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Energy Reports 7 (2021) 850–855

www.elsevier.com/locate/egyr

2021 International Conference on Energy Engineering and Power Systems (EEPS2021), August
20–22, 2021, Hangzhou, China

Application of production splitting method based on inverse distance

weighted interpolation in X Oilfield
Wenli Hua , Xiankang Xinb ,∗, Xinbo Zoua , Li Lia , Shengli Niua , Qingquan Lia ,
Gaoming Yub ,∗, Li Wangb
a Shenzhen Branch of CNOOC Limited, Shenzhen 518000, China
b School of Petroleum Engineering, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, China
Received 5 September 2021; accepted 29 September 2021

Abstract
As the premise and basis of reservoir utilization research, production splitting is of great significance for production dynamic
analysis, remaining oil characterization, adjustment of development plan and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In this paper,
through sufficient and detailed investigation, the optimal production splitting method was determined by comparing the current
production splitting methods, then its model establishment, solution and implementation were provided, and finally applied
to X Oilfield. The investigation and analysis found that the production splitting method based on inverse distance weighted
interpolation (PS-IDWI) had the most advantages in the commonly used production splitting methods. The results of production
splitting showed that the average relative error of layered cumulative oil production ratio (ARE-LCOPR) of Well X1 obtained
by PS-IDWI was 11.72%, which was far lower than that obtained by formation coefficient method (i.e. KH method); the
ARE-LCOPR of 120 wells in X Oilfield obtained by PS-IDWI was 15.37%, and its accuracy was nearly 3 times greater than
that obtained by KH method; PS-IDWI had high accuracy and applicability. Therefore, it is suggested that PS-IDWI should be
preferred for production splitting to improve the accuracy of production splitting, which is conducive to reservoir utilization
and remaining oil evaluation, development adjustment and EOR.
⃝c 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Energy Engineering and Power Systems, EEPS, 2021.

Keywords: Production splitting; Inverse distance weighted interpolation; Enhanced oil recovery

1. Introduction
The global crude oil production and demand in 2020 are 88.4 and 91 million barrels per day respectively [1],
the situation of short supply continues and has not been broken. With the increasing demand for crude oil, it is
particularly urgent to improve crude oil production. In order to increase the production of single well, multi-layer
combined production is frequently adopted, and some adjustments are often made according to the development
∗ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: xiankang.xin@hotmail.com (X. Xin), ygm1210@vip.sina.com (G. Yu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.09.189
2352-4847/⃝ c 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Energy Engineering and Power Systems,
EEPS, 2021.
W. Hu, X. Xin, X. Zou et al. Energy Reports 7 (2021) 850–855

situation in the process of oilfield development [2]. The crucial basis of development adjustment is reservoir
utilization [3], and production splitting is the premise of understanding reservoir utilization, so researchers have
conducted numerous studies on production splitting methods [4–10].
At present, there are five main production splitting methods: (1) KH method, where the ratio of the product of
permeability and thickness of each layer is applied to calculate the production ratio of each layer. It is relatively
simple and convenient, but its parameter selection is relatively insufficient, which cannot reflect the influence of
factors such as interlayer and inter-well interference; the reliability of its production splitting results is limited, and
its applicability to reservoirs with strong heterogeneity, long production intervals and multiple perforation layers is
poor, especially in the later stage of development, its error is large [11]. (2) Production profile test method (PPTM),
where a logging tool combined by a turbine meter for measuring flow rate, a capacitance probe for measuring water
cut, and a fluid density meter for measuring fluid density is lowered into the well to record various logging curves,
and then through the processing and interpretation of various parameters, the temperature, pressure, fluid properties,
and oil, gas and water production of each layer is calculated. It is currently the most direct and accurate method, but
its operating cost is relatively high [12]; generally, the proportion of wells with production profile testing in an oil
field is not large, and its applicability is greatly limited. (3) Production splitting method based on dynamic analysis
of phase permeability (PS-DAPP), where the multivariate fitting is applied to calculate the oil and water relative
permeabilities under different water saturation, and then the layered production of multi-layer combined production
wells is calculated by using the calculated oil and water relative permeabilities [13]. However, the oil and water
relative permeabilities under different water saturation obtained by multivariate fitting is greatly affected by data
(including data selection and amount), fitting accuracy and other factors, and its accuracy is difficult to ensure.
Therefore, the accuracy of this method is difficult to guarantee. (4) Numerical reservoir simulation method, where
the geological model is firstly established according to the actual reservoir data, and then the history fitting is carried
out to obtain the production of each layer. It not only requires high accuracy of geological model, but also takes
a long time [12]. In addition, the history fitting generally focuses on the total production, but does not pay much
attention to the layered production of wells, which affects the splitting results. (5) PS-IDWI. The basic principle
of inverse distance weighted interpolation is that the points closer to the interpolation points are more similar in
characteristics than the points farther away, and the distance weight between the interpolation points and the sample
points is allocated and calculated by the weighted average method. This method is based on the inverse distance
weighted interpolation, combined with the dynamic and static development data of the reservoir, considering the
cross effects between factors, introducing generalized distance weight, establishing a production split prediction
model, and combining with genetic algorithm to optimize the solution, and then calculate the production of each
layer of wells. It takes into account multiple dynamic and static factors, and is scientific, reasonable and accurate
[14,15]. Compared with other current production splitting methods, its advantages are obvious.
In this paper, the model establishment, solution and implementation of PS-IDWI are provided, and then applied
to the production splitting of X Oilfield. On the one hand, the sufficient production logging data of X Oilfield can be
used to verify the accuracy of PS-IDWI. On the other hand, the application of PS-IDWI to the production splitting
of X Oilfield can obtain the accurate layered production of wells, which can provide support for development
adjustment and EOR.

2. Methodology
2.1. Model establishment

Suppose there are n sample points with coordinates (xi , yi ) , i = 1, 2 . . . n, the traditional inverse distance
weighted interpolation prediction model can be described as:
n
∑
f (x, y) = Wi f i (1)
i=1

where, (x, y) represents the coordinates of prediction point, and f (x, y) represents the observed values of prediction
−p
sample; Distance weight of the ith sample, Wi = ∑nDi D − p ; Traditional distance between prediction point and
√ i=1 i
sample point, Di = (x − xi )2 + (y − yi )2 ; p represents the traditional distance power exponent, generally taken
as 2; f i represents the observed value of the ith sample.
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However, the traditional distance cannot accurately reflect the geological characteristics and dynamic factors
of a single well in the actual reservoir. Therefore, considering the weight of various factors and the cross effects
between factors, the concept of generalized distance is introduced. Assuming the number of sample wells is ω, the
generalized distance between the predicted well and the jth ( j = 1, 2 . . . ω) sample well can be written as:
⏐ ⏐
⏐ m ⏐
⏐ ∑
L j = √⏐ 0k λk (εk − ξk )2 ⏐ (2)
⏐
⏐ ⏐
k=1

where, m represents the total number of factors, and k represents the kth (k = 1, 2 . . . m) factor; 0k represents
the addition and subtraction mark of the kth factor distance superposition, if εk ≥ ξk , 0k = 1, otherwise
0k ( = −1; εk represents the )kth factor of the prediction well, ξk represents the kth factor of the sample well;
λk λk > 0, and m λ
∑
k=1 k = 1 represents the generalized distance weight of kth factor.
Therefore, the production prediction model based on inverse distance weighted interpolation is obtained:
ω
∑ L j −δ
Q= ∑ω −δ
Qj (3)
j=1 j=1 L j

where, δ represents the generalized distance power exponent, and Q j represents the production of the sample well.

2.2. Model solution

Due to that the λk and δ in Eq. (3) are unknown, the production prediction and splitting cannot be carried out.
In order to obtain λk and δ, the minimum value of the sum of the squares of the difference between the actual
production of a single well and the predicted production obtained by Eq. (3) is used as the objective function, as
shown in Eq. (4), and λk and δ are obtained by the genetic algorithm optimization.
ω
∑ ( )2
f = min Q − Qj (4)
j=1

2.3. Model implementation

After λk and δ are calculated, Eq. (3) can be used to calculate the oil and water production of each layer in each
time period of a single well, and the production splitting is realized.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Single well production splitting

The oil production prediction and splitting of Well X1 with production profile data in X Oilfield is taken as an
example, the factors considered in PS-IDWI include coordinates, permeability, effective thickness, porosity and oil
saturation. The comparison between the daily oil production of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI and its actual daily
oil production is displayed in Fig. 1.
It can be seen from Fig. 1 that the daily oil production of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI was in good agreement
with the actual daily oil production, and its average relative error was only 8.34%, which had high accuracy.
Meanwhile, it also shows that the λk and δ obtained by the genetic algorithm were highly reasonable and ensured
the accuracy of the production prediction.
The layered oil production ratio of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI, and the comparison of the layered cumulative
oil production ratio of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI, PPTM, and KH method are showed in Figs. 2 and 3
respectively.
PPTM uses the actual production profile to calculate the split result, and its result is recognized as the most
accurate [12]. Therefore, the result obtained by PPTM was used as an accurate value for error analysis. Fig. 3
demonstrates that the coincidence degree between the layered cumulative oil production ratio obtained by PS-TDW
and PPTM was significantly higher than that obtained by KH method and PPTM. Compared with the ARE-LCOPR
of Well X1 obtained by KH method of more than 60%, that obtained by PS-IDWI was only 11.72%, which was
far more accurate than the KH method.
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W. Hu, X. Xin, X. Zou et al. Energy Reports 7 (2021) 850–855

Fig. 1. Comparison between daily oil production of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI and its actual daily oil production.

Fig. 2. Layered oil production ratio of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI.

Fig. 3. Comparison of the layered cumulative oil production ratio of Well X1 obtained by PS-IDWI, PPTM, and KH method.

3.2. X Oilfield application

PS-IDWI was applied to all 527 wells in X Oilfield, and the fitting results of single well production are shown
in Table 1.
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Table 1. Fitting results of single well production

in X Oilfield.
Parameters Value
Relative error (%) <10 10–20 >20
Number of wells 370 113 44
Ratio (%) 70.21 21.44 8.35

Table 1 shows that wells with relative error less than 20% accounted for more than 90%, indicating that PS-IDWI
had good accuracy and reliability.
There were 120 wells in X Oilfield with production profile data, and their layered cumulative oil production ratio
obtained by PPTM was taken as the accurate value, the comparison between ARE-LCOPR of wells obtained by
KH method and that obtained by PS-IDWI is shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Comparison between ARE-LCOPR of wells obtained by KH method and that obtained
by PS-IDWI.
KH method PS-IDWI
ARE-LCOPR (%) Number of Ratio (%) ARE-LCOPR (%) Number of Ratio (%)
wells wells
<30 3 2.50 <10 4 3.33
30–50 11 9.17 10–15 82 68.33
50–70 70 58.33 15–30 21 17.50
>70 36 30.00 >30 13 10.84
ARE-LCOPR of 120 59.69 ARE-LCOPR of 120 15.37
wells with wells with
production profile production profile
data (%) data (%)

Table 2 displays that the proportion of wells with an ARE-LCOPR of more than 50% of KH method was as
high as 88.33%, and that with an ARE-LCOPR of less than 30% of PS-IDWI was only 10.84%, which was much
better than the former; Compared with the ARE-LCOPR of the 120 wells with production profile data obtained by
KH method of 59.69%, that obtained by PS-IDWI was only 15.37%, and its accuracy was nearly 3 times higher
than that obtained by KH method.
Through all the above comparison and analysis, the accuracy and applicability of PS-IDWI had been fully
confirmed.

4. Conclusions
(1) The investigation and analysis results showed that among the five commonly used production splitting
methods, KH method, PPTM, PS-DAPP, numerical reservoir simulation method and PS-IDWI, the PS-IDWI had
the most advantage.
(2) The application results of PS-IDWI in X Oilfield showed that PS-IDWI had obvious advantages and strong
applicability.
(3) It is suggested that PS-IDWI is preferred for production splitting. However, there are still some improvements
needed to be conducted for PS-IDWI in this paper. For example, the factors considered are not comprehensive
enough, and PS-IDWI has a certain dependence on the production profile data. Therefore, it is necessary to
invest more time and energy in PS-IDWI research, strive for breakthroughs, and further improve the accuracy and
applicability of PS-IDWI, which is also the focus of our future work.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could
have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number
2020CFB377. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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