Hierarchical Multiscale Methods for Life-Cycle-Production Optimization: A Field Case Study

Abstract

Summary We apply hierarchical multiscale techniques previously developed by the authors to estimate the well controls that maximize the net present value of the long-term production from a real field offshore Brazil. This field has been in production for several years, and it represents a significant share of the overall oil production for the country. The production-optimization step is preceded by a 10-year historical period, where seismic and production data were history matched by use of ensemble-based approaches. The well controls on a sequence of control steps (time intervals) are optimized for the next 10 years of production by use of the hierarchical-multiscale-optimization and the refinement-indicator-based hierarchical-multiscale-optimization techniques, which refine the control steps as the optimization proceeds. The performance of our approaches is compared with that of a reference case, which applies the well rates used to forecast the production of the real field, as well as with the performance of a standard optimization procedure that uses a fixed set of well controls and a simple procedure to refine control steps.