While drilling production wells and putting in place the production facilities to manage the hydrocarbons from the wellhead to the transportation infrastructure, additional information is being collected.

In many cases, it also involves a program of drilling and monitoring to phase in, sustain and optimize the recoverable resources in the reservoir. The detailed information contained in Paradigm subsurface models provides confidence to the engineers planning such investments.

Paradigm leads in this field with an advanced, easy-to-use modeling tool that can take into account more than 500 faults. The faults can be assigned complex relationships, and can be presented as they occur in the real world, e.g. tapering out within a reservoir, or being truncated by other faults.  This increased accuracy, which creates true-to-life models, gives additional confidence when positioning production wells.

As a field goes into production, simulation software is run and re-run to match production numbers with theoretical models. When the actual production diverges significantly from the modeled predictions, the issues need to be understood and corrected. Paradigm’s unique integration of all the relevant data into the reservoir model allows the development team to rapidly explore the many factors and uncertainties that could be affecting the model’s accuracy.  Engineers can then make a more accurate prognosis of future production rates.

In the case of many new reservoir types such as tight sands, heavy oil or shale gas, the production process is sustained by drilling activity, as each reservoir volume must be physically drilled into, stimulated and then produced, often in relatively thin beds.  Paradigm’s real-time geosteering solution allows operators to dramatically increase the confidence factor when drilling large offset horizontal wells.  By offering clear information about the position of the drill bit in the seam, drillers can be instructed to correct the directional process before drifting outside of formation.

Production history matching is a key component of the production monitoring process. Paradigm has innovative embedded technologies that give an idea of the variables at play, and their impact on the prediction process.