Pre-salt static-dynamic integrated reservoir modelling

• Grant number: 25/15758-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Alessandra Davolio Gomes
• Grantee: Nestor Fabian Corzo Rivera
• Host Institution: Centro de Estudos de Energia e Petróleo (CEPETRO). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Company: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM)
• Associated research grant: 17/15736-3 - Engineering Research Centre in Reservoir and Production Management, AP.PCPE

Abstract

Although dynamic numerical reservoir models are a very important tool to manage an oil field, it is known that it carries uncertainties. To tackle this issue, modern reservoir management practices (SCHIOZER et al., 2019) consider hundreds of model realizations to take decisions, so that the risk associated to the project can be assessed. One of the main sources of uncertainty (if not the main) is related to reservoir characterization and how to capture geological heterogeneities in multiscale modeling. For highly heterogenous reservoir such as the carbonates in the Brazilian pre-salt, where porosity/permeability features are present in all different scales, these tasks are very complex. The 3D reservoir models are built based on several types of inputs such as data obtained from: (1) direct measurements with high vertical resolution of rock properties at few points of a reservoir, i.e., at the well locations (well logs and core), (2) seismic acquisition that is rich spatially (it covers the entire reservoir) but has a low vertical resolution (dozen of meters) and (3) well tests. A big issue related to the characterization of heterogeneous carbonate rocks is the difficulty of modelling the non-matrix properties such as fractures and Karsts (WENNBERG et al., 2023) that can result in a phenomenon called "excess permeability" (FERNANDEZIBANEZ et al., 2022). The excess-k is defined as the portion of effective permeability calculate from dynamic data such as from well tests in addition to production and injection data yielded from routine core analysis (RCA) or from in-situ well log measurements such as NMR derived permeability. Nonmatrix-related excess permeability in reservoirs can be several orders of magnitude greater than RCA permeability depending on the type, abundance, and distribution of nonmatrix features. Besides the difficulty to characterize non-matrix properties another big challenge is how to represent them in the dynamic reservoir model (CORREIA and SCHIOZER, 2020). Usually more sophisticated reservoir simulators are required, such as the ones that deal with dual pore, or dual perm systems. Therefore, a topic of great interest is to study how to properly model these features and understand their impact on flow behavior (dynamic model) and consequently on field production. In this sense the team of the research line RL3 - Integrated pre-salt reservoir characterization and modeling Research Line, will investigate possible scenarios and how to model them (static model) based on data from a pre-salt field (core, wells logs, seismic). Being part of the RL4, which aims to integrate the results from different research lines of EPIC, this project will integrate the outcomes of RL3 with flow simulation. The main motivation of this research is to help oil companies in the complex task of building reservoir models, establishing best-practices for multiscale reservoir models for pre-salt fields.