Combined effects of structural, stratigraphic and well controls on production variability in faulted shallow marine reservoirs.


Skorstad, A.1, Kolbjørnsen O.1, Manzocchi T.2, Carter, J.N.3 & Howell J.4

1 - Norwegian Computing Centre, PO Box 114 Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway.
2 - Fault Analysis Group, School of Geological Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin.
3 - Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, London SW7 2BP, UK.
4 - Department of Earth Sciences / Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research, University of Bergen, Allegt. N-5007 Bergen, Norway.

Abstract - Several key parameters that describe a prograding shallow-marine reservoir are investigated for their relative importance on hydrocarbon production variability. Sedimentological parameters are aggradation angle, progradation direction relative to the waterflood, continuity of cemented surfaces and shoreline curvature. Structural parameters are the fault pattern, the density (throw) of the faults and the fault-rock permeability. The last component investigated is the effect of well placements. Having three distinct levels for all sedimentological and structural parameters in addition to a non-faulted case gives a dataset of 2268 reservoir models. Four different sets of well locations produce 9072 production datasets.
The variability of the production data is decomposed into its explanatory factors in order to see the relative importance of the chosen parameters. The production data include the total production, the discounted production and the recovery factor. The sedimentological parameters dominate both the production and the discounted production variability, especially the aggradation angle and progradation direction, whereas the fault pattern is equally significant for the recovery factor. Continuity of sedimentological barriers were found to contribute less than expected to the production variability for these reservoir models, and the well placements also showed a low effect.

Petroleum Geoscience, 14, 45-54.

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