New Frontiers in Large Scale Reservoir Simulation

Abstract

Abstract Giant reservoirs of Middle East contain substantial portion of the world's total hydrocarbons. Accurate simulation of these reservoirs requires as many as billion cells. A billion-cell parallel reservoir simulator was first presented in 2009. This paper discusses the progress in the past two years and future projections. In addition to black oil models, paper presents a large full field compositional model involving over billion unknowns. Throughout the paper grid size effects, computational work distribution and parallel scalability are discussed and illustrated. Paper also presents futuristic technologies for building and analyzing large simulation models.