Reservoir Model Types - Reservoir Model Design - page 225

This is only intended as a rule of thumb, but
reminds us to consider the fluid system before
launching into a detailed reservoir modelling
study. Gas reservoirs under depletion will require
much less modelling and characterisation effort
than oil reservoirs under waterflood, and heavy
oil reservoirs may require very intense efforts to
identify the critical effects of rock architecture
on the fluid displacement mechanism.
One important caveat to this principle is that it
assumes you know what the permeability varia-
tion of your reservoir is a priori . We know from
our discussion of the treatment of generally
incomplete subsurface datasets (Chap. 3 ) that a
few core plugs from an appraisal well may give a
false impression of the permeability variation in
the reservoir. Several gas reservoir developments
started with the assumption that internal perme-
ability variations in the reservoir were insignifi-
cant, and that a 'reservoir tank' model was
therefore adequate, only to find later that certain
previously unidentified high-k thief zones or
barriers did in fact have a major impact on the
gas depletion rates.
Every heterogeneous reservoir is heteroge-
neous in its own way. Although this is true,
generic issues can be extracted for different res-
ervoir types, as the preceding pages have aimed
to illustrate. These common features should
allow the reservoir modeller to achieve a fit-for-
purpose approach to the case at hand. In all cases
three things are essential:
(a) Developing

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