StreamLine Simulation SLS

Group 6

Team members
1. Abdelhamid Abdo Mohamed
2. Ahmed Abdallah Fouad
3. Ahmed Mohamed Hussein Ali
4. Ahmed Saad Ghonem
5. Doaa Abdelwahab Shaker
6. Mahmoud Ghonim Hassan
7. Marwa Hammad Mohamed Hassan
8. Mechael Gerges
9. Mahmoud Sayed Ahmed
10.Mohamed Adel Abaza
11.Mohannad Moustafa

Outlines

Historical View.
Streamline Simulator Approach.
Advantages of SL simulation.
Applications.
Stream Line Simulation Formulation.
Conclusion.
Sensitivity Runs.
Summary.

HISTORICAL VIEW

Historical view
Using streamlines for modeling subsurface flow has
been in the literature since 1930.
In the early 1960s streamlines and stream tubes
have received repeated attention as a way to
numerically predict the movement of fluids.
In 1990s, and as a result of the advances in
geological modeling techniques; there were a
number of new developments for streamline
simulation that brought it back (revived) into the
limelight.

 Modern streamline simulators now include

3D irregular & faulted grids, changing well
controls, compressibility, and gravity
segregation as well as multicomponent,
multiphase flow.
Streamline-based simulation has matured
from just a research tool to an industrial
application providing real benefits to
engineers as a complementary tool to
existing conventional simulation
technology based on finite volumes.

Approach
Instead of moving fluids from cell-tocell, Streamline Simulation breaks up
the reservoir into one-dimensional
systems, or tubes.
The transport equations are then
solved along the one-dimensional
space defined by the streamlines using
the concept of time-of-flight (TOF).

Advantages
1. Efficiency and computational speed
2. Flow visualization

1. Efficiency and computational

speed
Upscaling using Finite Difference (FD) can lead to
significant difficulties in reservoirs studies.
Finite volume methods are based on the concept that
fluids are moved from cell-to-cell.
The problem in this method is an exponential increase
in CPU time with a linear increase in model size, so
larger models dramatically reduce time step sizes, and
sensitivity calculations can then become difficult.
While in streamline simulation the CPU time increases
just linearly with linear increase in model size

Result of SLS Approach

Large time-steps can
be taken
Numerical diffusion is
minimized
CPU time is reduced

2. Flow Visualization
Streamlines produce new
data not available with
conventional simulators.
Since a streamline starts
at a source and ends in a
sink, it is possible to
determine which injectors
are supporting a
particular producer, and
exactly by how much.

 Streamlines can also identify the reservoir volume

associated with any well in the system, It is therefore

possible to divide the reservoir into a defined drainage
zones attached to wells.
Properties normally associated with reservoir volumes can
now be expressed on a per-well basis, such as OIP, WIP,
and .

APPLICATIONS

Applications
1. Improving Water flooding
Management.
Well Allocation Factors & Pore volumes.
Injector Efficiency.
Producer Efficiency.
Pattern Balancing.

2. Upscaling

1. Improving Water flooding

Management

Streamlines help engineers develop

injection strategies and improve sweep
efficiency by analyzing flow patterns and
by estimating injector to producer
relationships in the field.

With streamline simulation, reservoir

engineers understand the interactions
between the injectors and producers in the
reservoir.

We can know:
Well Allocation Factors quantify the
amount of flow in a particular well due
to other wells in the system.
Well Pore Volumes are the reservoir
volumes associated with each individual
well.

How can this information then be

used to optimize field performance?

 Injector
Efficiency

Being able to compare and rank the efficiency of injectors

is important component in optimizing field Performance.
More efficient injectors should probably receive a higher
portion of available injection water than the less efficient
injectors.
Streamlines provide the way to determine the efficiency of
an injector by knowing the amount of offset oil produced as
a function of volume injected.

Offset oil production is calculated using the well allocation

factors (WAFs) and The WAFs are obtained from the
streamlines.

 In flood management, injection efficiencies

are used to achieve two goals:
1. Reduce injected volumes as much as possible
while maintaining an oil production target.
2. Increase oil production as much as possible by
optimizing the use of the available injection
volumes (water).

Water used by quadrant 4

wells
can be redirected to
quadrant 2 and 3 wells to
push them into quadrant
1

 Producer Efficiency
Streamlines allow to determine the pore volume associated with
any well, a significantly analysis might be to cross-plot oil
production versus average oil saturation for each producer.
Efficient producers are those producing at high rates while
contacting relatively low oil saturations. Similarly, Inefficient
producers would be wells producing at low rates while contacting
high average oil saturations

Red Producers :
need improvement
through work over or
sidetracking.

 Pattern Balancing:
Knowing the allocation of flow between well
pairs is the starting point of any technique to
balance well patterns in water floods.
For each injector, the amount of injected fluid
supporting any producer in the field is known
exactly
Using this information and the visual display of
streamlines allows patterns to be balanced
more correctly and efficiently than with current
techniques.

2. Upscaling
Memory & CPU time limitations by finite
difference/volume simulators force a coarser
resolution of reservoirs models through upscaling.
Geologists today often generate highly
heterogeneous descriptions of reservoirs, describing
complex structures in considerable detail to build
the geological model.
The result is that the detailed reservoir models tend
to contain too many grid cells which must be
reduced through upscaling due to the computing
speed and time limitation of computing.

 To reduce the total number of cells used

for numerical reservoir simulation, a
simulation grid is generated instead of
using the geological grid directly.
a 20 million cell size fine geological grid up to
a 2.5 million cell size simulation grid.

The challenge today is how to upscale

these reservoir models without sacrificing
the reservoirs heterogeneity and without
losing the original structure of the
geological model.

 Upscaling is substituting a
heterogeneous property region consisting
of fine grid cells with an equivalent
homogeneous region made up of a single
coarse-grid cell with an effective property
value.

 The premise is that for upscaled

system to have similar dynamic
behavior as the original fine-scale
model, wells should be draining
similar volumes and those volumes
should be connected in a similar way.

Streamlines provide exactly that

information

 Applying streamline simulator with the

streamline pattern in the geological
model very similar to the streamline
pattern in the upscale model providing
validation of the upscaling methodology.

SLS FORMULATION

SLS Formulation
SLS is not a special reservoir problem
but an alternative to conventional
simulation approach.
Normal reservoir simulation
techniques are called Finite
Difference Simulators FDS.
The key idea is to decompose 2D or
3D flow problem into a sequence of
1D displacements along streamlines.

SLS Flowchart
Calculate the pressure
field so the saturation
field is at tn

Apply Darcy's law to find

velocity field

Trace streamlines from

injectors to producers

Repeat for
each
stream
line

Pick up the current saturation

information from each grid
block that the streamline
passes
Pass the saturation into a 1D
numerical solver and move the
saturations forward by time tn+1

Average all the streamline

properties within each grid
block to determine the
saturation distribution at tn+1

Map the new saturation

profile back to the
background grid

Repeat for
each time
step

Formulation
Equation for solving pressure field
Where
,
Velocity fields from Darcys law

Tracing Stream lines

Pollock interpolation (1988)


where
Since
direction

 The streamline will exit from the face

having the smallest travel time.
Further more the exit coordinates
can be obtained

Time Of Flight TOF

Datta-Gupta & King (1995)
Is
the time required to reach a
distance S along streamline based on
velocity field along the streamline:
In differential form and by
rearranging:

 Pick
up the current saturation information from
each grid block that the streamline passes.
Calculate TOF

The time-of-flight (TOF) is the time for a

particle to travel between two points on a
streamline,
Theoretically it is the spatial coordinate within
the streamline presented with time
TOF usually defined as the time from the
start of the streamline to a given point on
the streamline.

Solving for saturation

The governing saturation equation of
an individual phase:
Neglecting gravity effect:
Recall :
Then :


Is the key equation in SLS.
It is a 1D phase material balance
equation transformed along
streamline coordinate.
It is similar to Buckley-Leverett frontal
saturation equation.
It can be solved either numerically
Bommer & Schecter (1979) or
analytically Higgins & Leighton (1962).

Moving Saturation forward

in time
Two options available for forwarding
1. Fixed stream tubes Higgins & Leighton
(1962) - Martin, & Wenger (1973).
The changing mobility field is accounted for by
updating the resistances along stream tubes.

2. Updating streamline as mobility field

changes Thiele, M.R (1996).
To honor the changing mobility field, Streamline
paths are calculated periodically

Conclusion
Additions to simulation equations.
Decompose a 2D or 3D-flow problem into a
sequence of 1D displacements along streamlines.
Writing the mass conservation equations in terms
on time-of-flight (TOF).

Solution vector.
Solution vector of pressure solving equation is
similar to finite difference solution vector.
Saturation equation is 1D displacement equation
along the streamline.

 Computation requirements.
Compute the total Darcy velocities
based on the pressure potentials.
Solve the saturation equation
individually on each of the streamlines.
Accumulate all the solution variables.

SENSITIVITY RUNS

Case Study 1

GRID Dimensions (24X36X18)

Heterogeneous Reservoir
Two Producer and Two Injector
More details for model can be found in
data file.

Base Case Run

CPU Time: 10.05 S

Cum Production:
4.27933e+006 SM3
No of Streamlines: 1311

Change Permeability

CPU Time: 11.12 S

Cum Production:
4.24852e+006 SM3
No of Streamlines: 1311

Base Case Vs Change Permeability

Reducing Permeability reflects
decreasing in Oil production
and delaying breakthrough

Ecl_sample 10_1 :
Base Case
Ecl_sample 10 :
New case
Linear Iteration _ Base Case
Linear Iteration _ Permeability
Reduction

Change Number of Streamlines

CPU Time: 9.22 S

Cum Production:
4.27340e+006 SM3
No of Streamlines: 671

Base Case Vs. Change

Streamlines
Changing number of
Streamlines reflects Slight
change in Oil Production

Linear Iteration _ Base Case

Linear Iteration _ Reduce Number of
Streamlines

Change Injection rate

CPU Time: 11.44 S

Cum Production:
5.75146e+006 SM3
No of Streamlines: 1309

Base Case Vs Change Inj.

Rate
Increasing Injection Rate
reflects increasing in Oil
production and total
production

Linear Iteration _ Base Case

Linear Iteration _ Increasing
Injection Rate

Case Study 2
GRID Dimensions (21X21X1)
Homogenous Reservoir
5-spot Pattern (four Producer and
One Injector)
More details for model can be found
in data file.

Base Case Run

CPU Time: 6.54 S

Cum Production:
3.79913e+005 SM3
No of Streamlines: 264

Change Permeability

CPU Time: 5.97 S

Cum Production:
3.80081e+005 SM3
No of Streamlines: 264

Increasing Permeability has no

effect in homogenous reservoir

Linear Iteration _ Base Case

Linear Iteration _ Increasing
Permeability

Change Number of Streamlines

CPU Time: 5.80 S

Cum Production:
3.80892e+005 SM3
No of Streamlines: 132

Base Case Vs. Change Streamlines

Reducing Number of Streamline
has no effect in homogenous
reservoir

Linear Iteration _ Base Case

Linear Iteration _ Reduce Number

of Streamlines

Change Injection rate

CPU Time: 5.26 S

Cum Production:
3.84598e+005 SM3
No of Streamlines: 264

Base Case Vs. Change Inj.

Rate
Increasing Injection Rate
reflects slight change in
homogenous reservoir

Linear Iteration _ Base Case

Linear Iteration _ Increasing

Injection Rate

Summary
Streamline simulation is very efficient in :
1. Run time and accuracy.
2. Incompressible or Slightly compressible models.
3. Heterogeneities and large grid size.

The main limitation is when highly

compressible fluids are present in the model.
Streamline and conventional finite difference
simulation can complement each other.

References
1. Roderick Panko Batycky, A Three-dimensional Two-Phase field scale streamline
simulator
2. Bommer, M.P. and Schechter, R.S, Mathematical Modeling of In-Situ Uranium
Leaching, Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal (December 1979)
3. Higgins R.V. and Leighton, A.J, A Computer Method to Calculate Two Phase Flow in Any
Irregularly Bounded Porous Medium," Journal of Petroleum Technology (June 1962)
4. Baker, Richard, Jr : Streamline Technology , Journal of Canadian Petroleum
Technology , April 2001, Volume 40,No. 4.
5. Datta-Gupta, Akhil, and Michael J King. Streamline Simulation. Richardson, TX: Society
of Petroleum Engineers, 2007. Print.
6. Denis Jose Schiozer , Analysis of the performance of streamline simulation, paper
presented at 2nd Meeting on reservoir simulation , Argentina, November 5-6, 2002.
7. K. Jessen and F.M. Orr Jr.: Compositional Streamline Simulation, paper SPE 77379
presented at Stanford University.
8. Macro Thiele : Streamline Simulation, presented at International Forum on
Reservoir Simulation , Austria , September 3-7, 2001
9. Pomata M. and Menendez A.,Consultants, and j.valle: Streamline-Based Simulator for
Unstructured Grids, paper SPE 107391 presented at SPE Latin American and
Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference , Argentina, April 15-17, 2007.
10.Schlumberger, FrontSim Technical Manual ,2008.1.