New Software Release

Product overview

The INTERSECT reservoir simulator sets a new standard for reservoir simulation that goes beyond the capabilities offered by current generation simulators. The result is improved accuracy and efficiency in field development planning and risk mitigation—even for the most complex fields. 
The INTERSECT simulator enables engineers to accurately and quickly model

• complex geological structures 
• highly heterogeneous formations 
• challenging wells and completion configurations 
• advanced production controls for reservoir coupling and flexible field management.

Petrel Reservoir Engineering constitutes the user environment for all Schlumberger reservoir simulation solutions, and you can run the INTERSECT simulator from Petrel Reservoir Engineering.

Learn more about INTERSECT

Release highlights

The release of INTERSECT 2021.1 delivers many key features in innovation, field management, usability, physics and fidelity. These features include the first commercial release of machine learning in the simulator, enhanced ways to interact and utilize Field Management expressions, new fluid stream modeling controls, improvements to IX-ENS coupling and extended physics for heavy oil and coal. Usability continues to be a key focus, with the first release of a Field Management template, simple aliases for property identifiers, and more. Additional ECLIPSE keyword support is given to the migrator, with focus on surface equation of state keywords.

Release updates

Innovation

• Machine Learning in INTERSECT: A machine learning (ML) framework is implemented in INTERSECT with TensorFlow. The framework allows the introduction of data-based intelligence into reservoir simulation, such as new physics and fast computation in the form of neural networks, enabling many use cases. INTERSECT 2021.1 introduces the commercial release of the feature first present in 2020.4. This functionality is able to estimate the critical temperature used in phase labeling for compositional mixtures using neural networks.

Field Management

• Field Management template for economic control actions: a new EconomicLogicTemplate node has been introduced that allows modeling of economic control actions on different flow entity types, based on conditional evaluation, using a compact and stable mechanism. This template internally expands to normal IXF schema. 
  
  
• Functions in Field Management expressions: new functions (Natural logarithm, Absolute value, Exponential) have been introduced in this release, that can be utilized as part of the existing expression framework. Additionally, MaxFunc/MinFunc have been extended to support additional arguments to allow clipping to a constant (minimum/maximum) value. Another extension is provided through MinFunc0/MaxFunc0 that enables evaluation using the provided entity, instead of the sub-ordinate entity.
  
  
• Component removal in fluid streams: a new node MaxComponentSourceMoleFractions has been added to enable the removal of specific components in fluid streams to mimic process operations such as gas stripping. For example, the sales gas may be required to exclude CO2, a fuel stream may be required to have a limited amount of N2, and reinjection gas may be required to exclude any H2S – These operations can now be modeled using this new functionality. 
  
  
• Real property data types with Expression: a numerical expression can now be used in all fields that require a Real Property data type (e.g. FluidStream.TargetRates). This allows the Real Property value to change dynamically under certain conditions. This new development can be used to model dynamic changes using the expression framework.
  
  
• Improvements for IX-ENS coupled models: The IX-ENS network coupling feature has been extended with a user option to control whether the IPR table passed into an ECLIPSE Network Solver (ENS) model contains time-averaged (considering UptimeFraction) or peak (not considering UptimeFraction) well rates.
  
  
• Exponents in mixture density and viscosity for flow control devices: the FlowControlDeviceDef node now supports exponents that are used for calculating the mixture density and viscosity at local conditions, which then forms part of the pressure loss calculation for the device. It is also supported by the migration of the WSEGAICD keyword.

Physics

• New viscosity mixing rule for solvent: new options allowing to customize weighting factors that multiply component viscosity tables in order to calculate mixture oil phase viscosity have been added under the ViscosityMixingRule node.
  
  
• Pressure and temperature dependent component molar enthalpy: a new node, EnthalpyTemperatureTable, has been added to enable phase enthalpy calculation in thermal simulations. This feature is important for modeling solvent injection cases at superheat conditions or for CO2 injection where phase enthalpies vary with pressure and temperature.
  
  
• Non-monotonic rock compressibility tables: on the CompactionMultiplierTable node, one can now specify decreasing pore volume and/or transmissibility multiplier values. This enables the approximation of Palmer-Mansoori type models for coal formations where, due to desorption, this type of relationship between multipliers and pressure may be observed.

Usability

• Field Management default strategy: An automatic strategy usability feature has been introduced. The UseAutomaticStrategy field in FieldManagement node provides the capability of encapsulating all defined Instructions in an auto-created strategy, thus the user not needing to explicitly add the Instructions to a strategy. 
  
  
• Paired Surface Fluid model: a new field PairedSurfaceFluidModel has been introduced in the CompositionalFluidModel node to allow pairing between reservoir fluid models and surface fluid models, that is utilized in dynamic assignment of WellBoreFluidModel and SurfaceFluidModel for wells. This feature is mainly utilized for workflows using surface equation of state. 
  
  
• Property identifier aliases: for brevity, you can now use short aliases in place of the property identifiers in the input schema (except in custom scripts). For example, BHP can now be used instead of BOTTOM_HOLE_PRESSURE wherever that is used as a property identifier. These aliases, where available, are listed in Appendix A.1 Property identifiers in the INTERSECT User Guide.
  
  
• Report PI multiplier and skin in summary file: two new properties (PI_MULTIPLIER) and (SKIN_FACTOR) have been added to the relevant nodes for summary vector reporting. These properties can be reported at Well Completion and connection level and are especially useful when using the WellPIControl or manual PI and/or skin overrides in simulation.
  
  
• Additional Editable properties: Several additional properties (e.g. FLOAT_WORK_ARRAY, etc.) have been added to the list of editable properties allowed in BoxPropertyEdit and CellPropertyEdit. 
  
  
• Migrator: 
  
  • ECLIPSE simulator keywords for surface equation of state are supported by the migrator in this release: EOSS, TCRITS, PCRITS, VCRITS, ZCRITS, BICS, MWS, ACFS, OMEGAAS, OMEGABS, SSHIFTS, ZFACTORS, TREFS, DREFS, PREFS, KVCRS, CVTYPES. 
  • GRUPTARG with item 2 set as GUID can now be migrated. 
  • Cell ranges are supported for migration from COMPDAT, COMPDATL, COMPLUMP and COMPLMPL.

Users

The INTERSECT simulator sets a new standard for reservoir simulation, bringing benefits to reservoir engineers performing numerical simulation using high-resolution models and complex field operating conditions. The INTERSECT simulator also brings value and benefits for production and completion engineers working with advanced completion simulations and complex hydraulic fracture scenarios. Reservoir geomechanics engineers also can use the INTERSECT simulator when dealing with cases like reservoir integrity analysis and permeability changes, which is possible through the integration of the INTERSECT simulator and VISAGE* finite-element geomechanics simulators.