International Conference on Materials Engineering and Information Technology Applications (MEITA 2015)

Application of Petrel Software in Reserve Estimation in Xinli-Xinbei

Oilfield, Jilin Province, China
Songze Li1,a, Wangshui Hu1,b
1
School of Earth Sciences, Yangtze University, Caidian Wuhan, 430100, Hubei, China
a
songze83@163.com, bhuwangshui@126.com

Keywords: Xinli-Xinbei oilfield, reserve estimation, geological modeling, structural model, Petrel
software.

Abstract. Volumetric estimates provide a valuable check on the estimates derived from material
balance and decline analysis methods. Xinli-Xinbei oilfield, Jilin Province-China is an ascertained
and developed oilfield. It is affluent in geological reserves, and has greatly development potentiality.
Based on the high precision of tridimensional reservoir geological model, this study calculated the
reserves of the Xinli-Xinbei oilfield by Petrel, which deal with the issue that the reserves parameters
are difficult to correctly acquire when estimate complex reservoir's reserves in terms of traditional
volume method. In addition, the achievement maps made by Petrel show the distribution of reserves
more accurately. Consequently, the results indicated that application of Petrel in reserve estimation
reflects the true nature of the reservoir more accurately and more objectively which can better be
applied to oilfield development and adjustment.

Introduction
Reserve volume is the comprehensive evaluation of oil-gas field exploration and development, as
a consequence, the rationality of reserves calculation definitely affect the decision of oil field
prospecting and exploitation. The reserves calculation method based on the high precision of
tridimensional reservoir geological model, can be used to deal with the issues that the reserve
parameters are difficult to correctly acquire when estimating complex reservoir's reserves in terms
of traditional volume method. Reservoir evaluation utilizing reserves value and reserves abundance
value which has been calculated before, with other related parameter provide geological basis for
oil field development and adjustment.
With the rapidly development of computer, three-dimensional modeling technology of petroleum
reservoir has been the prime methods of petroleum industry making reservoir description[1].
Three-dimensional geology modeling of the reservoir can reflect the characters of distribution and
regularities of variation in reservoir geology space attribute. That provides geology basis for
petroleum pool development[2].
Oil and gas reservoir is the ultimate accomplishment of oil and gas field exploration or
exploitation. It is the essential target that the petroleum industry purposes. Reservoir assessment can
be guidance to the development of an oil and gas field. It is also an important basis for determining
the investment scale. Therefore, whether the appraisal results of petroleum and natural gas
geological reserves are accurate is extremely important[3]. At present, the main calculation methods
of reserves appraisal include: analogy method, volume method, material-balance method, water
driving characteristics curve method, statistical simulation method and so on[3].
The objectives of this paper were to estimate the amount of oil and gas in place and to establish
three-dimensional geological modeling for Xinli-Xinbei oilfield using seismic data and well logs
data. Fig. 1 shows the geological map of Xinli-Xinbei oilfield in the Jilin Province, China.

© 2015. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 32

 Fig. 1: Geological map of the study area
Geologic Characteristics. Research area located in Xinli-Xinbei in the south of Songliao basin.
Tectonic location is at west of the Fuxin uplift in the central depression belt of the Songliao basin,
which is a south-north anticline with fault complication. The north of the reservoir is controlled by
tectonic from the horizontal scale while the south controlled by lithology. From the vertical scale
the lower reservoir is controlled by lithology and the upper is controlled by structural. Consequently,
the research reservoir is a lithologic-tectonic complex one. The area of research is 300
square-kilometer covers and target interval is the third member of Nenjiang of Heidimiao oil group.
The facies types are delta facies and shallow lake facies.
Attribute Model. Lithofacies-controlled model aimed at establishing parameter models which
exactly reflected porosity, permeability under the earth and the special distribution of effective
reservoir [4]. Attribute model employed analysed variogram and made Prior Choice of Stochastic
Modeling, using the method of sequential Gaussian simulation method which was based on
collocated cokriging established Porosity model and permeability model[5,6,7].

Methodology
Seismic data and well logs date were employed in Petrel to estimate the reservoir reserves and
also to establish the 3-dimensional model for Xinli-Xinbei oilfield. The structural and attribute
models were first obtained and were used in Petrel to calculate the reserves and the value compared
to the reserves value using the traditional method. In order to achieve the stated objectives, the
following methods were employed.
Reserves Calculation. The method of reserves calculation is a volumetric method in Petrel.
Based on 3D geological model having a high degree of accuracy, reserves of each grid cell was
calculated, followed by calculation of the accumulated grid cell. The total reserves of the whole
reservoir were obtained from the Eq 1.
k
n
N  1
100Ah S oi o / B oi . (1)
Parameters of the formula:
N ——Oil geological reserves，104t;
A ——oil-bearing area, km2;
h ——effective thickness, m;
∅——effective porosity, f;
Soi——primitive oil-bearing saturability, f;
ρo——oil density, t/m3;
Boi——oil formation volume factor, non-dimensional quantity
With the calculation of reserves in Petrel, it was very important to define the associated
parameters, but not merely determine the parameters of average constants. There are several
differences between the method of reserves calculation in Petrel and the traditional one. The
parameters used in reserves calculation module in Petrel were all based on the 3D modeling result,
such as sandstone percentage, reservoir oil saturation, effective porosity, etc. The oil-bearing area

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was determined by the single layer plans, oil density was defined by analysis data of crude oil and
the oil formation volume factor was defined by the data of high pressure analysis. After the
determination of each parameters, the reserves of Heidimiao reservoir was then calculated with the
function of reserves calculation in Petrel.
Reserves Evaluation. After the reserves calculation, the reserves value and property were
obtained by observing reserves abundance value and planning reserves abundance distribution.
These reserves evaluated parameters assessed the reservoir storage. Reservoir storage evaluated
parameters is the product of reservoir net pay thickness of the unit volume, average effective
porosity, primitive oil bearing saturability, oil density and oil formation volume factor. This
parameter explained oil reserves abundance and expressed the oil reserves in unit volume given in
Eq. 2
100  A  i   he  i     i   S o  i    o  he  i 
rep  
n
(2)
k 1
A  i   he  i   B oi
Where rep = the reserves evaluated parameter.
The meaning of other parameters is the same as Eq. 1
The reservoir storage parameters such as reservoir size, oil group size, sand group size, layer size
and even single sand body size were then evaluated.

Results and Discussion

Reserves Calculation. Petrel was used to establish layer scale 3D geological model of research
area by seismic data and well data of Xinli-Xinbei oilfield, Jilin Province. The area of the model
was 300km2 and contained 9 layers with the grid precision of 25m × 20m in horizontal scale and
0.5m of the vertical scale. The total number of grids is 2 × 108.
This high precision 3D geological model guaranteed accurate and reasonable result in
subsequent reserves calculation. From the simulation result, it was observed that both porosity and
permeability had high value, so the target reservoir was of high porosity and permeability.
The modeling method of research used facies-controlled principle. In the process of facies and
property modeling, deterministic and stochastic modeling technology was applied and combined
with the realities of research area. The high precision 3D geological model was established by well
data and seismic data. Facies is the constraint of the model, when processing the property modeling
and Sequential Gaussian Simulation was adopted. This simulated method was based on sequential
simulation principle. In the first step, the model was scaled up to grid system. In the second step, the
computer handled each grid cell sequentially, because the random variable of each grid cell
followed the conditioned Gaussian distributions, so the value of each grid cell was determined by
the mean value and variance. By solving Krigin equation set, both the mean value and variance of
the grid cell was obtained and the normal distribution of the grid cell was determined. The sample
of the cell was obtained by the use of the corresponding sample method, which was the last step.
The problems caused by fast facies change and serious heterogeneity were solved by the
reservoir geological model established by this method as reasonable.
Finally distribution character of reservoir property in different facies was achieved and therefore
the high precision geological model established formed the basics of the reserves calculation. Figs.
2 to 5 show the structural, facies, porosity and permeability models for the Xinli-Xinbei oilfield.

Fig. 2: Structural model of reservoir Fig. 3: Facies model of reservoir

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 Fig. 4: Porosity model of reservoir Fig. 5: Permeability model of reservoir
Reserves Calculation. The Volumetric method being one of the major ways by which reserves
of reservoir was calculated was widely applied in different stages of exploration and development,
different trap types and different reservoir types and drive modes. The reliability of the calculation
results depended on the quality and quantity of data. There was high precision in calculating large
and medium-sized structural sandstone reservoirs, however, results of the complex lithology oil
reservoir was low in terms of accuracy. The main reason was that the geological reserves was
calculated on the basis of the whole oil-field and the calculating parameters were of single average
values. During the calculating process, the reservoir heterogeneity was ignored and as a result, the
accuracy of the reserves was affected.
One important feature of Petrel is that it gives several possible and predicted results of the
reservoir information and it is good to process uncertainty analysis of the heterogeneity of the
reservoir. Based on the high precision 3D geological model, we calculated the reserves of
structural-lithological reservoir and a good result was achieved.
When the property model has been established, the reserve calculated parameters were fitted in
the model and reserves calculated according to Eq. 1. This process was accomplished by the module
of “Volume calculation” in Petrel.
Parameters such as effective grid cell, effective porosity and oil saturation obtained from
property model were set up. The primitive oil formation volume was also obtained and if the well
blocks needed separate calculation, the boundary of each well blocks were imported and program
run. Petrel then performed multiplication for each grid cell and reserve values of each single cell
obtained. The sum of each grid cell and then the total reserve volume of the reservoir obtained. The
oil density was then multiplied to the total reserve volume to estimate the reserves quality values
shown in Table 1.
In order to examine the confidence level of the geological model, reserves quality value was
calculated as 1803.304×104t using the traditional method and was calculated as 1724×104t using
the Petrel. There was a difference in value of 4.6% between the traditional method and Petrel which
was considered a little higher. In the analysis, it was considered that when calculating reserves in
Petrel, the reservoir was subdivided into different scales on the request of the oilfield and a more
reasonable parameter selected and as such the results obtained could be said to be accurate and
better than the traditional method. Therefore, it was concluded that the Petrel approach was perfect,
accurate and reflected the true value of reserves.
Reservoir storage evaluation and favorable regions prediction. When a series of reserve data
had been calculated, the reserve abundance (Fig. 7) was obtained using the equations in Eq. 1 and
Eq. 2. According to reserves evaluation coefficient histogram of Xinli-Xinbei (Fig. 6), reservoir
reserves evaluation coefficient standard in layer scale was divided into four intervals of high,
middle, low, lower.
High reserves storage interval: more than 200×104t/km2;
Middle reserves storage interval: 100～200×104t/km2;
Low reserves storage interval: 50～100×104t/km2;
Lower reserves storage interval: less than 50×104t/km2.

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 From the reserves evaluation coefficient histogram of layer HⅡ2-1, it was observed that the
distribution of the evaluation coefficient was between 0～424×104t/km2; the main interval was
between 48～210×104t/km2. The distribution was nearly symmetric platykurtic and combined with
reserves abundance contour analyzed that the layer HⅡ2-1 showed wide reserves distribution scope
and continuously distributed along south to north. T had a relatively well reserves with lower
reserves area about 10%, low reserves area about 20.5%, middle reserves area about 63%, and high
reserves area about 14.5%. It was also observed the high reserves area were around J13-24 well
block, low reserves area was around X+10-8 well block and middle reserves area was around X212
well block.

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