Reservoir development optimization under uncertainty for infill well placement in brownfield redevelopment

摘要

In an uncertain oil price environment, brownfield redevelopment is becoming an increasingly attractive option to manage production decline. One of the essential strategies in brownfield redevelopment is optimally placing the infill well to maximize recovery from the field and minimize operational expenditure. Optimal decisions are the ones that maximize the recovery and keep the cost down. Robust optimal decisions are the ones that would hold in the presence of geological uncertainty, such as when the realization of reservoir setting deviates from the base case. The decision optimized for the base case would still be optimal for the updated reservoir condition. Hence, optimization across multiple realizations is required. While attempts on the optimization across multiple realizations have been conducted in the literature, the computational cost involved in performing the task and resulting in the proper estimation of uncertainty remains a great challenge.