A Multiple-Porosity Method for Simulation of Naturally Fractured Petroleum Reservoirs

Summary This paper describes the application of the method of "Multiple Interacting Continua" (MINC) to the simulation of oil recovery in naturally fractured reservoirs. A generalization of the double-porosity technique, the MINC method permits a fully transient description of interporosity flow by numerical methods. We present examples to demonstrate the utility of the MINC method for modeling oil-recovery mechanisms by water imbibition and field applications for five-spot waterflooding and water coning problems in fractured reservoirs. All results show that the MINC method provides accurate predictions of the behavior of naturally fractured reservoirs, while requiring only a modest increase in computation work compared with the double-porosity method. The double-porosity method may result in large errors for matrix blocks of low permeability or large size.