Static Reservoir Model Upgridding and Design of User Interface

The development of fine grid geolgocial models has attracted great attention in the past decades. Meanwhile, the need for reliable upscaling and coarsening techniques is continuing. Besides the computational efficiency, upscaling can also offer other advantages. The desire for the assessment of risk and uncertainty in reservoir performance is another key issue that is attracting the researchers. Predictions are necessarily of a statistical character because uncertainty is involved in almost all the aspects of the reservoir characterization. Significantly upscaled models are desired when the full assessment of project risk and uncertainty are to be accomplished. The problem of upgridding fine scale models into the coarsened ones is still an attractive and challenging topic demanding much more effort in the reservoir simulation field. We proposed a modified static coarsening algorithm that has better performance without introducing extra computation cost. This algorithm combines adjacent layers based on static calculations such that the heterogeneity measure of a defined static property is minimized within the layers. In addition, the geological model coarsening will also rely on preserving geological marker information. This combination of static calculation and geological information enables this algorithm to generate models more closely to the true ones. The power and utility of our approaches have been demonstrated using both synthetic and field examples. To assist the optimal coarsening procedures, we developed and implemented a GUI (Graphical User Interface), named MARS. We focused on building up a C++ based user interface which enables users to handle access the upgridding simulation visually. This MARS software package is a general purpose GUI for applications that make use of graphs as an underlying data model. MARS, which allows user to create simulation cases, import and modify data, and generate graphical geological figures, is developed to facilitate the operation of this coarsening procedures and the interpretation of the results obtained by this model. The user of MARS will be graphically guided through the entire process of creating coarsening simulations.