow reversal region which manifests itself in Typical Specific Surface Areas Material Berea Torpedo Kaolinite (clay) Smectite (clay) Illite (clay)
Adapted from Faris et al. (1985)

aV(cm-1) 20 80 500 1300 2800

turbulence corrections.

The most evident prediction of the above equation is that permeability decreases as specific surface area increases. This accounts for the observation that media composed of clay minerals, which have large specific surface areas, also have low permeabilities. The table to the right gives order-of-magnitude estimates of specific surface area for clays and rocks. The above values were based on nitrogen adsorption and tend to seriously underestimate permeability when used in the CK equation (that is, the adsorption area is greater than the dynamic area). Nevertheless, it is clear that clays have much more surface area than do the outcrop Berea and Torpedo sands. For the same reason, it is a common observation that permeability correlates inversely with the clay content of sands. Normally, a sand is not thought of productive to oil if the clay content is more than 35%. We will go into the connection between cementing material and permeability in more depth below. The connection between clay content and permeability also suggests why gamma ray log response is sometimes useful as an indicator of permeability. This particular log is measuring the radioactive decay of unstable species bound up in the clays. The larger the response, the higher the clay content and, hence, the lower the permeability. Since the specific surface area varies considerably with clay type and the gamma ray response is rather unspecific for clay type, such a relationship can be at most qualitative. The gamma ray response for clean sandstones is quite small. Bibliografia ttp://www.spe.org/learning/demo_sm/1frame.htm