Courses

This course is designed for reservoir engineers involved in the evaluation and management of naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs). In particular, it is intended for reservoir engineers who perform activities related to understanding NFR behavior and who use numerical simulation models for history matching and prediction.

The course encourages a collaborative approach to NFR modeling using various subsurface disciplines and applications. The course covers basic and advanced numerical simulation aspects including fracture modeling concepts. It also promotes an understanding of the activities that precede building a numerical model, such as, generating and upscaling a discrete fracture network (DFN).

You build a fractured reservoir model from scratch in Petrel. This exercise will help you to better understand the role that petrophysics, structural geology, and geomechanics concepts play in creating the dynamic simulation model that you will be using.

Several methods exist for modeling NFR dynamic behavior. The method used depends on the objective of the numerical simulation. The dual porosity concept is commonly used in hydrology and the oil and gas industry to represent flow in fractured media. In this course, you learn about the background, concepts, and assumptions of the dual porosity model. In the exercises, you run numerical well test cases and compare the results against dual porosity and equivalent single porosity models.

The NFR recovery mechanisms are discussed mainly in the context of the dual porosity model. In addition, you learn about advanced modeling options including the extension to multi-porosity models. Following this section is a discussion on dynamic calibration and history matching applications in NFRs. The course concludes with a discussion and exercises on applying dual porosity extensions to model coal bed methane (CBM) and shale gas reservoirs.