Reservoir Engineering and Simulation of Carbonate Reservoirs

Field Development Planning (FDP), Petrophysical, and Reservoir Simulation Studies for Optimizing Production Rates and Recoveries from Carbonate Reservoirs

The seasoned consultants of the A&A Consulting Team have been working professionally on carbonate reservoirs since the 1970s, and have had in-depth involvement in some of the world's most prolific carbonate oil and gas fields, onshore and offshore, particularly in the Middle East and the Permian Basin.

Avasthi & Associates, Inc. (A&A) is an independent petroleum engineering and geoscience consulting firm. A&A does not sell reservoir-simulation software, production-modeling software, or field equipment — our only business is expert technical consulting, which means our recommendations on characterization, waterflood, EOR and well-stimulation strategy are never influenced by a stake in any particular vendor or technology.

A&A Consulting Team’s extensive experience working on carbonate reservoirs includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Determination of Hydrocarbons In-place

• Field Development Planning (FDP)

• Reservoir Geophysical / Seismic Analysis

• Reservoir Petrophysical Analysis, including matrix–fracture porosity and permeability partitioning

• Reservoir Geomodeling / Static Modeling, including characterization of diagenetic overprints — dolomitization, karsting, and vuggy and fracture-related heterogeneity

• Reservoir Analysis / Fluid Characterization

• Naturally fractured reservoir characterization and dual-porosity / dual-permeability reservoir simulation / dynamic modeling

• Wettability characterization — most carbonate reservoirs are oil-wet to mixed-wet — and its impact on waterflood and EOR performance

• Optimizing well spacing and horizontal / multilateral wells

• Matrix acid stimulation and well-productivity enhancement

• Implementation of waterfloods to improve overall recovery

• Implementation of suitable enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques — including CO2, hydrocarbon-gas and nitrogen miscible/immiscible gas injection, and surfactant/chemical flooding for wettability alteration — to improve overall recovery

• Implementation of water shut-off (WSO) methods to control excessive water production, and management of scale (e.g., calcium carbonate/sulfate) risk

• Optimizing CO2 utilization in CO2 flooding EOR projects

• Effective reservoir surveillance and management, with emphasis on ensuring adequate drainage of the lower-permeability matrix, since early production from naturally fractured carbonates is typically dominated by the high-permeability fracture network

• Implementation of the most efficient and cost-effective strategies for optimizing production rates and maximizing reserves

Dual-Porosity / Dual-Permeability Simulation of Naturally Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs

Many of the world's largest carbonate reservoirs are naturally fractured, with the fracture network providing the dominant flow pathway while the rock matrix stores the majority of the hydrocarbons in place. Accurately characterizing and simulating this dual-porosity/dual-permeability system — including fracture intensity and orientation, matrix-fracture transfer (imbibition) behavior, and wettability — is essential to designing an effective waterflood, EOR, or water shut-off program, and to avoiding premature water or gas breakthrough through the fracture network. Our reservoir consultants have extensive, hands-on experience building and history-matching dual-porosity/dual-permeability simulation models of naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs, around the world.

We can put to work teams of our high-level and seasoned consultants, with extensive experience in conducting petrophysical, reservoir simulation, and related studies, for optimizing production rates and recoveries from carbonate reservoirs, on your company’s carbonate reservoirs, around the world, whenever requested.

To put our high-level and seasoned consultants, subject matter experts (SME), to work on your company's carbonate reservoir development and optimization projects, around the world, please contact us. Even a one-percentage-point improvement in recovery factor can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of a large carbonate field.

Oil & Gas Field Development Planning (FDP) and

Field Development Modeling (FDM)

Probabilistic, PetroVR-Based Field Development Plans and Models — Notional to Ready-to-Sanction — for Onshore and Offshore Oil & Gas Fields, Worldwide

Assign your company's oil & gas field development planning and modeling challenges to A&A, and let the high-level, seasoned consultants of the A&A Consulting Team build the robust, defensible FDP/FDM that your decision-makers can act on.

The A&A Consulting Team of high-level and seasoned consultants is available to assist our clients in oil & gas field development planning (FDP) for operational and strategic decision-making throughout the different stages of field life, including acreage acquisition, exploration, appraisal, and development.

Field development planning (FDP) is a critical task, representing a complex problem that depends on many factors subject to uncertainties inherent in the estimation process — such as subsurface geology, reservoir and fluid properties, rock and fluid interactions, well-type and surface-equipment specifications, surface pipeline network, topside processing capacity, regional export infrastructure, and economic criteria.

Due to the complexity of the problem, many majors and independents face challenges when attempting to build a dynamic FDP model capable of conveniently incorporating new information in a short time, and of keeping pace with the project's analysis cycle.

Building a robust FDP model faces many challenges, none of which are fully resolved, and it remains an ongoing concern in the industry, as it poses significant risk in conceptual FDP selection and, consequently, in capital investment decisions.

PetroVR: A State-of-the-Art FDP/FDM Decision-Support Tool

The A&A Consulting Team has the expertise and experience to build FDP models that help oil & gas company decision-makers make well-informed business decisions and achieve their business objectives. To build FDP models, the A&A Consulting Team uses PetroVR — a state-of-the-art field-development decision-support software platform (now part of Quorum Software's Aucerna Planning, Economics & Reserves suite) — which enables:

• Fully Probabilistic Assessment: Generating a fully probabilistic assessment of conceptual field development, integrating subsurface geological uncertainties with operational and economic uncertainties

• Automated Yet Flexible Workflows: Highly automated, but flexible enough for customized studies of specific issues, and for conveniently incorporating new information in a very short time

• Systematic Risk Assessment: Providing a systematic approach to help assess business outcomes and risks, and building a framework to better quantify key uncertainties

• Flexible Reservoir & Well Performance Inputs: Reservoir and well performance can be internally estimated, formulated with parameters, or imported directly from simulation

• Full-Cycle Economic Analysis: Providing full-cycle economic analysis, and promoting interdisciplinary teamwork

• Rapid Update Capability: Quickly and conveniently incorporating new understanding of reservoir and well performance, changes in development planning and schedules, and economic criteria

Types of FDP/FDM Studies

The A&A Consulting Team will be delighted to design customized field development plans (FDP) for your company's oil & gas fields, whether located onshore or offshore (shallow water or deepwater). The scope and depth of each study will depend on the available data and the current status of the field, and could include:

• Notional FDP: A conceptual-level plan appropriate where field data availability is limited

• Ready-to-Sanction FDP: A mature, investment-grade plan for fields where significant appraisal activity has already been conducted

• Optimized FDP: Optimization of your company's current FDP to enhance reserves and production through infill and field-extension wells

• Conceptual FDM: A conceptual field development planning model, with risk and uncertainty modeling

What's in Your FDP/FDM Report

The depth and breadth of the A&A Consulting Team's technical and economic expertise is reflected in a comprehensive report of our investigation of your field development planning/modeling (FDP/FDM) project. The report is customized to meet your company's requirements and, depending on the amount and type of project data provided to us for investigation, will generally include the following:

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction

2.1 Development Summary

2.2 Location and Field Area

2.3 Equity and Stockholders

2.4 Applicable Regulatory Laws and Lease Conditions

3. Subsurface Description

3.1 Introduction

3.2 History of Discovery and Appraisal

3.3 Stratigraphy and Reservoir Description

3.4 Seismic Interpretation

3.5 Petrophysical Interpretation

3.6 Reservoir Mapping / 3D Reservoir Modeling

3.7 Deterministic Hydrocarbons Initially-in-Place (HIIP, OIIP, and OGIP)

3.8 Probabilistic Hydrocarbons Initially-in-Place

3.8.1 Unrisked HIIP (OIIP and OGIP)

3.8.2 Risked HIIP (OIIP and OGIP)

4. Subsurface Development Plan

4.1 Fluid and Rock Properties

4.2 Development Scenarios and Well Count

4.3 Reservoir Simulation

4.3.1 Reference Case

4.3.2 Sensitivities

4.4 Technical Recovery and Range

4.4.1 Deterministic

4.4.2 Probabilistic

4.5 Production Profiles

4.6 Subsurface Risk and Uncertainty Mitigation

4.7 Reservoir Management and Surveillance Plan

5. Project Economics

5.1 Drilling and Completion Costs

5.2 Facilities Cost

5.3 Economic Assumptions

5.4 Economic Analysis and Sensitivities

6. Field Development Modeling (FDM) with Risk and Uncertainty Modeling

6.1 Building/setting up a full Field Development Model (FDM) using state-of-the-art software (PetroVR) that provides modules for field development planning (FDP) under uncertainty, and a post-processing economic module flexible enough to model a wide range of dependencies

6.2 Economic Evaluation with Uncertainty Analysis (PEEP), a widely used petroleum economic evaluation and risk-analysis software tool

Whenever requested, the A&A Consulting Team will be delighted to present the results of our investigation and the customized Field Development Plan/Model (FDP/FDM) for your company's oil & gas field — not only to your company's management, but also to your company's equity partners, financial institutions, and/or the appropriate regulatory authorities — for their approval, and to answer any questions that they may have about the customized FDP/FDM.

In addition, whenever requested, the A&A Consulting Team will be delighted to conduct customized training workshops on designing field development plans (FDP), and on building/setting up field development models (FDM), for unconventional or conventional oil & gas fields, onshore or offshore, for the benefit of your company's professionals and managers, at your company's offices, around the world.

Related A&A Service: For AI-accelerated reservoir simulation, Surrogate Reservoir Model (SRM) proxies, and probabilistic (P10/P50/P90) decision-grade analysis, please see A&A's Decision-Grade Reservoir Simulation-Driven Field Development Planning (FDP) Studies page.

To put the high-level, seasoned consultants, subject matter experts (SMEs), of the A&A Consulting Team to work on your company's challenging onshore or offshore field development planning (FDP) and field development modeling (FDM) projects, around the world, please contact us (Contact@AvasthiConsulting.com) or click here.