Optimisation of Petroleum Production ell Placement under Geological Uncertainty

Large investments are required for the positioning and drilling of oil and gas wells, implying that decisions related to these activities may be significantly aided by sound and proven mathematical-oriented methods. The use of intuitive engineering judgement alone cannot guarantee sustainable profitability over long periods, especially under geological (reservoir model) uncertainty. To capture significant uncertainty sources in the subsurface geology of the reservoir considered in this study, geostatistical model realisations are obtained using available information (permeabilities and porosities). We use specialised algorithms of the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST, interfaced with PETRELTM) in order to determine optimal petroleum production well locations and production rates and thus maximise the field oil recovery. The developed computational workflow has been applied to a realistic case study, for which robust optimality is demonstrated using the worst-case realisation for determining optimal well locations.