ARMA 11-412

Assessment of the geomechanical effects in a real reservoir

Inoue, N., Fontoura, S.A.B., Righetto, G. L. and Lautenschlger, C. E. R.
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro PUC-Rio/ Group of Technology in Petroleum Engineering GTEP/
ATHENA Computational Geomechanics Group, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ribeiro, E.J.B and Serra, A.L.

Petrobras Research Center, CENPES, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Copyright 2011 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association

th
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 45 US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in San Francisco, CA, June 2629,
2011.
This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical review of
the paper by a minimum of two technical reviewers. The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of ARMA, its officers, or
members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of ARMA is
prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract
must contain conspicuous acknowledgement of where and by whom the paper was presented.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a hydromechanical analysis of a real reservoir using two different simulators. The software
ECLIPSE was chosen for reservoir simulation and the software Abaqus for stress analysis. A methodology was developed and
implemented in a C++ code to solve the hydromechanical problem in a partially coupled manner. The methodology is proven to be
very robust, since the results obtained are similar to fully coupled scheme (one phase flow). The finite element mesh for the stress
problem and the finite difference grid for the flow problem are non-coincident. The resultant nodal forces of the pore pressure
variation are interpolated to nodal points of the finite element mesh and the porosity and pseudo compressibility are interpolated
back to grid-block of the finite difference grid. In each time step, the simulation advances only if the solution converges, i.e., the
difference of the average pore pressure between two iterations is less than a specified tolerance. The finite element mesh is
generated using a commercial pre-processor that allows the creation of complex geometries.

available and these computer programs are highly

1. INTRODUCTION
The petroleum industry has shown great interest for the
geomechanical effects in reservoir simulation lately, due
to the necessity to consider mechanisms that cannot be
handled by conventional reservoir simulation such as the
evaluation of compaction and subsidence, potential for
fault reactivation, reservoir seal and wellbore integrity as
a result of reservoir depletion. Conventional reservoir
simulators only evaluate the variation of the pore
pressure and saturation fields, with the space and time,
of the fluids (typically, gas, oil and water) that fill the
pores of the reservoir rock.
The only geomechanical parameter considered in the
conventional reservoir simulation is the rock
compressibility that is obtained through laboratory tests
that consider simple stress paths (uniaxial strain
compaction oedometer and hydrostatic loading). The
rock compressibility is used to calculate the porosity
variation in the accumulation term of the mass balance
equation. The Finite Difference Method is employed to
obtain the numerical solution of the nonlinear partial
differential equations that governs the fluid flow
problem. Several commercial reservoir simulators are
developed.
To evaluate the geomechanical effects, it is necessary
to employ a stress analysis that conventionally is carried
out using the Finite Element Method. Therefore, to take
into account the geomechanical effects in a reservoir
simulation, it is necessary to carry out a coupled analysis
between fluid flow and stress problems. The so-called
fully coupled is the more rigorous scheme. In this
scheme, the stress analysis and the fluid flow simulation
are solved simultaneously, guaranteeing individual
equilibrium of the problems and equilibrium between the
problems. Several studies on fully coupled problems are
found in the literature but there is no commercially
available tool to be used in the practice of reservoir
simulation. Fully coupled schemes are generally
developed using the finite element method to obtain the
numerical solution of the coupled governing equations.
An alternative for the fully coupled scheme is to use
a scheme of coupling called partial, recently called
hybrid coupling. This type of coupling joins different
problems (flow and stress problems), different numerical
methods (finite element method and finite difference
method), different software and different domain
discretization (finite element mesh and finite difference There are two ways for solving the reservoir
grid). The advantage of this scheme is that the best geomechanical problem, i. e, using partial coupling or
software of each area can be used in the coupling, but it full coupling. The first one can be divided in two main
is necessary a robust methodology that guarantees that coupling schemes between a conventional reservoir
each problem is solved accordingly and the transfer of simulator and a stress analysis program: the two-way
parameters from one program to the other assures partial coupling and the one-way partial coupling.
convergence to the fully coupled solution. Several
In the two-way partial coupling scheme, the flow
authors [1-7] show the detailed theoretical formulation
variables (pore pressure and saturation of the phases)
of the partially coupled schemes and results of practical
and the stress variables (displacement field, strain state
application. The one-way partial coupling scheme has
and stress state) are calculated separately and
been widely used in practice to evaluate the
sequentially, by a conventional reservoir simulator and a
geomechanical effect during production [8,9]. However
stress analysis program, respectively. The coupling
a question still pending is: The hydromechanical
parameters are exchanged at each time step until
coupling is correctly represented by this scheme? The
convergence is reached. The pore pressures or stresses
results of a one way coupled and a two way coupled
are used to verify the convergence of the solution during
schemes are shown and compared in [2].
the iterations. Fig. 1 (a) illustrates the flow chart of the
The coupling methodology employed for the partial
two-way partial coupling.
coupling in the present paper was based in Inoue and
Fontoura [1,2]. A pseudo-compressibility calculated The one-way partial coupling scheme can be considered
from the stress analysis is employed as coupling as a special case of the two-way partial coupling. The
parameter, together with the porosity, also calculated conventional reservoir simulator sends the information
from stress analysis. This combination of pseudo- (pore pressure and saturation) to the stress analysis
compressibility and porosity guarantees a very robust program but the calculated results by stress analysis
partial coupling. program are not sent back to the reservoir simulator. In
this scheme the geomechanical effect does not affect the
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the geomechanical
effects in a real reservoir (complex geometry and results calculated by reservoir simulator. Fig. 1 (b)
complex properties distribution) during the illustrates the flow chart of the one-way partial coupling.
production/injection process. The model is composed by
reservoir, overburden, sideburden and underburden.
The finite element mesh and the finite difference grid are
non-coincident. The resultant nodal forces from the pore
pressure variation are interpolated to nodal points of the
finite element mesh and the porosity and pseudo
compressibility are interpolated back to the cells of the
finite difference grid. In each time step, the simulation
advances only if the solution converges, i.e., the
difference of the average pore pressure between two
iterations is smaller than a tolerance value as specified.
The finite element mesh is generated using a commercial
pre-processor that allows the creation of complex
geometries.

Next, a brief summary of the theoretical formulation of

the proposed partial coupled scheme is presented. The Fig. 1. Types of partial coupling: (a) Two-way and (b) One-
way [2].
displacement and pressure fields are evaluated for a
situation where there are injector and producers. Two
For the fully coupled methodology, the variables of flow
schemes were used in this study: the one-way and the
and geomechanics are calculated simultaneously through
two way iterative partial coupled schemes. The results
a system of equations with pore pressure, saturation and
are presented and discussed.
displacement as unknowns, assuring an internal
consistency. The method is also called implicit coupling
2. THEORETICAL FORMULATION because the whole system has a single discretization and
is solved simultaneously [2].
Next, the definition of the different coupling schemes for
solving a reservoir geomechanical analysis is presented.
2.1. Types of Coupling
The main disadvantages of using the full coupling
methodology to solve reservoir geomechanics problem
are:
Difficulty in the coupling between the mechanical
equilibrium equation and the flow equation
The flow simulation is simplified (generally
single-phase flow)
In complex reservoir geometry, this scheme
consumes a long time in the simulations due to the
large size of the matrix generated.
2.2 The Governing Equations
The governing equations were formulated using
continuum mechanics, which commonly uses the
macroscopic scale to describe the continuous distribution
of the constituents in the control space. In this paper we
show just the equations of the flow problem and the
stress analysis problem. For more details about the
development of the formulation see [2].
Flow Equations
The flow equation may be obtained by combining the
mass conservation equation and the Darcys law. The
law of mass conservation is a material-balance equation
written for a component in a control volume. In
petroleum reservoirs, a porous medium can contain one,
two and three fluid phases. In conventional reservoir
simulation, porosity is related to pore pressure through
the rock compressibility using a linear relation, as
showed in Eq. (1). On the other hand, in the fully
coupled scheme, the porosity equation is composed of
four components that contribute to the fluid
accumulation term, as shown in Eq. (2), considering an
isotropic linear elastic material [11]. The details of these
components are shown in [10 and 11].
= o 1+ cr ( p p o ) (1) saturation field. The variation of the pore pressure in the
1 Finite Element code. The program Abaqus is called to
= o + ( v vo ) + ( p po ) (2)
Q solve the stress problem, providing the displacements at
where and Q are Biots parameters [12].
Therefore, the governing flow equation for the
conventional reservoir simulation and the governing
equation used in the fully coupled scheme are given by
Eq. (3) and Eq. (4), respectively:
p k 2
(c f
0
+ cr 0 ) p=0
t
(3)
c f 0 + cS ( 0 ) p k 2 p = v (4)
t t
where cf is the fluid compressibility, cs is the solid matrix
compressibility k is the absolute permeability, is the
fluid viscosity and p is the pore pressure.
Geomechanics Equation
The formulation of the geomechanical problem takes
into account the equilibrium equations, stress-strain-
displacement equations, rock-flow interaction and the
boundary conditions. Therefore, the governing equation
of the geomechanical problem may be written as [2]:
G
G 2 u + u = p (5)
1 2
Where u is the nodal displacement, is the Poissons
ratio, is the Biots parameter and G is the shear
modulus.
Flow Equation for the Partial Coupling
The methodology used herein for the coupling between
flow and stress problem was described in [1,2]. The
coupling is achieved through a convenient
approximation between of the flow equation of the
conventional reservoir simulation and the flow equation
of the fully coupled scheme. The parameters responsible
for the coupling are the porosity, Eq. (2), and the
pseudo-compressibility, Eq. (6). These parameters are
updated, for each iteration, through the stress analysis
information.
vn+1 vn (6)
cp =
( pin+1 pin )
o
Furthermore, the partial coupling between the stress
analysis program and the conventional reservoir
simulator is reached using a staggered procedure [2,13].
Fig. 2 illustrates a more detailed flowchart of one time
step of the staggered procedure.
In the beginning of the time step, the reservoir simulator
ECLIPSE is called to solve the flow equations,
providing, as result, the pore pressure field and the
time step is used to calculate the nodal forces through a
each nodal point of the mesh and the stress state,
evaluated in the integration points. The coupling
program calculates the pseudo-compressibility field and
the porosity field from the strain state.
The unknowns of the flow problem (pore pressure and
saturation field) in this procedure are calculated using
the pseudo-compressibility and the porosity that are
evaluated at the end of each iteration.
Fig. 2. Flow-chart of the partially coupled scheme, [2].

3. CASE STUDY
3.1. Program Validation
The presented methodology has been validated with a
single-phase reservoir problem, performed in [2]. The
results obtained with the partial coupling program were
compared to the results of software Abaqus, in a fully
coupled scheme. The comparison was performed in
terms of pore-pressure, reservoir average pressure,
subsidence and compaction, for both refined and coarse (a)
meshes. Good results were obtained for both meshes,
mainly by the two-way partially coupled scheme, due to
updates of geomechanical effects in flow simulation. It
was shown that the one-way partially coupled scheme
yields results that deviate significantly from the fully
coupled solution, indicating that care should be taken
when using this form of coupling.
3.2. Namorado Field (b)
In this paper, the data set from Namorado Field at
Campos Basin, Brazil, provided by the Brazilian Fig. 3. (a) Geometry of reservoir and location of production/
Petroleum Agency for academic studies, was used. The injection wells; (b) Depths of reservoir and WOC limits.
reservoir is composed of porous sandstone and it is
surrounded by a more rigid rock. The purpose of using This reservoir contains four production wells and one
this field is to evaluate the geomechanical effects in a injection well, whose rates of production/injection are:
real reservoir, considering its real geometry with finite (i) Production: 3000 m/day
element/ difference analysis, without coincident (ii) Injection: 1000 m/day
mesh/grid between the simulators.
Geometric and Production Features Reservoir and Surrounding Properties
The geometry of the problem is formed by a reservoir The in situ vertical stress increases linearly with depth,
and surrounding rocks (overburden, sideburden and accordingly to specific gravity of formation, while the
underburden) as shown schematically in Fig. 3 (a). horizontal stress is worth half the vertical stress at each
depth.
It was considered that the study reservoir is blackoil, in
other words, two-phase fluid flow occurs in it with oil Some properties used in the reservoir simulation and in
and water. Fig. 3 (b) illustrates the depth of both upper the geomechanical analysis are presented in Table 1.
and lower limits of reservoir, as well as the depth of
WOC (water-oil contact) and the location of a datum
pressure reference. The distances are referenced to the
top of the overburden. The pressure value at the datum is
315.77 bars.
Table 1. Properties of reservoir and surrounding rocks variation of the pore pressure results in an effective
Properties Values stresses equal and opposite.
Oil API gravity 31.895 The rock compressibility equation, shown in Eq. (10),
Fluid compressibility (1/bar) 5 x 10-5 may be written in terms of Youngs modulus (E) and the
Horizontal permeability Variable Poissons ratio () using the following conditions:
Vertical permeability Variable
Initial Rock Compressibility (1/bar) 4.83 x 10-3 (a) Variation of the horizontal strain is null, i. e,
Initial Porosity 0.2 d x = d y = 0
Youngs modulus reservoir (Pa)* 8.627 x 107
Youngs modulus surrounding rock (Pa)* 8.627 x 109 (b) Variation of the total stresses tensor is null, i. e,
Poissons ratio (reservoir and surrounding) 0.25 d ij = 0

(1 + )(1 2 ) (10)
In the available data of Namorado Field, the Youngs cr =
modulus of rock reservoir was unknown. Therefore, this (1 ) o E
parameter needs to be determined from the rock (ii) Hydrostatic Loading Test
compressibility. This compressibility is normally In this test, the reservoir rock sample is subjected to a
determined through mechanical tests in the reservoir hydrostatic loading that results in an equal horizontal
rock, where the stress paths, which are representative of and vertical strains and a null variation of the total
the range of the stress state in situ, are applied in the stresses.
cores. The stress paths more common to determine the
rock compressibility are the oedometer test and the The rock compressibility equation, shown in Eq. (11), as
hydrostatic loading test. in the oedometer test, may be written in terms of
Youngs modulus (E) and the Poissons ratio () using
The equations developed next, Eq. (10) and Eq. (11), the following conditions:
refer to a coupled solution between flow and
deformation as shown in [6]. In the common flow (a) The strains are equals in the three directions, i. e,
simulator, the pore volume for a grid block may be d x = d y = d z
written as Eq. (7).
(b) Variation of the total stresses tensor is null, i. e,
V p = V po [1 + cr ( p po )] (7) d ij = 0

However, in linear poroelasticity the pore volume, for 3(1 2 )

infinitesimal displacements, may be expressed as Eq.
(8).
V p = V o + kk +
o
p
1
( p po )
M modulus of the rock reservoir may be calculated by Eq.
where is the initial porosity, and M are the Biots
parameters and kk is the volumetric strain.
Furthermore, the fluid pressure enters into the
deformation calculations through the linear poroelastic
constitutive equation, as described in Eq. (9).
ij = ijo + kk ij + 2 ij ( p po ) ij (9)
where and are the Lames constants, ij is the
Kroneckers delta and.
For both tests shown in the sequence, and 1/M are set
equal to one and zero, respectively and the variation of
the total stresses tensor is null.
(i) Oedometer Test
In this test, the reservoir rock sample is subjected to an
axial strain condition, i.e, boundary conditions are
imposed to prevent horizontal strains to occur.
Furthermore, the total stresses are kept constant and the
cr = (11)
oE
Considering that the oedometer test is the test that better
(8) represents the in situ conditions, therefore, the Youngs
(10). The value obtained was presented in table 1, as
shown earlier.
Reservoir and Surrounding Model
The finite element mesh used for geomechanical analysis
contains 18914 nodes and 112486 elements in the
reservoir and 39593 nodes and 235472 elements in the
surrounding rocks. The element type used was a four
node linear tetrahedron. The program PATRAN was
used for mesh generation. It should be pointed out that a
coarse mesh was generated, in order to reduce the
processing time corresponding to the geomechanical
analysis.
The finite difference grid used in the flow analysis
contains 85905 cells, some of which were disabled in its
perimeter, in order to approximate the real geometry of
reservoir.
Fig. 4 (a) shows the mesh used in finite element analysis
and Fig. 4 (b) shows a top view of the grid used in
reservoir simulation, with the well positions.
 Displacements on the Overburden
Fig. 5 shows vertical displacements for different depths
within the overburden. These results were obtained from
Abaqus.

(a)
(a)

(b)

(b)

Fig. 4. (a) Finite Element Mesh; (b) Difference Finite Grid.

Next, the results obtained from one-way partial coupling

and two-way partial coupling iterative simulations for
the Namorado Field will be presented. In these
simulations, the influence of the convergence criterium
between iterations (in the two-way scheme) was
evaluated. The two convergence criteria used were
0.0687 bar and 0.687 bar. The total simulation
production time, in each case, was 400 days.
(c)

4. RESULTS Fig. 5. Vertical displacement at different depths (a) Z =

The results obtained with the partial coupling program
are presented in the following items. Results of
overburden vertical displacement and pore pressure
within the reservoir will be shown.
2000m; (b) Z = 2900m; (c) Z = 3100m.
It is observed that the displacements above the reservoir
center are larger than the displacements in the
surrounding rock. It is also shown that the closer to the
reservoir the bigger are the displacements. Fig. 6 shows
a horizontal path guided by the larger size of the
reservoir. The vertical displacement of the overburden at
different depths, 1000m, 2000m, 2500 m and 2700m, are Fig. 8. Vertical displacement at different partial coupling
presented in Fig. 7. schemes and tolerances

The change in tolerance criterium did not cause

significant effects on the curves of vertical displacement.
The smaller the tolerance the greater is the
computational time. However, when comparing the
different coupling schemes, it was observed that the one-
way partial coupling scheme produced vertical
displacement 40% smaller than the vertical
displacements predicted by the two-way partial coupling
scheme.
Pore Pressure on the Reservoir
Fig. 9 shows the pore pressure in the reservoir for
Fig. 6. Horizontal path guided by the larger size of the
different partial coupling schemes and tolerances, for
reservoir.
400 days simulations. These results were obtained from
ECLIPSE, along a horizontal path located at the
Position on the Path (m)
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 coordinates 1 < I < 83, J = 23 and K = 3 in the grid.
0
330
0.02
325
0.04
320
Displacement Uz (m)

0.06 Pore Pressure (bar) 315

0.08 310

0.1 305

0.12 300

Z = 1000 m 295
0.14 Initial Pore Pressure
Z = 2000 m
290 400 days - One Way
0.16 Z = 2500 m
Z = 2700 m 285 400 days - Two Way - Tolerance = 0.689 bar
0.18 400 days - Two Way - Tolerance = 0.0689 bar
280
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Fig. 7. Vertical displacement at different depths within the Cell - x direction
overburden
Fig. 9. Pore pressure in the reservoir for different coupling
As expected, the largest displacement occurs near the schemes and tolerances
reservoir top. The vertical displacements tend to
decrease as one gets near the top of the overburden. The It is shown that the tolerance criterium did not cause
volume of rock that is affected by the oil production is significant effects on the curves of reservoir pore
also indicated in Fig. 7. Fig. 8 shows the influence of the pressure. Overall, the curves show a reduction in pore
coupling methodology and tolerance on the vertical pressure in the vicinity of production wells.
displacement.
Nevertheless, when comparing the different coupling
Position on the Path (m) schemes, it was observed that the one-way partial
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
0.00 coupling scheme resulted in reduction of pore pressure
about 25% less than the reduction in the two-way partial
0.02
coupling scheme (for both tolerances) for only 400 days
0.04 of flow simulation.
Displacement Uz (m)

0.06

0.08
5. CONCLUSIONS
0.10
400 days - One Way There are many published studies that propose and
0.12
evaluate the use of partially coupled schemes for the
400 days - Two Way -
0.14
Tol 0.689 bar hydromechanical analyses of petroleum reservoir. The
0.16 400 days - Two Way - present study proposes a partial coupling scheme that
Tol 0.0689 bar
0.18
uses the pseudo-compressibility and porosity as coupling
parameters.
The methodology used in this paper proved to be 9. Bostrom, B. and Skomedal, E. 2004. Reservoir
capable of simulating coupled process in a real reservoir, Geomechanics with ABAQUS. In Proceedings of the
as could be observed by the results. Furthermore, the use ABAQUS Users Conference, Boston, USA, June 2004.
of one-way partial coupling scheme, which is widely 10. Tran, D., Settari, A. and Nghiem, L. 2004. New iterative
used in the oil industry, showed results quite different coupling between a reservoir simulator and a
from results obtained with the two-way partial coupling geomechanics module. In Proceedings of the SPE/ISRM
scheme, which was developed in a more rigorous way. Rock Mechanics Conference, Irving, Texas, 20 23
Therefore, care should be taken when using the one-way October 2002.
partial coupling scheme. 11. Zienkiewicz, O.C., Chan, A. H. C., Pastor, M., Schrefler,
B. A. and Shiomi, T. 1999. Computational
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Engineering. 1st ed. England: John Wiley and Sons.
The authors would like to thank SIMULIA and Schlumberger 12. Biot, M. A. 1940. General Theory of Three-Dimensional
for providing the academic licenses of the software Consolidation. Applied Physics. Vol. 12: 155-164.
ABAQUS and ECLIPSE respectively. Thanks are also 13. Huang, M. and Zienkiewicz, O. C. 1998. New
extended to Petrobras for the financial support. Unconditionally Stable Staggered Solution Procedures
for Coupled Soil-Pore Fluid Dynamic Problems.
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