Q: We have 2 wells completed at the same depth in the
same reservoir, and one seems to be initially producing a gas condensate and
the other one is producing a black oil. How can that be?
(recently asked in a SPE Reservoir Technical Group discussion)
A: There could be 2 separate reservoirs, as others have
mentioned. That would be indicated by unequal initial fluid phase
contacts levels and pressures (where Pc=0). Or if initial contacts and
pressures are the same and we assume that the formation is a single
reservoir with continuous hydraulic connectivity at initial
capillary-gravity equilibrium, then initial saturations (and therefore
produced fluids) can vary areally at a given depth simply due to
heterogeneity and capillary pressure and phase transition zones. For
example, let's say that your well producing oil is in a low perm zone (0.1
md) compared to the condensate well (100 md), and that porosity is constant,
and that the Leverett J-function applies to Pcgo. Say that the entered
curve has Pcgomx=10 psia at Sg=1, and that the reference J-function value is
Jref = sqrt (kref/phiref) = sqrt (1 md/ 0.1) = 3.162278.
The "oil" well
could be in (towards the bottom of) the oil-gas transition zone
corresponding to the tight rock (.1 md) Pc curve, which is equal to the
entered curve times Jref/J = 3.162278/sqrt(.1/.1) = 3.162278. So max
Pcgo at the oil well is equal to 10*3.162278 = 31.62278. If the
average phase gradients of oil and gas in the transition zones are say, .25
and .15 psia/ft, respectively, then the total height of the gas-oil
transition zone above the GOC at the oil well is Pcgomx/(go-gg) =
31.62278/.1 = 316.2278 ft.
Pc at the "gas"
well is equal to the entered curve times Jref/J = 3.162278/sqrt(100/.1) =
0.1 The total height of the gas-oil transition zone above the GOC at the gas
well is Pcgomx/(go-gg) = 10*.1/.1 = 10 ft.
If both wells
were completed 30 ft above the GOC, the "gas" well would be initially
producing all gas at reservoir conditions (from above the transition zone,
at Sginit = 1 - Swc) while the "oil" well would be initially producing
mostly oil (So would be close to 1-Swc near the bottom of the
transition zone). This can be demonstrated by initialization of a 2D
x-z reservoir model with only two adjacent columns, one for each well.
The initial downhole oil phase produced (all oil where Sg < Sgc) from the
oil well would be at or close to equilibrium with the initial downhole gas
phase produced from the gas well. Substitute your possible reservoir/fluid
properties into reservoir models (making various assumptions as
demonstrated) to check this and other possible explanations for
observations. If the produced fluids are at or near initial
equilibrium then a single pvt representation can represent them.
Consult with a pvt expert for assistance with fluid characterization.
Q: If Sensor is technically superior, why isn't it the market leader?
A: The main reason is that in the past we have not offered
integrated reservoir engineering workflows, and have only provided the
reservoir simulator. Our clients have generally been expert users who
have recognized the extreme advantages gained by building workflows with the
best available components. However, commercial pre/post-processing
packages and workflow integration and optimization tools recently developed
by our associates provide vastly superior automated and integrated
deterministic and probabilistic reservoir modeling capabilities and
workflows, and are rapidly increasing Sensor's market share. See
Simulation Goals.
Q: In what ways does Sensor treat black oil and compositional problems
differently?
A:
Sensor treats black oil and compositional problems with the same logic.
The code and input data are
the same for the two cases, with the obvious exception of PVT treatment and
PVT data.
Q: What shortcuts, approximations, or sacrifices to accuracy, if any,
explain the CPU times of Sensor?
A:
Sensor makes no shortcuts, approximations, or data changes related to
accuracy. While Sensor was designed to provide accuracy equal to or
greater than that of other models, the accuracies of different models’
results are best judged by actual run results.
Simple examples are: (1) compare Sensor’s one-iteration production well 6200
mcf/d rates of spe3.dat with rates from other models, (2) compare the
initialization of phase identity and pressure in the critical-point black
oil (compositional) test4a.dat (test4b.dat) with other models, (3) for any
problem, test the 0-rate, no-change accuracy of Sensor initialization (this
is a recommended test of initial equilibrium and properly isolated
equilibrium regions, insert two data lines TIME 10000/END at the beginning
of Recurrent Data for a few-second run with no wells), (4) for symmetrical
problems, check the symmetry of results.
CPU times can vary widely among different simulators, as indicated by
several of the SPE Comparative Solution Project problems37-43*.
In one case, CPU times among five participants varied by a factor up
to 50 for the same dataset and same machine40.
Model efficiency depends upon many factors, including (1) choice of
formulation (Impes, Implicit, Adaptive Implicit, etc.), (2) solver type (NF
vs ILU-based methods) and logic of well constraint terms inclusion, (3)
implicit well terms in Impes, (4) method of handling wellbore crossflow, (5)
active-block coding in the solver as well as throughout the model, (6)
Newton-Raphson vs successive-substitution methods in flash and phase
stability calculations, (7) choice of variables in Impes compositional cases
with large Nc, and many more.
Hundreds of published papers discuss these and other aspects of simulator
methodology.
Different models’ authors often disagree regarding the best choices
and use different methods.
Implementation can be as important as the choice of methods.
For example, Adaptive Implicit should be more efficient than Impes.
But in one case two models, one using Impes, the other using Adaptive
Implicit, were run on the same data and machine. The Impes run was six times faster. A more extreme
example is given on the Miscible page of this website. Code
efficiency can be a factor. Sensor uses no pre-compilers or other code
efficiency enhancers.
As in the case of accuracy, model speed is best judged by actual model runs.
In addition, the comparisons should be “fair”.
We might run the same dataset on the same machine on Sensor and on
Company A’s Model A and find CPU times of four hours for Model A.
However, if we asked Company A to run the problem, they might well make
minor input parameter changes to obtain a two or three hour run.
* Reference numbers are those of the Sensor Manual.
Q:
Do parallel applications provide any overall performance advantage in
simulation on multicore machines, or on any other hardware?
A:
Even though parallel applications may provide single run speedup, the answer
is no, except where available memory is not sufficient to run multiple
serial cases (the current maximum single-process memory of 512 GB is enough
for a 320 million cell case in Sensor, or 32 simultaneous ten million cell
cases). That exception now possibly includes only a few gigantic
fields, but it won't exist for very long since the available memory is
doubling every year or two. Single runs provide no value. It is
the evaluation of sensitivities to many control and uncertain variables
obtained from many runs that allows predictive optimization. Serial
applications can make far more efficient use of multicore machines (or any
other hardware with sufficient memory) than parallel applications can, since
they don't have to pay for the parallel inefficiencies caused by coupled
domains. By running 1 simultaneous serial application per core or
processor (on 64 bit hardware generally capable of providing far more than
sufficient memory) to simultaneously evaluate multiple sensitivities, you
can achieve the maximum run rate that the hardware and software is capable
of.
Running one simultaneous serial
application per core, or one per processor on single-core machines,
maximizes the hardware output in terms of the rate it can execute floating
point operations (Floating
Point
Operations Per Second, or FLOPS). Using Sensor
(1) minimizes FLOs required per run, (2) avoids parallel
sub-process communication and synchronization requirements, problems, and
inefficiencies and (3) maximizes the overall run rate.
One of our clients was previously
running a single porosity black oil field case using the leading parallel
model on an 8-node cluster. They can now run Sensor on each node 15
times faster than their previous parallel run time using all 8 nodes.
Overall, that's a speedup of 120, over two orders of magnitude. This
is much greater than the black oil speedup we usually see, even considering
the huge parallel inefficiencies. One of the causes (accounting for a
factor of 2 or 3) is that for some reason the parallel model wouldn't run
well in Impes, while Sensor's Impes formulation was significantly faster
than its Implicit formulation.
Q: In John Killough's original 1995 SPE9 paper, SPE 29110 referenced
on your Who's Fastest? page, Sensor is reported as being only
30% faster than VIP, on the same machine. Yet, your Who's Fastest?
page shows that Sensor is currently 5 or 6 times faster than VIP on that
problem. How can that be?
A: See SPE 29111
(originally presented at the same conference as 29110, later published as
SPE 50990 in SPEREE) - the cpu time reported for Sensor on SPE9, on the same
machine used to run Sensor and VIP in SPE 29110, shows that Sensor was about
2.5 times faster than VIP in 1995, when using our Nested Factorization
solver that we had recently completed. The Sensor SPE9 run times in
SPE 29110 were obtained from an older version using a solver provided by
Phillips that had been used during early Sensor development. Since
1995, many improvements have been made and continue to be made to Sensor.
Q: What size problems can be
run on Sensor, and what
is the hardware cost?
A: Problem size is limited only
by addressable machine memory. For any run, Sensor prints the required
memory allocation at the top of the output file.
The required memory depends upon more factors than just the numbers of
components and active grid blocks.
For example, the NF solver requires less storage than the default RBILU(0)
solver. The Table below is a rough guide for Impes cases. For the
implicit formulation, memory requirement is higher and increases more
rapidly with the number of components.
Active blocks |
Components |
Memory MB |
125,000 |
Black Oil |
183 |
250,000 |
Black Oil |
365 |
1,500,000 |
Black Oil |
2400 |
3,000,000 |
Black Oil |
4800 |
50,000 |
6 |
147 |
100,000 |
6 |
295 |
50,000 |
9 |
206 |
100,000 |
9 |
412 |
25,000 |
24 |
358 |
When the memory required by your run exceeds the available memory on your
PC, the run elapsed (wall clock) time may significantly exceed CPU time due
to paging (use of virtual memory).
Sensor elapsed and CPU times are about the same when available
memory is not exceeded (see the
times appearing at the bottom of the downloadable example problem output
files).
The Sensor6k executable is a
Windows 32-bit version, but will run on Windows 32-bit and Windows x64
operating systems (through the WOW32 emulator). On 32-bit systems, the
maximum memory addressable by a process is 2 GB. This allows black oil
problems roughly on the order of a million blocks.
On Windows x64 operating systems
(8, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2003, or Compute Cluster Server 2003), maximum
memory addressable by the 32-bit executable is 4 GB, allowing black oil
problems on the order of 2 million blocks. Our 64-bit version,
SENSOR 64,
allows access of more memory (up to the machine limit, theoretical = 8 TB).
The maximum physical memory currently available on computers running Windows
8 (x64) is 512 GB (it is 192 GB for Windows 7), allowing Sensor black oil
cases up to about 320 million cells. Cost for those machines
with the maximum 512 GB RAM may range into the tens of thousands, but
currently available 64-bit machines with 16 to 64 GB of memory are
inexpensive and are more than sufficient for most cases. The pc with
16 GB can accommodate cases up to about
10 million cells, or 10 simultaneous million cell cases (since
Sensor Impes memory requirement varies linearly with problem size as in
above table). If the theoretical maximum memory addressable by 64 bit
processes, 8 TB RAM, were available, Sensor could run impes black oil cases
up to about 5
billion
cells on a single node.
All estimated maximum problem sizes
mentioned above apply to Impes black oil cases. The user is cautioned
that good efficiency (particularly) in Impes cases requires that grid block
sizes (pore volumes) must not be small. If they are, timestep size
limitations will and should be expected to cause prohibitively long run
times, particularly for larger problems. See the discussion of cpu
time scaling with problem size on page 2 of this section. Also, the
ability to run very large problems is not by itself a good justification to
do so. Grid dimensions (number of gridblocks) should be chosen as the
smallest required to control the effects of numerical dispersion on results
while adequately describing geology. In general, very large problems
are justified only by very large reservoirs.
Q: Can you indicate in one place all the steps necessary to run the
Sensor simulator and plot results with Plot2Excel?
A:
We illustrate for spe1.dat, and compare results with a modified spe1 case.
1.
Create a work directory (folder), for example C:\sensor\testspe1, using
Windows Explorer, or to do so by command line from a script or manually from
a Command Prompt Window (to open go to Start/Programs/Accessories and
select Command Prompt), enter the following commands:
cd C:\
mkdir sensor
cd sensor
mkdir testspe1
cd testspe1
You have created and are now in the work
directory.
2. Copy your data file into your
work directory. The spe1.dat file is provided in the directory given
by the environment variable %sensordata%. This is easy to do manually
by copy/paste from Windows Explorer, but from a script or from command line
following (1) above, you can enter:
copy "%sensordata%\spe1.dat" .
Notice the space followed by the period
at the end (the period means 'here'). The quotation marks are required
when the path name contains blanks, including the expanded name of any
environment variables.
3. If executing manually and
the Command Prompt Window is not open from (1) and (2) above - go to
Start/Programs/Accessories and select Command Prompt, then in the Command
Prompt Window, go to the work directory, by entering for example:
cd C:\sensor\testspe1
4. Execute sensor. Execute
in a script or manually enter in the Command Prompt Window:
sensor spe1.dat spe1.out
Move or rename fort.61 to (say) "f61spe1" (move fort.61 f61spe1).
Change the spe1.dat data file to allow no gas solution above bubble
point (as indicated in comments in the spe1.dat data file) and save the
changed file as spe1a.dat.
Enter:
sensor spe1a.dat spe1a.out
Move or rename fort.61 to (say) "f61spe1a".
5.
In the work directory, construct
the SensorPlot data file (say) "spe1.sp" as:
TITLE
SPE1 compare cases of gas going into sol'n
and not going into sol'n above 4014 psia bubble pt.
ENDTITLE
FILE
f61spe1
Rs'>0
! Sensor result file and a
f61spe1a
Rs'=0 !
source name as a single word.
OUTPUTNAME
spe1
! any name desired
FIELD
QOIL
(Y2) GOR (T)
SPE1 EFFECT OF Rs SOLUTION GAS ABOVE BP
CUMOIL (Y2) CUMGAS
PAVG
(Y2) OILREC
END
Enter at
command prompt:
SensorPlot.exe.
You will be prompted for the name of the SensorPlot data file,
enter "spe1.sp". See file
“SensorPlot.inf” for the run summary.
SensorPlot will generate 2 files: “spe1.tab” with data tables and “spe1.plt”
with plot-log records.
6.
Open MS Excel and follow the instructions on page
10 of the SensorPlot Manual. It will guide you through Plot2Excel to build
and view the requested plots.
Note: If you are making many runs and always want the same plots, you can
construct the ".sp" file once with the file name "fort.61" entered under
file.
Then after each run when you want plots, you need only enter "SensorPlot.exe"
and proceed from there. The downloadable Sensor data files include
SensorPlot data files of
".sp" extension for spe1, spe2, spe3, spe5, spe7, spe9, spe10, test2,
test3a and test16.
Q: How do Sensor run times
scale with problem size?
A: We illustrate using
spe1 as an example. This case takes about 0.2 cpu seconds on our 2.8
GHz desktop.
If the numbers of blocks and wells
are increased by a factor of n, while keeping the grid block sizes (dx, dy,
dz) the same (i.e., the reservoir is replicated by a factor of n), average
timestep size will remain about the same, and the larger case should take
approximately n x (0.2 cpu seconds). If spe1 is increased from 10 x 10
x 3 (300 blocks) to 800 x 800 x 3 (almost 2 million blocks), then n=6400 and
the larger case should take about 21 minutes on our machine.
However, if the total reservoir
size is fixed, and the grid block sizes (dx, dy, dz) are decreased such that
the total number of blocks are increased by a factor of n, average timestep
size will be reduced by a factor of n, and the larger case should be
expected to take approximately n x n x (0.2 cpu seconds). Here, we are
assuming that the number of wells and their boundary conditions and spatial
locations remain fixed. We would expect this 800 x 800 x 3 run
(n=6400) to take about 93 days on our machine.
This illustrates the importance of
not using block sizes that are significantly smaller than those required to
control numerical dispersion while adequately describing geology. The
model can and should be used to determine those requirements by examining
the sensitivity of results to the level of spatial discretization, using
upscaling methods of the user's choice.
While most of the provided example
cases are small, Sensor's performance advantage is not a function of the
number of gridblocks.
Q: What tuning is needed
or recommended for high efficiency and stability in Sensor?
A: Selections of
formulation (default Impes, or IMPLICIT card for fully implicit) and linear
solution option (default ILU, or NF card for Nested Factorization) can
significantly affect performance. While in some cases a particular
formulation is called for (like Implicit for radial coning problems), in
general we recommend test runs to determine the optimum selections.
Very rare cases require modification of timestep/run control or other solver
control defaults. Some options may improve performance. We
recommend that 2D and 3D Impes runs should be tried first with an entry of
CFL 2 for stable step control. Reduction of the stable step size may
be needed in some cases to eliminate oscillations. The PERC card
specifying percolation control in Impes runs sometimes gives good speedup
for gassy oil problems. See Section 7.1 in the Sensor Manual for
further discussion of recommended run control.
Q: Can unstructured grids be
used with Sensor?
A:
Yes. They are specified using the structured Cartesian format, in the
form of transmissibilities and cell pore volumes and depths. This is
essentially an accounting problem and must be performed by an unstructured
gridding program. The number of blocks in the x, y, and z directions
are set to include a sufficient number of cells. Any extra cells are
deactivated and cause no penalty. The unstructured cells are ordered
in some way, and the corresponding specified structured transmissibilities
either represent a true unstructured connection, or are zero where no
unstructured connection exists. All other unstructured connections are
specified as non-neighbor connections (transmissibilities). The
connections are assumed k-orthogonal, i.e. Sensor does not employ a
multipoint flux approximation. Since Sensor's linear solvers are
already coded in an unstructured manner, the unstructured nature of the grid
does not cause performance penalties, unlike some other models with
structured matrix representations. Well intersections and perforation
well indices are also computed by the unstructured gridding program.
Map visualization requires an unstructured viewer linked to the Sensor
output and to the unstructured grid representation.
Sensor can also model dual
porosity/dual permeability systems in unstructured grids, through entry of
approximately equivalent rectilinear gridblock dimensions, along with
rectilinear matrix block dimensions.
Q: What about hybrid
(mixed-type) grids?
A:
Sensor can handle any combination of grid systems that the gridding program
is able to describe.
Q: Can Sensor handle local
grid refinement?
A:
Yes. But the refinements must be set up by a gridding program or
pre-processing step in the context of structured and non-neighbor
connections in Sensor's single xyz grid. This is similar to the setup
for unstructured grids described above. RExcel now performs this
function for Sensor (http://www.santecpe.com).
Q: What are the
limitations of Analytical and Numerical Simulation?
A:
See Novel
Techniques for Reservoir Management and
Requirements for Substantiation.
Also see our
Uncertainty Quantification and
SensorPx pages. Inability to account for
uncertainty can be a severe limitation in reservoir modeling. When the
uncertainties have significant effects on results, probabilistic analysis is
needed for optimization and forecasting.
Q: What are
"machine-learning" algorithms?
A: "Machine-learning" is a
misnomer or marketing term usually applied to optimization or
function-matching methods. Many apply the the term to almost any
computerized algorithm (software program). The intelligence behind any
software program is in the minds of its developers. Computers add
speed, capacity, and memory to numerical solutions, but not intelligence.
Machines cannot
learn, and there is no such thing as artificial intelligence. Machines can
only do what they are programmed to do and their only advantages over the
human brain are memory and speed in communications and in performing massive
and/or repetitive calculations. Computers and computer programs are
the most advanced tools ever developed by humans. Their capacity for
magnifying the ability of human intelligence to solve problems may seem like
magic or like "artificial intelligence" but it is not.
We are aware of
no reproducible example of any "machine learning" method that has been shown
to be useful in reservoir modeling for optimizations or predictions (other
than an applicable full-physics reservoir model or simulator along with
manual or automated optimization methods). Statistical analysis of data,
curve-fitting or mapping, function matching, speech or image recognition or
processing, nor any automated optimization method represent "machine
learning" or "artificial intelligence".
Even our most
advanced workflows in simulation do not qualify as "machine learning".
They are software tools that are programmed and run by humans on
machines to solve problems (which seems to be the most currently-used
definition of "machine learning" today). We can automatically (iteratively)
optimize any of the inputs to maximize or minimize any benefit function
(such as NPV for predictive optimization or a mismatch function for
upscaling or history matching) defined by the outputs of any set of linked
batch applications, using third party workflow integration, automation, and
optimization software (such as Pipe-it from Petrostreamz that offers a
number of different optimization methods and algorithms). For example, we
can automatically optimize well and fracture spacings and operational
variables (i.e. determine optimal periods and constraints for depletion,
water flooding, wag flooding, and blowdown) for simplified sets of parallel
horizontal wells (given fracture geometry) assuming simultaneous operation
of all wells in the field, to determine the simplest possible answer to the
questions we have always asked : "where should we put our wells and how
should we operate them to maximize NPV?" Uncertainty may be included in
the analysis with the additional capability of iteratively generating and
evaluating an arbitrary number of equally-probable realizations along with
simple and fast statistical analysis of their results in SensorPx.
Uncertainties in reservoir descriptions can be partially accounted for by
the Uncertain Inputs capabilities of Sensor, which can almost instantly
create unlimited numbers of equally-probable realizations of the
uncertainties from their input probability distributions. |