Numerical simulations of genuine reservoir flow performance are ´living´ models that require continual up-dating as production data become available. The procedure is known as history matching.

Until recently, history matching has involved the time-consuming practice of manually editing computer files and submitting them for simulation.

The computer power has been crying out for some form of automation, but the development of effective software has been lagging far behind.

Statoil researchers have thus been reviewing solutions for developing better software and methods.

As part of this investigation, Statoil ( together with ENI and Total) have supported Scandpower Petroleum Technology AS in the development of MEPO  (an acronym for Multi-purpose Environment for Parallel Optimization) – a software program designed specifically for computer-assisted history matching.

The software relieves reservoir engineers of much of the toil associated with manual up-dating and assimilates previous simulations as a basis for proposing up-dated alternatives and running batches of new simulation jobs in parallel.

The engineers guide the process from start to finish. 

Statoil has tested the tool on data from the Norne field and supervised its successful implementation by the Statfjord field asset team. This has aroused considerable interest throughout the company and several MEPO-based projects are under way.

Other promising methods are also being investigated.