Data-Driven Model Falsification and Uncertainty Quantification for Fractured Reservoirs

Many properties of natural fractures are uncertain, such as their spatial distribution, petrophysical properties, and fluid flow performance. Bayesian theorem provides a framework to quantify the uncertainty in geological modeling and flow simulation, and hence to support reservoir performance predictions. The application of Bayesian methods to fractured reservoirs has mostly been limited to synthetic cases. In field applications, however, one of the main problems is that the Bayesian prior is falsified, because it fails to predict past reservoir production data. In this paper, we show how a global sensitivity analysis (GSA) can be used to identify why the prior is falsified. We then employ an approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) method combined with a tree-based surrogate model to match the production history. We apply these two approaches to a complex fractured oil and gas reservoir where all uncertainties are jointly considered, including the petrophysical properties, rock physics properties, fluid properties, discrete fracture parameters, and dynamics of pressure and transmissibility. We successfully identify several reasons for the falsification. The results show that the methods we propose are effective in quantifying uncertainty in the modeling and flow simulation of a fractured reservoir. The uncertainties of key parameters, such as fracture aperture and fault conductivity, are reduced. (c) 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This paper discusses the application of Bayesian theory in fractured reservoirs and identifies the problems with the Bayesian prior. The authors use global sensitivity analysis and approximate Bayesian computation methods to address this issue and successfully reduce the uncertainty of key parameters.