Modeling and Validation of Fluid Flow-Geomechanics of Mauddud Reservoir in Sabriya Field

Integrating fluid flow and geomechanics is becoming increasingly important in the oil and gas industry to improve production history matching and forecasting. This is especially the case in carbonate reservoirs due to the heterogeneous nature of the rock and flow properties within the pores and sometimes fractures. During production, carbonate reservoirs are subject to mechanical, hydraulic, and, in some cases, thermal processes. Coupled modeling between these processes helps to better understand the behavior of a carbonate field. When hydrocarbon is produced, the pore-pressure change within the reservoir gives rise to accompanying stress changes, which cause rock deformation that will either reduce or enhance permeability and porosity. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to integrate geology, petrophysics, fluid flow, and geomechanics within a coupled reservoir simulation. 3D fluid-flow geomechanical modeling was conducted for a carbonate field in order to improve the history match of a reservoir model, and we examined the impact of permeability change and enhancement on well performance. The results showed significant improvement of the reservoir production history matching by including coupled reservoir simulations. The geomechanical changes brought on by production will influence other field-development operations such as in-fill drilling. Geomechanical modeling of the reservoir can be extended to optimize wellbore stability through a 3D mud-weight cube for field-scale in-fill drilling optimization.