Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This project focuses on a subset of research activities that needs to be successfully completed in order to reach the overall objective of a five year research program in Reservoir Engineering and Reservoir Characterization. The overall vision for the research is to develop a new generation reservoir/well flow simulation tool that will model the well completion and near-wellbore behavior under both steady-state and transient multi-phase flow conditions over the life span of an oil field. The main purpose of the model is optimal well completion and well trajectory design, based on all available information including information acquired while the well is being drilled. Both analytical and numerical (iterative) approaches will be investigated and tested on realistic field examples. The best candidates for commercial applications will be identified. The flow models developed in this research program will be incorporated in commercially available software that will advance the technology to a new level and in new areas not provided by its predecessor's products. In this project the focus will be on the mathematical and numerical determination of flow directions and local refinement of flow disctretizations, particularly in the vicinity of flow restrictions such as packers in advanced well completions. Furthermore, a coupling between a well flow model and a stream line model will be developed. These are some of the most challenging and important tasks in the entire program since the flow in wells is highly non-linear and flow directions in the wells are directly related to the field reserves and the deliverability of the wells. Drilling and Production Technologies have made enormous progress over the last two decades while flow modeling of advanced wells has been lagging behind. As optimal well design can only be made by the use of adequate simulation tools, this project will bridge the gap between Drilling/Production and Simulation. Through this, the Canadian industry in particular as well as the global industry in general will be provided with the tools needed to optimize the well designs with respect to reserves and accelerated production.