SPE-169468-MS

Uncertainty Analysis and Risk Assessment Methodology in Early

Development Fields
R. Salinas, and A. Di Nezio, Repsol; V. Huerta, Petroperu

Copyright 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference held in Maracaibo, Venezuela, 21–23 May
2014.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
The development of a new field requires a special effort to recognize and evaluate static and dynamic
reservoir uncertainties. Since there is limited information of the fields during exploration and appraisal
phases, reservoir modeling is such a challenging task towards managing uncertainties and assessing the
risk associated to it. The first step towards managing reservoir uncertainties is to identify and rank key
reservoir parameters affecting hydrocarbon in place and recovery factor; then, key variables impact should
be quantified by tornado or Pareto plots.
The current study gives an approach about Petrel™ tools in order to perform sensitivities and
uncertainties analysis to some parameters; therefore, obtaining a reliable variation range of main outputs
in this evaluation; in addition, achieving an indicator of main variables that affects the original volumes
in place and recovery factors.

Introduction
Dealing with static and dynamic uncertainties reservoirs in an early stage of a field is becoming a current
issue, which must be analyzed quite carefully in order to propose certain actions to reduce them and
quantify their impacts. Hence, the importance of focusing on sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in fields
provided with limited information.
On July 2012 a discover well was drilled and tested on A field, found gas and condensate bearing with
high open flow potential in Upper and Lower Reservoirs, for these reservoirs well testing interpreted
permeability lies from 35 to 350 mD. Meanwhile Absolute Open Flow values are in a range of 90 and 230
MMscfD.
Reservoir characterization with one-well information is a complex task and requires carrying out a
complete sensitivity analysis with significantly fewer simulation runs. Uncertainties associated to reser-
voir architecture modeling, identification of flow barriers, distribution of rock properties and character-
ization of phase behavior have been taken into consideration for this sensitivity analysis towards
optimizing field development planning. A holistic approach to assess the uncertainty in rock properties
that affects hydrocarbon in place and recovery factor, as well as, production plateau extension of A field,
was executed including the following steps as workflow (see Figure 1):
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Figure 1—Uncertainty and sensitivity evaluation workflow

- Building reservoir simulation architecture.

- Identification of critical uncertainties (continue and discrete variables).
- Setting of a statistical experimental design.
- Fulfill sensitivity and/or uncertainty analysis using “Uncertainty and Optimization Module” from
Petrel™ software.
- Analysis and interpretation of results using tornado or Pareto plots, histograms and cumulative
distribution functions (CDF).
Uncertainty Analysis of Reservoir Properties
The primary objective of this experiment is to analyze the impact on main outputs of simulation model
(Original Gas In Place, Recovery Factor, Gas and Condensate cumulative production) due to the range of
variability from key fluid and reservoir rock properties, henceforth based on previous workflow variables
are defined as follow:
Continuous variables: (see Table 1)
- Porosity: applying a multiplier factor, considering a range from 0.7 to 1.3, according to petrophysics
analysis. In addition, poro-perm equations were defined for each reservoir honoring rock-typing (see
Table 2).
- Anisotropy: the relationship between horizontal and vertical permeability is exhibited within the
range from 0.2 to 0.48 based on most of the neighborhood fields.
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Table 1—Continue variables

Table 2—poro-permeability relationship

Table 3—PVT package

- Upper Reservoir Contact: This contact goes from GDT in Exploratory Well until lowest level (spill
point of the structure), in a range of variation about 100 ft.
- Lower Reservoir Contact: This contact varies from log and XPT results in Exploratory Well and the
lowest indication of hydrocarbon (from gas chromatography during drilling), in a range of variation
about 100ft.
- Fault transmissibility: the presence of two arbitrary leaky faults affecting well spacing was modeled
with transmissibility factors values between 0 and 1.
Discrete variables: (see Table 3 and Table 4)
- Upper Reservoir PVT: Due to the lack of information at the time of this evaluation, based on fluid
properties likeness observed during testing sampling period (GOR, API and SG) and analogous field
closeness, two PVT fluid packages were considered: PVT1 fluid model from 1st Analogous Field
(likeness) and PVT2 fluid model from 2nd Analogous Field (closeness), see Table 3.
- Lower Reservoir PVT: A unique PVT package was considered due to likeness and closeness from
2nd Analogous Field.
- Relative permeabilities: Group of relative permeability curves are associated considering facies
model population, assuming constant values of irreducible water saturations and residual oil saturations
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Table 4 —Relative permeabilities package

per each facie. Three relative permeability curves package were built by applying different values of
Corey exponent. (See Table 4).
Design of the experiment
Once variables have been defined, sampling strategy needs to be specified, because the number of
realizations with the correct arrange have to be representative regarding the original model within an
effective computational time. Consequently the following three sampling algorithms were considered:
- Box-Behnken Design (BBD).
- Central Composite Sampler (CCS).
- Montecarlo method.
A BBD uses a selection of corner, face and central points to span an experimental space with fewer
points than a Complete Factorial Design. It is similar in intention to a Central Composite Design, but
differs in that no corner or extreme points are used. It has no extended axial points, so it uses only
three-level factors. BBD usually require fewer runs than a three-level fractional factorial design, and they
are useful to avoid the extreme factor level combinations that central composite designs might require.
Monte Carlo method is a broad class of computational algorithm that relies on random sampling to
obtain numerical results.
Petrel™ includes an Uncertainty and Optimization module. Entirely analyzed variables were included,
generating base cases with discrete variables and compiling full of set results. Probabilistic evaluations
were made with these two methodologies:
Sensitivities Analysis
The “so called” sensitivity analysis in Petrel™ is a “pseudo” uncertainty experiment in which the impact
of each variable is measured separately. This is quite practical to have a first uncertainty overview of rock
and fluid properties. Risk is usually assessed by tornado plots, cumulative distribution function and
histograms.
As selected discrete variables of this study are presumed to have small impact in model outputs, one
base case scenario is only generated. Monte Carlo sampling method was chosen as the best option, with
an optimum samples number given by the equation:

Considering a minimum value of 2 for “n”, and taking into account 5 continuous variables (porosity,
anisotropy, Upper Reservoir contact, Lower Reservoir contact, fault transmissibility), 160 cases were
simulated (32 cases per each variable).
Latin hypercube orthogonal was also applied to provide a regular spacing and representative sampling
process. Simulations results were compiled: cumulative production profiles and recovery factors are
shown in Figure 2, Figure 3 and Table 5. Risk assessment was carried out by building histograms and
SPE-169468-MS 5

Figure 2—Cumulative profiles and histograms–Sensitivity Results

Figure 3—Field Recovery Factor and histograms–Sensitivity Results

CDFs for each output variable, P10, P50, P90 and Pmean values were estimated from these curves; in
addition, tornado plots were prepared to identify what are the most significant inputs variables in model
outputs (Figure 4, and Figure 5).
Note: Arbitrary units were considered in this study by terms of confidentiality.
- GU: Gas Units
- OU: Oil Units
From the gas cumulative analysis in the tornado plot, the main key variables recognized were porosity
and gas-water contact for the two main reservoirs, since simulation time was settled until final depletion
of the field; as a result, cumulative produced hydrocarbon is mainly driven by parameters that affect the
original volume in place. On the other hand, Fault transmissibility and anisotropy factor are not discarded
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Table 5—Summary Sensitivity results

Figure 4 —Field Gas production Tornado plot-Sensitivities

Figure 5—Recovery Factor Tornado plot-Sensitivities

for the uncertainty evaluation, because they have relevant impact in flow behavior, therefore making
recovery factor depended on them.
Uncertainties Analysis
The fulfill uncertainty analysis is carried out by sensitizing simultaneously continuous and discrete
variables. Six base cases were generated in this experiment due to interaction of discrete variables two sets
of EoS and three sets of permeability relative curves. Since the number of base cases is appreciable,
Central Composite sampling method was taken for this exercise. Figure 6 Shows a matrix of 27 cases,
which were combined to each base case; as a result 162 Simulations results were compiled: cumulative
production profiles and recovery factors are shown in Figure 7, Figure 8 and Table 6, Summary
SPE-169468-MS 7

Figure 6 —Matrix design

Figure 7—Cumulative profiles and histograms–Uncertainty Results

Uncertainties results. Histograms and CDFs were built for each output variable. P10, P50, P90 and Pmean
values were identified from these curves.
Results and Conclusions
- Sampling method is closely linked to the size of the uncertainty analysis experiment; Monte
Carlo-type methods, such as Latin hypercube orthogonal, are preferred when only one base scenario
is assessed, while statistical methods, such as CCS, are suitable when more than one base case scenario
are included.
8 SPE-169468-MS

Figure 8 —Field Recovery Factor and histograms–Sensitivity Results

Table 6 —Summary Uncertainties results

- It is a recommended practice to start the uncertainty analysis with a “sensitivity” experiment to

distinguish the most important key continuous and discrete variables to be included in the full
uncertainty analysis.
- The key variables causing uncertainty when modeling reservoir properties in A field are: porosity and
levels of GWC in Upper and Lower Reservoirs.
- The full uncertainty analysis of reservoir properties in A field yields a variation range of cumulative
gas production in between -36 to 46% with respect to P50 case; it is worth pointing out that this
experiment proved to be consistent due to its P50 figure differs less than 5% than official base case gas
resources.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Repsol Exploration and Production Peru S.A. Company for their support and
permission to publish this paper.
SPE-169468-MS 9

References
Murtha, James: Decisions involving uncertainty (2008), Palisade Corporation.
Huerta, V., Lanchimba, A.: A Holistic Risk Analysis Approach for Reservoir Modeling (2012), SPE
153387. LACPEC 2012.
Ibiada Harrison Itotoi, Akpoebi Ojeke, and Dike Nnamdi, SNEPCO; Jonathan Umurhohwo, Sunlink
Petroleum; Osaigbovo Benjamin, SNEPCO; and Kanu AkaChidike, Sunlink Petroleum: Managing Res-
ervoir Uncertainty in Gas Field Development Using Experimental Design (2010), SPE 140619-MS.