A Streamline Approach for History-Matching Production Data

This study proposes and develops a streamline approach for inferring field-scale effective permeability distributions based on dynamic production data including producer water-cut curve, well pressures, and rates. The approach simplifies the history-matching process significantly. The basic idea is to relate the fractional-flow curve at a producer to the water breakthrough of individual streamlines. By adjusting the effective permeability along streamlines, the breakthrough time of each streamline is found that reproduces the reference producer fractional-flow curve. Then the permeability modification along each streamline is mapped onto cells of the simulation grid. Modifying effective permeability at the streamline level greatly reduces the size of the inverse problem compared to modifications at the grid-block level. The approach outlined here is relatively direct and greatly reduces the computational work by eliminating the repeated inversion of a system of equations. It works well for reservoirs where heterogeneity determines flow patterns. Example cases illustrate computational efficiency, generality, and robustness of the proposed procedure. Advantages and limitations of this work, and the scope of future study, are also discussed.