The industry increasingly relies on forecasts from reservoir models for reservoir management and decision making. However, because forecasts from reservoir models carry large uncertainties, calibrating them as soon as data come in is crucial. Traditional probabilistic history matching remains time-consuming because it needs to calibrate the models before using them to update probability distributions (S-curves) of quantities of interest (QOIs). This paper presents a direct forecast method called simulation regression with localization (SRL), which is able to calibrate the forecast with observed data without calibrating the model.
Introduction
Production forecasts from reservoir-simulation models can be affected by the various uncertainties present in the subsurface, such as those in the geological characterization and rock and fluid properties. Calibrating uncertain QOIs, such as production-forecast or key subsurface parameters, to observation data is a crucial element in the context of closed-loop reservoir management.
