Finding fault permeability controls from oil production data
Understanding how fluid flows in reservoirs is important for a multitude of geology-based applications, including CO2 storage, oil and gas production, groundwater flow and geothermal energy extraction. The ability for fluids to flow across faults exerts a major control on the overall flow, and models of fluid flow in porous media therefore include fault permeability calculations.
Supervisors
Main supervisor: Tor Sømme, GEO-UiB/Equinor
Co-supervisor: Christian Hermanrud, GEO-UiB/Equinor
Project description
Fault permeability can depend on factors such as burial depth, displacement and clay content, and several equations have been developed to describe these dependencies. Testing of these equations to historical production from fields is however generally lacking. This implies that the accuracy of fault seal assessment is poorly known and heavily debated. This thesis will address modelling of fault permeability at Njord and other producing fields on the Norwegian continental shelf. Previously published as well as new fault permeability equations that result from this study will be applied in the modelling, and the simulation results will be compared to historical oil and gas flow. The work will result in a quantitative description of how various factors control across-fault permeability. An evaluation of why some geological processes have been over/under-estimated in past models will be included.
Data for the project will be provided from Equinor. The student working on this project should preferably have some background in mathematics / physics.
Proposed course plan
The courses will most likely, and depending on the student, be selected from
Spring courses:
GEOV 252 (10 ECT) Field Course in Geological Mapping | UiB
GEOV 352 (5 ECT) Field course in reservoir geology | UiB
GEOV 261 (10 ECT) Basin analysis and subsurface interpretation | UiB
GEOV 302 (10 ECT) Data analysis in earth science | UiB
Autumn courses:
GEOV 251(10 ECT) Advanced Structural Geology | UiB
GEOV 272 (10 ECT) Seismic Interpretation | UiB
GEOV 274 (10 ECT) Environmental and Reservoir Geophysics | UiB
GEOV 300 (5 ECT) Scientific writing and communication in Earth Science | UiB
GEOV 364 (5 ECT) Advanced basin analysis | UiB