New Software Release

INTERSECT 2021.3 Now Available

Tuesday, 02 November 2021

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 2021.3 delivers many key features in performance, physics, field management, usability, and more. These features include the first full-GPU implementation of INTERSECT high-resolution reservoir simulator for black-oil simulation, improved out-of-box performance for multiscale sequential fully implicit, modeling of solid phase in compositional models to support CO2 storage workflows and others, a new template for managing asset operational logic inside Field Management, and several usability enhancements including the migrator.

INTERSECT 2021.3 key developments

Performance

  • Full-GPU black-oil simulation is now available in INTERSECT simulator. This implementation consists of a rewritten bespoke linear solver that substantially outperforms the previous offering, dramatically faster calculation of grid properties and linearization of reservoir equations, and refined reporting code for improved performance. 

  • Improved out-of-box performance for multiscale sequential fully implicit is available through revised defaults in the parameters that control the numerical options and convergence of this method. The new settings provide stricter criteria, allow for a larger number of iterations, and propose robust formulation choices.

Physics

  • A solid phase model has been added for use with isothermal compositional simulation. It is compatible with the chemical reaction framework, enabling important workflows such as mineral trapping in CO2 storage and other deposition or adsorption processes. 

Field Management

  • A new field management template for asset logic modification is available for assigning or modifying the fields of selected flow entities (including Network entities) based on given conditions using a compact table. This new syntax enables setting operational logic (such as conditional production cutback) in a simple and concise manner.

  • A user-defined action can now trigger a reservoir script (a snippet of IXF schema acting on the reservoir definition). This can be used, for example, to conditionally change skin factors at well or completion levels, perform grid editing, or trigger convergence and time step control modifications.

  • The recalculation of IPR tables after the rate allocation action can now be controlled. If the network is to be resolved in a combined network and rate allocation action, the recalculation of the IPRs can be specified to always occur, occur only at a failure of the original table, or never occur. This provides improved stability and accuracy for network coupled simulations. 

  • Numerical expressions can now be used in several additional fields in the WellMgr, AmountResource, and TubingHydraulicsTableDevice nodes along with several nodes related to networks (e.g., NetworkPump). This enables dynamic control logic to be implemented without the need for Python scripting.

  • Deliverable rates can now be used for Field Management–related queries such as guide rate balancing for wells that have difficulty converging under their potential constraints set. This provides more stability and robustness in the solution.

Usability

  • Reporting of in-place quantities as recurrent 3D grid properties is now possible, allowing analysis of oil, gas, and water in place at separator conditions for every grid cell in a model. These can also be requested and visualized directly in Petrel E&P software platform.

  • Artificial lift quantities can now be used with the OBSH historical data format. The implementation allows INTERSECT simulator to read different types of artificial lift quantity values from OBSH files and assign them to corresponding wells as part of the history matching workflow.

  • Extensions to in-place reporting were implemented with additional quantities and increased consistency with ECLIPSE industry-reference reservoir simulator reporting. These include new properties such as hydrocarbon pore volume; surface fluid moles in place; mass in place; and separator total, oil, and gas composition. 

  • Summary vectors for IN and OUT flows can now be requested for individual region combinations besides the existing net flows. Additionally, natural gas liquids (NGL) and energy (in thermal simulations) have been included as valid parameters. In-place reporting has been extended to support NGL flows.

  • The Migrator now adds the custom_scripts extension to all migrated models, making it convenient to use Python functionality inside of Field Management.

  • Migrator can now write ECLIPSE simulator property names (also referred to as INTERSECT simulator property aliases) when migrating an ECLIPSE simulator dataset, reducing the file size of generated files and helping users who are familiar with the syntax.

Miscellaneous

  • An option to automatically download and install a recommended set of third-party Python packages has been added to the installer. This makes running models incorporating custom scripts with commonly used packages such as NumPy more convenient. It also enables the use of such packages in the DELFI cognitive E&P environment. 

  • INTERSECT simulator is now compatible with Schlumberger token licensing. This increases performance in the DELFI environment.

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.