Boundary Element Technique in Petroleum Reservoir Simulation

M. Liu, and G. Zhao
University of Regina
Regina, SK
Canada
Published in 2011

Petroleum reservoir simulation is a process of modeling the complex physical phenomena inside a reservoir. This study presents an application of an analytical based numerical scheme so called the Boundary Element Method (DRBEM).

It is proven to be able to provide a computationally efficient means of handling single and multiphase flow in a homogeneous medium through the comparison study with Comsol. The accuracy can be further enhanced by incorporating singularity programming and Laplace Transformation (LT) techniques; hence an alleviation of numerical errors caused by singularities and a time derivative is achieved.

It is observed that this method can be an alternative tool to analyze pressure transient performance in a single phase flow through which the important reservoir parameters can be estimated effectively; and study saturation profile and interface behavior for an immiscible flow which plays a key role in enhanced oil recovery processes.

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