SPE Journal
Volume 15, Number 2, June 2010, pp. 436-453

Summary

Accurate representation of complex reservoir geology using nonorthogonal meshes, upscaling of high-resolution geostatistical reservoir models including cross-flow effects, and strongly heterogeneous anisotropic permeable media such as cross-bedded sands and thin-bedded turbidite channels all individually or in combination give rise to simulation models with full-tensor permeability fields. Such anisotropic multiphase flow problems can be solved accurately on arbitrary nonorthogonal structured and unstructured meshes using the mimetic finite volume method. The discretization operator of the mimetic finite volume method satisfies conservation laws and theorems of vector and tensor calculus on nonorthogonal, smoothly and nonsmoothly distorted, structured and unstructured computational meshes.

In this paper, we demonstrate the formulation of a 3D variant of the mimetic finite volume method for corner-point geometry hexahedral meshes. We also discuss the results and issues associated with the implementation of the mimetic finite volume discretization operator in a parallel, fully implicit research reservoir simulator developed using a general compositional formulation. Simulation results are presented for a variety of cases involving flow through geologically complex systems.

© 2010. Society of Petroleum Engineers

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History

• Original manuscript received: 13 December 2006
• Meeting paper published: 26 February 2007
• Revised manuscript received: 16 June 2009
• Manuscript approved: 16 June 2009
• Published online: 28 January 2010
• Version of record: 17 June 2010