Use of proxy models in the selection of production strategy and economic evaluation of petroleum fields

Author(s)

Guilherme Daniel Avansi

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica
• Defense date: 2008-02-28

Examining board members

Saul Barisnik Suslick; Regis Kruel Romeu; Célio Maschio

• Advisor: Saul Barisnik Suslick; Denis José Schiozer

Abstract

The traditional process of production strategy demands many simulations due to the high number of variables and possibilities. Sub-optimal results can be obtained from manual processes; Automatic processes can mitigate this problem but the computational effort increases as a result of the number of simulations generated in the process. Thus, the objective of this work is an attempt of application of proxy models in the production strategy optimization and in the economic evaluation in petroleum fields, allowing the selection of production strategy evaluating a higher number of alternatives and increasing the chances to find better solutions. Proxies have been used in important applications such as risk analysis, history matching etc. The applied proxy models combine the following components: statistics methods, experimental planning, the response surface methodology and consistency checking. We have shown that proxy models can be used in a definition of production strategy, bringing an additional option in the process. The advantage is to find solutions that are not investigated by the traditional methods; proxy models create new possibilities to change a decision used in an economic evaluation process in a wider solution space (AU)