A robust proxy for production well placement optimization problems

Finding optimum well locations is still among the most challenging reservoir engineering problems. Reservoir simulators are routinely used to evaluate different configuration of well locations in the reservoirs. However, simulation of giant field models is computationally demanding and time consuming. In the current study, a novel proxy with the objective function that is based on volumetric pressure approximation provided by Fast Marching Method (FMM) is introduced. This proxy calculates the wells bottomhole pressure at the end of unsteady state period. The locations where the calculated bottom-hole pressure are maximum will likely leads to maximum Net Present Value (NPV). Foremost, The FMM-based approach is applied on the single production well placement problem and the correlation between results provided by this approach and the conventional simulator-based method is calculated. Thereafter, FMMbased approach is coupled with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm and applied to multiple production well placement in two standard reservoir model. Results provided by the new approach is compared with simulator-based approach in terms of performance and time efficiency. Results reveal that FMM-based approach can provide satisfactory results while significantly reducing computational cost. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.