Errors in History Matching
Z. Tavassoli, Jonathan N. Carter, and Peter R. King, Imperial College, London
Summary
The usual procedure in history matching is to adopt a Bayesian
approach with an objective function that is assumed to have a
single simple minimum at the “correct” model. In this paper, we
use a simple cross-sectional model of a reservoir to show that this
may not be the case. The model has three unknown parameters:
high and low permeabilities and the throw of a fault. We generate
a large number of realizations of the reservoir and choose one of
them as a base case. Using the weighted sum of squares for the
objective function, we find both the best production- and best
parameter-matched models. The results show that a good fit for the
production data does not necessarily have a good estimation for the
parameters of the reservoir, and therefore it may lead to a bad
forecast for the performance of the reservoir. We discuss the idea
that the “true” model (represented here by the base case) is not
necessarily the most likely to be obtained using conventional his-
tory-matching methods.
Introduction
Reservoir history matching is a difficult inverse problem arising in
the petroleum industry. The aim of history matching is to find a
model such that the difference between the performance of the
model and the history of a reservoir is minimized. Traditionally,
this is done by hand. But the task of varying the parameters of a
reservoir description by hand until a satisfactory match is obtained
is extremely onerous and time-consuming. Therefore, gradient-
based optimization techniques are increasingly adopted by the oil
industry for computer-aided history matching. This is because of
the great time-saving benefits they can offer over conventional
trial-and-error approaches. Starting with an initial reservoir de-
scription, these optimization techniques automatically vary reser-
voir parameters until stopping criteria are achieved and a history
match of field performance is obtained. This mechanistic activity
is referred to as “automatic history matching.” In Refs. 1 through
18, there are samples of studies that use the method of gradients for
automatic history matching in order to find the best-matched
model of a reservoir. Many other methods have been studied and
applied to the history-matching problem. Examples include opti-
mal control theory,19–22 stochastic modeling techniques,23–26 sen-
sitivity analysis techniques, 27–29 and gradual deformation
method.31 In Refs. 31 through 45, some other studies on history
matching are listed. The use of 3D streamline paths to assist in
history matching has become increasingly common, because of
their speed compared to that of the conventional methods. Samples
of such studies are given in Refs. 46 through 52. These techniques
are designated as “assisted history matching” to distinguish them
from automated history-matching techniques.
In most of the studies above, independent of the method used
for the history matching, there is usually an assumption that there
exists a simple unique solution at the “correct” model. They there-
fore neglect the inherent nonuniqueness of the solution of the
underlying inverse problem. This, consequently, leads to the as-
sumption that a good history-matched model is a good represen-
tation of the reservoir and therefore gives a good forecast.
In this paper, we want to challenge these assumptions and show
that the problem may have multiple solutions, and subsequently, a
good history-matched model might have geological properties
quite far from those of the “truth” and therefore could lead to a bad
Copyright © 2004 Society of Petroleum Engineers
Original SPE manuscript received for review 6 August 2003. Revised manuscript received
21 April 2004. Paper (SPE 86883) peer approved 28 May 2004.
352
forecast. There have been some studies that attempt to tackle the
problem of nonuniqueness of the solution, for example Refs. 1, 6,
and 53 through 55. Ref. 53 presents a field story in which the risk
arising from such nonuniqueness is highlighted. In Ref. 6, an ap-
proach is proposed that couples a chaotic sampling of parameter
space with a local minimization technique. Through the evolution
of a nonlinear dynamical system, several points are successively
used as initial guesses for a local gradient-based optimizer. This
provides a series of alternative matched models with different
production forecasts that improve the understanding of the pos-
sible reservoir behaviors. In Ref. 1, the application of a global
optimization algorithm called the tunneling method is presented
for two test cases in which a series of minima was found. In Ref.
54, there is a study on the parameter estimation in the oil industry
carried out by applying a modified genetic algorithm on a simple
reservoir model. It demonstrated that it is difficult to obtain a
history match using simple optimization methods. The simple
model used in Ref. 54 was a 2D cross section of a reservoir with
a sequence of alternating good- and poor-quality sands and a
simple fault. The three unknown parameters were the high and low
permeabilities of the sands, and the throw of the fault. In a later
work by J.N. Carter,55 there is an attempt to capture the effects of
modeling errors in inverse problems using Bayesian statistics. He
then used a similar cross-sectional model of a reservoir to test the
results. It appeared that the proposed error model yields a multi-
modal objective function that leads to multiple acceptable solu-
tions. The approach used in Carter55 was to generate a large num-
ber of models, which could be searched to find the best match
according to the criteria chosen.
In this paper, we use the same cross-sectional model of a res-
ervoir as in Refs. 54 and 55, and we also use an approach similar
to the one in Carter55 to generate a large number of realizations of
the reservoir. We then choose one of these models as a base case,
and use the sum of squares as the measure of fit between the
performance of the base case and each realization. We also find the
“distance” between the two models on the parameter space. By
obtaining both the best production- and the best parameter-
matched models, we then study the history matching and also the
prediction of the both models. The results show that a model with
a good history matching could have parameters quite different
from those of the “true” case, and it may give a bad forecast. To
show that the results are generic, a general study of the forecast
then is carried out that confirms the robustness of the results. For
the rest of the paper, firstly in the next section, the reservoir model
is described and objective functions are defined. Then, a base case
is chosen in the best-models section, and the best production- and
parameter-matched models are obtained. Then, in the following sec-
tion, the prediction of the best models is assessed, and then a gener-
alized discussion of the forecast is given, followed by conclusions.
Reservoir Model and Objective Function
We use a simple 2D cross-sectional model of a layered reservoir,
as shown in Fig. 1.57 The model is 2D, with no-flow boundary
conditions. Water is injected on the left side, and a production well
is located on the right. There is a single, normal fault at the mid-
point between the two wells. The reservoir contains six alternating
layers of good- and poor-quality sands with high and low perme-
abilities, respectively. The porosities of the good- and poor-quality
sands are 0.30 and 0.15, respectively. We also assume that the
three good-quality layers have identical properties, and the three
poor-quality layers have a different set of identical properties. The
thickness of the layers has an arithmetic progression, with the top
layer having a thickness of 12.5 ft, the bottom layer a thickness of
7.5 ft, and with a total thickness of 60 ft. The width of the model
September 2004 SPE Journal
Fig. 1—Reservoir model with fault throw of h. Blue (black) and red (grey) represent poor- and good-quality sands with low and high
permeabilities, kp and kg, respectively.
is 1,000 ft. The viscosity used for water was 0.31 cp; for oil,
between 0.51 and 0.74 cp within the pressures of 4,041.7 and
9,014.7 psi. Power-law forms are used for the water and oil relative
permeabilities as functions of the water and oil saturations, respec-
tively. To produce a set of measurements, we therefore need three
properties: the size of the fault throw h, the permeability for the
good-quality sand kg, and the permeability of the poor-quality sand
kp. The three parameters are selected independently from uniform
distributions with ranges: fault throw, h ∈ [0,60], good-quality
permeability, kg ∈ [100,200], and poor-quality permeability, kp ∈
[0,50]. The simulation model is 100×12 gridblocks, with each
geological layer divided into two simulation layers of equal thick-
ness; each gridblock is 10 ft wide. The simulation is carried out
with wells operating at fixed bottomhole pressures, and both are
completed on all layers. The oil/water production/injection rates
are then periodically recorded 43 times: first monthly for 36
months (3 years), and then annually for 7 years.
As a goodness-of-fit measure, we use an objective function to
be a weighted sum of squares of the difference between the pro-
duction data of the base case and each realization from the start of
production until the end of the history matching:
⌬m共h,kp,kg|h0,kp0,kg0兲
再冋 册
2
n
Qw共h,kp,kg,ti兲 − Qwb共h0,kp0,kg0,ti兲
兺
1
= rates obtained are shown in Fig. 2. We then randomly sample
n i=1 2␴w2 共ti兲
冋 册冎
2
Qo共h,kp,kg,ti兲 − Qob共h0,kp0,kg0,ti兲
+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
2␴2o 共ti兲
Here, index m stands for the match of the history. Qw and
Qwb⳱the water production rates for each realization and the base
case, respectively, at each measurement time ti. Similarly, Qo and
Qob⳱the oil production rates for the same models. The subscript
b corresponds to the base case, and n⳱the number of the mea-
surements during the history-matching period. ␴o and ␴o⳱the
standard deviations of the water and oil production rates, respec-
tively, of the base case. In this paper, we consider the standard
deviations as weighting factors for normalization purposes. We
assume the weighting factor to be 3% of the measuring value
(either water or oil production), which gives
September 2004 SPE Journal
␴w = 0.03Qwb共h0,kp0,kg0,ti兲, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
␴o = 0.03Qob共h0,kp0,kg0,ti兲. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
We normalize ⌬m by dividing it by the number of the mea-
surements, n.
We also define a measure of “distance” between the base case
and each realization on the parameter space as ⌬p,
3
1 共Pi − Pbi兲2
⌬p = 兺
3 i=1 2␴pi2
, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (4)
where Pi and Pbi correspond to the three parameters of each real-
ization and the base case, respectively. These parameters are h, kp,
and kg for each realization and h0, kp0, and kg0 for the base case.
⌬p, therefore, is a 1D measure of “distance” in a 3D parameter
space. ␴pi⳱the standard deviation of the base-case parameter,
which here represents a weighting factor proportional to the mea-
suring parameter, ␴pi⳱0.03Pbi. We normalize ⌬p by dividing it by
the number of parameters, three.
Best Models
We choose a point in the parameter space to be the base case;
h0⳱10.4 ft, kg0⳱131.6 md, and kp0⳱1.3 md. The production
another 159,645 realizations of the reservoir from the parameter
space and run the simulator to obtain the production data for each
sample model. Obtaining objective function ⌬m gives a measure of
fit between the production data of the base case and each realiza-
tion at the history-matching period, which we assume to be 3
years, n⳱36 months. Also calculating ⌬p from Eq. 4 gives a
measure of distance between the base case and each realization on
the parameter space.
Best Production-Matched Model. Here, we first look for one
single model which has the best match to the production data and
call it the best history-matched model. This is a representation of
common exercise that is usually done in the industry. The model
for which ⌬m is minimum is the one with the best production
match. In our case, the parameters for such a model are h⳱33.1 ft,
kg⳱135.9 md, and kp⳱2.62 md, which gives ⌬m⳱0.118. In
353
 Fig. 2—Oil/water production rates vs. time for the base case.

Fig. 3, we plot the oil/water production rates for both the base case
and the best production-matched model for 4 years from the start
of the production. The vertical dotted line corresponds to the end
of the history matching (3 years). We see that there is a very good
fit between the production profiles of the two models during the
history-matching period. For these two models, we also calculate
⌬p for a measure of fit between their parameters, which gives a
very large value, ⌬p⳱1,066. This value indicates there is a bad
match between the parameters of the two models. For the best
model, kg is quite well estimated, h is almost three times the throw
of the base case, and kp is almost twice as large as in the base case.
These suggest that a model with a good fit for the production data
of a reservoir does not necessarily have a good estimation for the
parameters of the reservoir.
Best Parameter-Matched Model. Alternatively, we may look for
the model with the best parameter match. The realization with the
best parameter fit to the base case is the one with the minimum
value of ⌬p. We obtain such a model with parameters of h⳱11.15
ft, kg⳱134.8 md, and kp⳱1.35 md, which gives ⌬p⳱1.23. For this

Fig. 3—Oil/water production rates vs. time for the base case (solid line) and the best production-matched model (dashed line) for
4 years from the start of production. The vertical dotted line shows the end of the history matching (3 years).

354 September 2004 SPE Journal

model, however, ⌬m⳱68.18, which is large, indicating that there
is not a good fit between the production data of this model and that
of the base case. These suggest that a model with parameters close
to the true model (represented here by base case) does not neces-
sarily give a good fit for the production data of the reservoir. To
establish this, we plot graphs of oil/water production rates vs. time
in Fig. 4 for both the base case and the best parameter-matched
model for 4 years from the beginning of the production. The first
3 years, which are indicated by the vertical dotted line on the
graph, correspond to the history-matching period. We see that
there is not a close match between the production data of the two
models during this period. There is also an obvious difference in
the time of water breakthrough between the two models, such that
the assumed model predicts an earlier water breakthrough time.
Prediction of the Best Models. Here, we are interested to see
how the predictions of both the best production- and parameter-
matched models compare with those of the base case. In Figs. 5
through 7, we plot 2D saturation maps of oil/water for all the three
models at the end of the history matching (after 3 years). We see
the differences in oil/water saturation in the layers of the reservoir
between the base case and the best production-matched model.
This is in spite of the fact that the two models have a very similar
production profile at the history-matching period, as is
seen in Fig. 3. The distribution of oil/water in the reservoir, how-
ever, seems to be more similar for the base case and the best
parameter-matched model, although they do not show a good fit
for the production profile during the history matching, as can be
seen in Fig. 4.
To study the forecast of the best models, we consider two
quantities: the production data at the prediction period, and the
variation of the water saturation at the production well at the end
of the forecast. The reservoir model we use here is very simple and
small and has a short lifetime. In the model at the end of the history
matching (after 3 years) almost 2/3 of the oil in the reservoir has
been recovered. The average lifetime of such a reservoir therefore
is approximately 4 to 5 years. Therefore, to detect the discrepan-
cies between the models, we set the end of the forecast to be 4
years, and therefore consider one year after the end of the history
matching. In Figs. 3 and 4, there are production data for the best
production- and parameter-matched models, respectively, over the
Fig. 4—Oil/water production rates vs. time for the base case (solid line) and the best parameter-matched model (dashed line) for
4 years from the start of production. The vertical dotted line shows the end of the history matching (3 years).
September 2004 SPE Journal
whole history-matching and prediction periods (total of 4 years).
Figs. 8 through 10 show graphs of water saturation along the
production well at the end of the forecast. In Fig. 3, we see that
although the production rates of the base case and the best model
match each other very well until the end of the history matching,
they obviously diverge during the prediction period. If we then
look at the depth-saturation plots of the two models in Figs. 8 and
9 at the end of 4 years, we see major discrepancies between the two
profiles of water saturation at the production well. These suggest
that a model with a good history matching to the “true” case does
not necessarily have a good forecast, and therefore might not be a
good representative of the “truth.” In order to evaluate the forecast
of the best parameter-matched model compared to the base case,
we look at the production data of the two models at both the
history-matching and prediction periods in Fig. 4. They seem to
suggest that although the two production profiles do not have a
good match during the history matching, they converge toward
each other at the prediction period. They also seem to have quite
similar profiles of depth vs. saturation at the end of 4 years, as one
can see in Figs. 8 and 10. These suggest that a model with param-
eters close to those of the base case might lead to a good forecast
for the “true” case.
Generalization of the Forecast
In the previous section, we considered the forecast of the two best
models and assumed that the end of the prediction is 4 years. Here,
we will see how generalized these results are, and to do so we look
at all the realizations of the reservoir model. We therefore intro-
duce a new quantity called ⌬f, which shows a measure of fit
between the production data of the base case and each realization
from the end of the history matching until the end of the forecast.
Index f stands for the forecast. ⌬f has the same form as ⌬m in Eq.
1, with different limits for the summation: a lower limit related to
the end of the history matching, and an upper limit related to the
end of the prediction. Also, the divisor n for ⌬f corresponds to the
number of the measurements from the end of the history matching
until the end of the forecast. We then obtain ⌬f for all pairs of the
base case and each realization for all 159,645 realizations with
randomly chosen parameters. In order to study the possible corre-
lation between the goodness of the forecast and that of the history
matching between the base case and each model, we plot ⌬f vs. ⌬m.
355
 Fig. 5—Saturation map for the base case at the end of the history matching.

Fig. 6—Saturation map of the best production-matched model at the end of history matching.

Fig. 7—Saturation map for the best parameter-matched model at the end of history matching.

Fig. 8—Depth vs. saturation at the production well for the “true” model 1 year after the end of history matching.

356 September 2004 SPE Journal

Fig. 9—Depth vs. saturation along the production well for the best production-matched model 1 year after the end of history
matching.
Also, to see any possible relation between the goodness of the
forecast for every model with the closeness of the parameters of
that model to the base case, we plot ⌬f vs. ⌬p. These graphs are
plotted in Figs. 11 and 12. There seems to be a broad correlation
between the forecast and both the history of production and the
parameters of the models. This is such that very large values of
⌬m , which indicate very bad history-matched models, correspond
to a very bad forecast with high values of ⌬f. The same follows for
the relationship between ⌬f and ⌬p. However, we are interested in
studying the forecasts of the realizations with productions or pa-
rameters relatively close to those of the “true” case. We therefore
consider models in Figs. 11 and 12 with small values of ⌬m and ⌬p.
Figs. 13 and 14 represent these graphs for when ⌬m<5 and ⌬p<10,
respectively. The points at the origin correspond to the base case
with ⌬m⳱⌬p⳱⌬f⳱0. The best production- and parameter-
matched models are indicated by arrows with, respectively, lowest
⌬m and ⌬p in Figs. 13 and 14. The corresponding ⌬f for these
models are 32.7 and 7.87, respectively, for the former and the latter
models. These show a better prediction for the best parameter-
matched model, and a worse forecast for the best history-matched
model, which are similar to the results we obtained in the section
on best-model prediction. However, the plots in Figs. 13 and 14 in
general do not seem to indicate any systematic correlation between
the goodness of the forecast ⌬f and that of the history match, ⌬m,
or parameter match, ⌬p. Well history-matched models (with small
⌬m) or models with parameters close to those of the base case
(with small ⌬p) both might lead to bad forecasts with relatively
large values of ⌬f. We also see that a good forecast with small ⌬f
might correspond to small or large values of ⌬m or ⌬p. This seems
to suggest that models with bad history matching or those with
parameters far away from the “true” case still might result in
relatively good prediction of the production in a reservoir.
The other point in Fig. 13 is the presence of two distinct clus-
ters: one with models of good prediction (low values of ⌬f) and the
other with models of bad prediction (high values of ⌬f). Here, we
Fig. 10—Depth vs. saturation at the production well for the best parameter-matched model 1 year after the end of history matching.
September 2004 SPE Journal
consider the two distinct sets of models with ⌬m<1, which have
relatively good history match: those with good prediction, ⌬f<20,
and those with poor forecast, ⌬f>20. For each set, we fit a Gaussian
distribution to the likelihood of ⌬m over the parameter space using
the least-squares method. As the prior probability is uniform, the
likelihoods represent the posterior probabilities for the two modes.
We then find the values for the mean and standard deviation of
each parameter for both Gaussian distributions. The results are as
follows. For the cluster with ⌬m<1 and ⌬f<20, the measured means
are ␮1⳱5.20, ␮2⳱127.0, and ␮3⳱2.74, and the standard devia-
tions are ␴1⳱0.30, ␴2⳱0.37, and ␴3⳱0.52. For the models with
⌬m<1 and ⌬f 20, the fitted Gaussian distribution gives ␮1⳱39.4,
␮ 2 ⳱136.7, and ␮ 3 ⳱2.53, and the standard deviations are
␴1⳱3.04, ␴2⳱1.88, and ␴3⳱0.004. In these values, the indices 1,
2, and 3 correspond to the parameters h, kg, and kp, respectively.
Conclusions
We studied a simple 2D cross-sectional model of a reservoir with
alternating layers of good- and poor-quality sands with high and
low permeabilities, and a simple fault in the middle. The model
then had three unknown parameters: the high and low permeabili-
ties, kg and kp, respectively, and the throw of the fault, h. We ran
a simulator for several realizations of the reservoir and obtained
the production data. Then, we chose a model as a base case and
assumed the end of the history matching to be shortly after water
breakthrough in the base case (3 years). As a goodness-of-time
measure we used a weighted sum of squares of the difference
between the production of each realization and the base case until
the end of the history matching, ⌬m. We also defined a measure of
“distance” on the parameter space between the base case and each
realization, ⌬p. We then found both the best production-matched
and the best parameter-matched models. The results showed that
the best production-matched model does not necessarily have a
good fit for the parameters of the reservoir. On the other hand, a
357
 Fig. 11—⌬f vs. ⌬m for all the realizations of the reservoir.

model with its parameters close to those of the base case might not
have a good match to the production data.
We then looked at the forecast of the reservoir for both best
models one year after the end of the history matching. The quan-
tities we considered were the production data and the water-
saturation profile at the production well. The production data of the
best history-matched model and of the base case seem to diverge
during the forecast period. The two models show very different
saturation profiles at the end of the forecast. The production data
of the best parameter-matched model, however, seem to converge
toward those of the base case in the prediction period, which gives
a saturation profile very similar to that of the base case at the end
of the forecast. This suggests that a good history-matched model
with productions close to those of the “true” case does not neces-
sarily have a good forecast, and therefore might not be a good
representative of the “truth.” However, it seems that the model
with parameters close to those of the base case might lead to a
better forecast for the “true” case. To show the robust nature of the
results above, we then studied the forecast on a more general basis.
We therefore introduced a goodness-of-fit measure, ⌬f, between
the production data of the base case and each realization from the
end of the history matching until the end of the forecast. By plot-

Fig. 12—⌬f vs. ⌬p for all the realizations of the reservoir.

358 September 2004 SPE Journal

 Fig. 13—⌬f vs. ⌬m for when ⌬m < 5.

ting ⌬f vs. ⌬m and also ⌬p, we did not observe any general sys-
tematic correlation between the goodness of the forecast with ei-
ther production match or parameter match. Well-history-matched
models or models with parameters close to those of the base case
could both lead to relatively bad forecasts. Alternatively, models
with bad history matching or those with parameters far away from
the “true” case might still result in a relatively good forecast for the
reservoir. To show that the results obtained in this paper are more
generic, we have carried out a further study in Ref. 56, which
investigates the errors both in history matching and in prediction
by systematically varying each parameter in the reservoir model.
We would also like to mention that the problem we looked at in
this paper is well-posed. In a typical history-matching exercise, the
number of data values available are typically less than the number
of unknown parameters in the reservoir, so it is an ill-posed prob-
lem and leads to multiple solutions. However, in our case, there are
only three possible variables with 108 measurement data with no
modeling errors, but still we run into errors in history matching.
Therefore, the results obtained here are not caused by any ill-
posedness of the problem. Consequently, using more data might
change the so-called best history-matched model, but the prin-
ciples of the occurrence of errors will remain unchanged.

Fig. 14—⌬f vs. ⌬p for when ⌬p < 10.

September 2004 SPE Journal 359

 In summary, all the results seem to suggest that in using the
conventional history-matching methods, one cannot practically
guarantee to recover the true model, which represents the real
geological structure of the reservoir.
Nomenclature
h ⳱ fault throw, ft
kg ⳱ permeability of good-quality sand, md
kp ⳱ permeability of poor-quality sand, md
h0 ⳱ fault throw of the base case, ft
kg0 ⳱ permeability of good-quality sand for the base case,
md
kp0 ⳱ permeability of poor-quality sand for the base case, md
Pbi ⳱ parameters of the base case
Pi ⳱ parameters of the reservoir
Qo ⳱ oil production rate, B/D
Qob ⳱ oil production rate of the base case, B/D
Qw ⳱ water production rate, B/D
Qwb ⳱ water production rate of the base case, B/D
ti ⳱ time at each measurement, days
⌬f ⳱ measure of t at the forecast period
⌬m ⳱ objective function at the history-matching period
⌬p ⳱ measure of “distance” on the parameter space
␴o ⳱ standard deviation of the oil production rate, B/D
␴pi ⳱ standard deviation of the parameters
␴w ⳱ standard deviation of the water production rate, B/D
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SI Metric Conversion Factors
cp × 1.0* E−03 ⳱ Pa·s
ft × 3.048* E−01 ⳱ m
psi × 6.894757 E+00 ⳱ kPa
*Conversion factor is exact.
Zohreh Tavassoli is a postdoctoral research associate at the
Dept. of Earth Science and Engineering of Imperial College,
London. e-mail: z.tavassoli@imperial.ac.uk. Her research inter-
ests include history matching, uncertainties, and multiphase
flow in fractured porous media. She holds BSc and MSc de-
grees in physics from Shahid-Beheshti U. and a PhD degree in
statistical physics from Brunel U. Jonathan Carter is a senior
lecturer in reservoir engineering at Imperial College, London.
e-mail: j.n.carter@imperial.ac.uk. His research interests include
history matching, inverse problems, Bayesian statistics, genetic
algorithms, and agent-based models of complex adaptive
systems. Carter holds a BSc degree in mathematics from
Southampton U. and a PhD degree in physics from Warwick U.
Peter King is a professor of petroleum at Imperial College, Lon-
don. e-mail: peter.king@imperial.ac.uk. Previously, he spent 17
years with BP plc. His research interests include uncertainties in
history matching, reservoir characterization and modeling,
and fast estimation of risk using percolation theory. He is a
Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the Dept. of
Engineering at Cambridge U., and a Visiting Scholar in the
Dept. of Physics at Boston U. King holds a PhD degree in theo-
retical statistical physics from Cambridge U.
361