New Software Release

Product overview

The ECLIPSE industry-reference reservoir simulator offers the industry’s most complete and robust set of numerical solutions for fast and accurate prediction of dynamic behavior for all types of reservoirs and development schemes. The ECLIPSE simulator has been the benchmark for commercial reservoir simulation for more than 25 years thanks to its extensive capabilities, robustness, speed, parallel scalability, and unmatched platform coverage. The ECLIPSE simulator covers the entire spectrum of reservoir modeling, including black oil, compositional, thermal, and streamline simulation.

Release highlights

ECLIPSE 2019.2 development has been focused on the improvement of existing functionalities in three areas: Physics, field management, and client requested enhancements. ECLIPSE 100 improves accuracy and performance in modeling advanced physics when coupled to an external simulator. ECLIPSE 2019.2 extends flow scaling for inflow control devices. The support of user-defined arguments (UDAs) is extended to multiphase pump phase ratios and hydraulic tables in network simulation. ECLIPSE 2019.2 also delivers a number of enhancements based on client feedback, including enhanced non-Darcy flow calculations, improved accuracy for grid coarsening algorithm in parallel, and enhanced support for group injection control, etc.

ECLIPSE 2019.2 Key Developments:

Physics

• Improved performance and accuracy for coupled simulation

The ECLIPSE industry-reference reservoir simulator can output interblock flows, which can be used by programs that interface with the ECLIPSE simulator for advanced physics modeling. In ECLIPSE 2019.2, ECLIPSE 100 supports the output of such flows at specified frequency, and the flows can be either the values at the current time or averages calculated since the last restart time. These new functionalities allow coupling at reduced frequency to improve performance, while conserving mass for improved accuracy.

Field Management

• Flow scaling for inflow control devices

For ECLIPSE 100 and ECLIPSE 300, in the multisegment well model pressure drop calculation, a scaling factor can now be applied to the flow through sub-critical valves and devices represented by VFP tables. This scaling allows a single device to represent a number of devices in parallel.

• Enhanced flexibility in multiphase injection

ECLIPSE 2019.2 supports the use of UDAs to define phase ratios for a multiphase injector

• Enhanced flexibility in network simulation

ECLIPSE 2019.2 supports the use of UDAs to define production and injection flow tables in network simulation.

Enhancements

ECLIPSE 2019.2 contains several changes to address issues discovered in previous releases, as part of our ongoing commitment to improving the ECLIPSE simulator. For instance, for ECLIPSE 100:

• The non-Darcy flow calculations have been improved for dual and multi-porosity cases
• The coarsening algorithm has been improved for complex cases in parallel, such as, faults and aquifers. The parallel behavior is now more consistent with serial results
• The algorithm for WECON, in conjunction with a maximum gas-oil ratio, has been made more consistent with ECLIPSE 300 for multisegment wells with significant crossflow
• When using wildcards for the group name in GCONINJE, it is now possible to use UDAs for phases other than gas.

Additionally, for ECLIPSE 300:

• If the SOILR keyword is only partly defined, the default value used is now the value from the SOR keyword
• The inflow control device logic has been improved in cases where there are gaps in the segment numbering
• The pinchout algorithm is now more robust to dual and multi-porosity cases with local grids, which previously could fail to run.