Reducing Reservoir Simulation Run Times With ECHELON Software

Challenge

Average simulation run times during history match or production forecasting for models with 1-2 million active cells range from 9 to 11 hours on 4 cores using a CPU-based simulator. These long run times cause delays in achieving a fair history matched model which consequently creates uncertainty in the production forecasting. Although simulation run times could be reduced by increasing the number of cores in both legacy and more modern CPU simulators, this would increase costs and imply moving to a higher-end workstation or a cluster. These challenges motivated the operator to look for newer innovations such as a GPU based desktop simulator that promises faster run times with a smaller hardware footprint.