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“From Plug Measurements to Dynamic Simulations: Upscaling Effects on Modeled Hydrocarbon Volume”
Iulian Hulea, SPWLA 66th President
Thursday 1st May 2025 – 6.00pm for 6.30pm Start (UK Time) Brewdog, Castlegate
Abstract:
Building reliable subsurface models requires detailed knowledge of both the rock and fluids involved. One critical petrophysical property determining the viability of a development is the hydrocarbon saturation. In 3D geological models, the saturation is populated via Saturation height models and free fluid levels. In populating a 3D model with meaningful properties, measurements at various scales are integrated. Core measurements acquired at resolution far superior to that used in the 3D models require a change of scale-upscaling step. The process of accurately predicting water saturation in the upscaled model is not trivial. Here we follow this process by employing a saturation height model (SHM) at different scales in relationship to various permeability realizations. Multiple choices available as inputs into the SHM in various ranges of sensitivity with respect to the free water level position as well as different rock quality are looked at. Various degrees of heterogeneity are studied by using synthetic data, the saturation prediction accuracy based on upscaled input rock properties (like arithmetic/geometric and harmonic upscaled permeability) is investigated.
For homogeneous rocks a workflow is detailed with the purpose of detecting the upscaling limits highlighting the possible errors that might appear in the upscaling process. A counterintuitive result is that in the transition zone (the focus of this work) permeable rocks are more prone to errors than the less permeable ones.
We also conclude that no alteration of the SHM is necessary in the upscaling process. Given the fact that rock quality enters the SHM and that permeability upscaling follows a route that ultimately attempts to honor well performance, a natural question is what the relevance of such a permeability model as input for the SHM is. Our results highlight the best choices for an upscaled SHM input (upscaled) permeability- not necessarily the upscaled permeability used in history matching. Smallest errors are shown to be resulting from using geometrical or 1/3 power law upscaled permeability.
Bio: Iulian N. Hulea is a Senior Petrophysicist working for Shell Global Solutions BV, Projects and Technology in the Netherlands. He is also the SPWLA president (2024-25), within the SPWLA he held various leadership positions (VP Technology, DPS President, etc). Currently he is working on Global reservoir studies. Before this position he held a carbonate (field development planning) Petrophysicist and a Research Petrophysicist position (both in Shell). He holds a Master (Bucharest University, Romania) and a PhD (Leiden University, The Netherlands) in experimental physics. After completing the PhD (2004) he held a postdoctoral position at the Delft University of Technology, Kavli Institute for Nanoscience also in The Netherlands.
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