New Software Release

Product overview

The INTERSECT high-resolution 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 2022.1 delivers many key features in performance, physics, CO2 storage capabilities, field management, usability, and more. These features include performance improvements in GPU and Multiscale, a new water weakening rock compaction model, extensions to solid and diffusion capabilities targeting CO2 storage applications, a utility to convert the input formats to a comma separated variables (CSV) representation, and templates for simplified reporting, among many other improvements.

INTERSECT 2022.1 key developments

Performance

• The GPU linear solver has been greatly enhanced with the implementation of an automatic coloring algorithm selection. Based on model characteristics, the best suited algorithm is chosen to improve simulation performance without modifying results. When applied to a range of realistic models, an average of 1.9 times speedup was observed, with the best cases achieving a speedup of more than 5 times.
  
  
• Full GPU support has been added to the Killough hysteresis model for both relative permeability and capillary pressure. It is expected that the performance of models containing this feature should be greatly enhanced in full GPU simulation compared with previous releases.
  
  
• This release sees several improvements to performance of the multiscale sequential fully implicit method by targeting better accuracy and convergence. The first class of enhancements are new default settings in selected fields of multiscale numerical controls. The second focuses on the algorithm of the multiscale pressure solver. Applied to a range of realistic models, an average performance improvement of 20% was observed in comparison with the previous version, while retaining result accuracy.

Physics and CO2 Storage

• A new water weakening rock compaction model is now available. Critical in the modeling of chalk reservoirs, it introduces extra pore volume compaction dependencies on water saturation and initial rock porosity, in addition to the existing stress (pressure) dependence. Activation is through the RockModelWaterWeakening node.
  
  
• Solid models have been extended to compositional thermal simulations. As in isothermal and black-oil simulations, solid components can be used in chemical reactions in thermal simulations to model precipitation or deposition and associated mobility changes. This enables simulation of important aspects of CO2 storage and thermal operations.
  
  
• Molecular diffusion and mechanical dispersion have been extended to the water phase for thermal and compositional models with component solubility in water. Among other workflows, this feature will help in modeling key CO2 storage features.
  
  
• A dynamic conductive heat transfer film coefficient can now be calculated for improved accuracy in the simulation of thermal operations sensitive to wellbore heat transfer, such as geothermal and steam assisted gravity. The new option takes additional thermal conductivities (pipe, wall, insulation, cement, earth) as input, and uses Nusselt number correlations to determine an overall heat transfer coefficient.

Field Management

• A new utility called ixf2csv is available, allowing conversion of ixf input format to a comma separated variable (CSV) representation for later use with the CSV controller. It takes a simulation deck (.afi) as input and extracts the supported fields into a set of CSV files in a dedicated subdirectory. The CSV format can provide greater usability in certain use cases, such as operations with frequent changes to well constraints. (Note: this new utility is available for evaluation use only. Please contact Schlumberger support if assistance is required)
  
  
• Additional properties can be added in historical observed data files. These include equivalent, molar, and mass concentration for brine and polymer components. The function facilitates the setup of injected polymer and brine concentrations in simulations.
  
  
• Actions related to well testing (TestWellAction) have been expanded to allow restrictions in triggering such tests by monitoring regional property changes around selected wells. This functionality can be used to avoid testing of wells that are intermittently opened and immediately shut owing to economic actions (or pressure limit shutoffs) causing significant intermittent flows in the simulation, and in certain cases performance degradation.
  
  
• The frequency of network solves can now be controlled independently to the rest of field management logic to be solved less often. Doing so can help performance for simulations where network balancing actions are deemed to be particularly expensive.

Usability

• Users can now apply a preset reporting level for minimal output via the field ReportingLevel in the new node ReportMgr. This simple mechanism will override existing report controls (2D, 3D, print file, and restarts) and enforce a predefined template. In cases where excessive reporting was previously set, one can now achieve reduction in disk space and improved simulation performance with minimal change to the data deck.
  
  
• Properties for well connection transmissibility (CONFAC) and permeability thickness (CONKH) have been added as 3D reports. By adding them under the Recurrent3DReport node, dynamic changes of connection properties can be assessed in a preprocessor such as Petrel Reservoir Engineering.
  
  
• Cumulative lift gas injection can now be reported as a summary vector at wells, groups, and field levels. The cumulative is reported with new LIFT_GAS_INJECTION_CUML property ID.
  
  
• New summary vectors have been added to report P/Z (gas) average values at field and region level. The Migrator also now supports migration of FRPGZ and RPRGZ summary vectors from ECLIPSE industry-reference reservoir simulator to INTERSECT simulator.
  
  
• Fluid in place reports to the print file have been extended to allow additional items: pore volume at reference conditions, average pressure weighted by pore volume, hydrocarbon moles, and hydrocarbon surface volume.

Users

The INTERSECT simulator brings value to reservoir engineers performing numerical simulation using high-resolution models and complex field operating conditions. The INTERSECT simulator also brings 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 simulator.