High resolution potential flow methods in oil exploration

Research Report MRR96-003

High resolution potential flow methods in oil exploration

Stephen Roberts and Stephan Matthai

Abstract: In Petroleum exploration it is often important to understand the flow of liquids through porous media, which can be described by conservation of fluid, and the assumption (Darcy' Law) that the fluid flux is given by a \nabla P where P is the pressure and a is the permeability of the porous media. Three major problems are associated with solving this problem in the situation of interest. First, the permeability a can range over many orders of magnitude (10 orders being typical). Second, the distribution of the permeability can form complicated geometric stuctures associated with geological stuctures such as faults and permeable layers with different flow characteristics. Finally, the permeability data and description of the problem can come in arbitrary sizes depending on the experimental data which is available. To overcome these problems we have used a finite element method with an algebrain multigrid solver. We present the results of some simulations of flow through faults associated with oil migration through sand-shale structures. In particular we will demonstrate how fluid flow patterns at fault-sand-shale intersections vary with fault permeability.

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