SPE 126191

Difficulties in Using Geostatistical Models in Reservoir Simulation

V. Rasouli, SPE, Curtin University of Technology and B. Tokhmechi, Shahrood University of Technology
Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE North Africa Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Cairo, Egypt, 1417 February 2010.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been reviewed
by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or
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Abstract
Number of estimators and simulators is used in petroleum engineering applications in order to model the static and dynamic
characteristics of hydrocarbon reservoirs. However, the fundamental concepts used in estimators and simulators do vary from each
other leading to the necessity of choosing the optimal approach with an extensive care. Geostatistics is perhaps the most widely
used technique in simulation which is popularly used in different engineering applications and specifically in reservoir simulation.
In this paper, three shortcomings of geostatistics in estimation and simulation are highlighted and alternative methods are
proposed. Firstly, Kriging estimator, as is used in geostatistics, guarantees minimum estimation variance if the variogram model is
the optimum fit and stationary conditions are met. However, in real situation, these conditions are not always satisfied.
Geostatistics is prone to number of deficiencies some of which are discussed in this paper in the context of oil and gas applications
and alternative solutions are presented. As such, the incapability of variogram, as being the fundamental tool in geostatistical
analysis, in capturing the periodic structure of reservoir formation is shown. Then, it is discussed why the use of signal
decomposition tools such as Fourier, fast Fourier and wavelet transform is more advantageous than variogram in this context.
Secondly, to overcome the smoothing property associated with geostatistics fractal simulation is recommended as an alternative
approach. Finally, it is discussed how intrinsic properties of reservoir can be included in multi-fractal or neural network to improve
the estimation and simulation process. This appears to be difficult to apply if geostatistical approaches are used for estimation or
simulation purposes.
Introduction
In engineering applications, modeling is a basic step to understand the system behaviour. Generally, in modeling, the number
of known parameters is less than unknowns and therefore it is required to approach the problem using estimation. Geostatistics is
one of the widely used techniques by which spatial variation of data are determined through the analysis of data variogram. The
information extracted from variogram analysis allows estimating the unknown data using Kriging approach. Estimation and
dispersion variance are calculated in order to identify the magnitude of estimation error.
In general, estimators are classified in two categories: static and dynamic estimators which can perform the estimation linearly or
non-linearly using different techniques as shown in Table 1. Majority of classical estimators, such as linear interpolator and
extrapolator, K nearest neighbor and inverse distance to a power perform linear static estimation. As these estimators are unable to
incorporate the spatial structure of data in their calculations (Nelles, 2001 and Liu, 2001), their use in fractured reservoir modeling
becomes very limited.
Feed forward neural network with linear transform function or some mother wavelets are another group of linear static estimators.
Linear estimators suffer from different shortcomings and therefore non-linear estimators are used instead to overcome these
deficiencies (Zhu, 2003). However, it should be noted that in terms of its simplicity and the generalization ability linear transform
is a reliable function to be used. This concept is not within the scope of this work and hence is not discussed in this paper.
Kriging, as being the best linear unbiased estimator, ensures minimizing the estimation variance and this is the main reason why
Kriging is the most widely used linear estimator. However, if the data is not distributed normally and it is possible to transform the

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data into a normal distribution using a non linear transform function (such as logarithm Neperian) then Kriging of transformed data
is a non linear estimation.
Kriging does not always satisfy the stationary condition, one reason being the lack of adequate data. In this situation one may
apply non-linear transformers to the data in order to satisfy this condition. In reservoir modeling, as usually enough volume of data
is not available, linear Kriging is used to model the transformed data. The problem then to resolve is to find the appropriate
transform function, which usually is not easy or even possible to obtain.
Table 1. classification of estimators (Nelles, 2001)
Estimator
Static

Estimation
Linear
Non-linear

Dynamic

Linear
Non-linear

Example
Linear interpolator and extrapolator, nearest K neighbor and inverse distance to a
power, Linear Kriging, Feed forward neural network with linear transform function,
fractal simulator, some wavelets
Feed forward neural network with non-linear transform function, Neural network,
fuzzy, fractal, wavelet, Non-linear Kriging
Linear dynamic Kriging, feed back neural network with linear transform function,
wavelet
Feed back neural network with non-linear transform function, wavelet, non-linear
dynamic Kriging

Smoothing effect is another difficulty associated with Kriging. This is to say that Kriging is not a good candidate for estimation if
the studied variable has a large range of variation, as Kriging fits a smoothed curve over the entire data. Sequential Gaussian
simulation and Sequential indicator simulation are the two approaches within geostatistics proposed to overcome the smoothening
effect in Kriging, the latter approach being advantageous due to the fact that it does not require satisfying the stationary conditions.
However, whether the minimized estimation variance has reached when simulators are used is a difficult matter in its own to deal
with.
Fractals are another important class of simulators. One of the advantages of fractal is that during simulation the fractal dimension
can be kept constant (Ljung, 1999). This resolves the smoothing shortcoming associated with Kriging, as in fact the fractal
dimension carries the data variation property. However, in fractal simulation, minimized estimation variance is not guaranteed and
more importantly, fractal based approaches are in fact simulators and not estimators. This means that running the simulation
algorithm twice; different results are expected to be obtained in general.
In the following section some of the shortcomings associated with geostatistics are discussed and alternatives solutions are
proposed.
Interpreting spatial structure using variogram
In Kriging spatial variability of data is interpreted through the interpretation of variogram, a plot of data variance at different
scales. variogram is shown to be an effective tool in this regard, however, suffers from some deficiencies, one of these being the
difficulty in encapsulating the periodic structures such as sedimentary deposits as usually is the case in oil and gas reservoirs basin.
Being able to recover such structures indirectly by analyzing data from different sources is important as this information could be
used to determine the direction of maximum and minimum permeability, fluid flow boundaries and so on. However, it is discussed
here that variogram, as the most popularly used tool for structure interpretation, is not promising in capturing such information.
A synthetic data set with stationary and non stationary variation is generated. In a stationary variation the occurrence of variations
covers the entire time interval, whereas in non stationary case the variations occur at specific time intervals only. As an example,
in Figure 1(a) a stationary signal including frequencies of 5, 10, 20 and 50 Hertz in the entire time interval is shown. Figure 1(b)
shows a non stationary signal, where in every 600 msec a difference frequency signal (1450, 900, 300 and 200 Hertz) occurs.

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b
Figure 1: Variation of a) a stationary and b) a non stationary sine signal with frequencies of 5, 10, 20 and 50
Hz

In order to recover the initial frequencies data should be transformed. Fourier, short time Fourier and wavelet are some of the
important transformers which transform the information from time-amplitude to frequency-amplitude or frequency-time-amplitude
domain. In Fourier transform as the data are transformed into frequency-time domain the time of occurrence of different
frequencies cannot be obtained. This causes difficulty in non stationary signals; an example of this is given in Figure 2 where the
Fourier transformation of signals in Figure 1 is shown, correspondingly. However, the short time Fourier transformation of data is
capable of distinguishing the frequency occurrence in time for non stationary signals.

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b
Figure 2: Fourier transforms corresponding to signals in Figure 1

Here, the difficulty of variogram in recovering the periodic structures is demonstrated through an example of its application in
capturing the vertical permeability in a well. The study is in 1D and in vertical direction using both synthetic and empirical data,
where both stationary and non stationary variations are considered as two separate cases. The wavelength of periodic structures in
both cases is 40 and 100 ft, respectively. Three transformers of variogram, Fourier and wavelet are applied to the data to compare
the results.
Figure 3 shows a non stationary signal with two wavelengths of 100 and 40 ft and the plot of its corresponding Semivariogram.
The reduction in variogram, as expected due to the hole effect in periodic structure, is observed at lags of 40 and 100 ft. However,
such a reduction is also seen in other lag distances which is misleading in terms of interpreting them as hole effect. Therefore the

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correct sequence of structures cannot be recovered. In Figure 3 the Fourier transform of data is also shown for two peak
frequencies of 40 and 100 ft. In this case the wavelength of periodic variation is recognized, however, despite simple interpretation
of the plot, the location of these frequencies cannot be determined. Comparing the results of variogram and Fourier transform with
wavelet as also shown in Figure 3 indicates that wavelet is able to capture both wavelength and the location of the variations, an
already known capability in wavelet application (Rivera et al, 2004).
In Figure 4 previous data given in Figure 3 is shown in a stationary fashion, thus the wavelengths of 40 and 100 ft is observed
across the whole well profile. The results of applying variogram, Fourier and Morlet wavelet transformer on this data is interpreted
in the same way as discussed for non stationary case. Here, the results show that, similar to the non stationary case, wavelet is a
better tool than variogram and Fourier transforms in terms of being simple, accurate and able to determine the position of the
frequency occurrence.
In above example synthetic data were analyzed, however, similar results are expected to be obtained if real data is used. The
important point to note is that variogram is incapable of recovering the periodic and nest structures and hence Kriging cannot be
employed in this situation for estimation purposes.
Smoothing property of Kriging
In Figure 5, a regular 200200 grid (8 and 5 data in x and y axes, respectively) of synthetic data is generated using a software
developed by the Authors, where at each node a continuous variable such as porosity is assigned. The iso-contour of the variable is
shown in this Figure and the fractal dimension of data is set to be 2.75.
To investigate the smoothing effect corresponding to Kriging this method is compared against mid point movement method as a
fractal simulation estimator. In Kriging the objective is to minimize the estimation variance whereas in fractal simulator the fractal
dimension is kept unchanged during estimation process. Therefore, if the fractal dimension is to be considered as a measure of data
roughness, in mid point movement approach this is constant. In Figure 6(a) and 6(b) the data corresponding to Figure 5
regenerated in a grid of 100100 using Kriging and mid point movement is shown. The fractal dimension corresponding to Figure
6(a) and 6(b) is 2.21 and 2.75, respectively, i.e. in case of Kriging the data variation reduced (smoothing effect). It is clearly seen
that Kriging fits an estimated surface to the data which is significantly less rough than the original data values. However, using
fractal approach the roughness of estimated surface can be kept unchanged if the fractal dimension is taken to be constant
throughout the estimation.
To investigate the reduction in fractal dimension corresponding to the smoothing effect in Kriging, the analysis has been repeated
for number of times with denser data grids and the results are shown in Table 2. The results show that estimation using Kriging
smoothen the fitted surface to the data. This problem becomes more critical for the data whose variation is very large, for instance,
the fractures in a reservoir.
The above discussion concludes that Kriging is not a suitable estimator when the data variation is large because of smoothing
property attached to it. In this situation fractal simulators are a better approach to be used for estimation.
Table 2. Fractal dimension of surfaces estimated using Kriging
and fractal simulators
Estimation grid size
100
50
25
12.5
6.25

Kriging Estimation
2.21
2.07
2.23
2.02
2.01

Mid point movement

2.75
2.75
2.75
2.75
2.75

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Figure 3: variogram, Fourier and wavelet transforms applied to a non stationary periodic synthetic
permeability data corresponding to a well (From Rivera et al, 2004)

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Figure 4: variogram, Fourier and wavelet transforms applied to a stationary periodic synthetic permeability
data corresponding to a well (From Rivera et al, 2004)

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Figure 5: Iso-contour plot of studied variable belong to a 200200 regular grid, Fractal dimension is 2.75

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Figure 6: Iso-contour plots of studied variable in a 100100 regular grid estimated using a) Kriging (fractal
dimension 2.21) and b) mid point movement (fractal dimension of 2.75)

Kriging is sensitive to the input data

In general, the efficiency of any estimator reduces as the number of data becomes lesser. However, this is more significant in
the case of Kriging and the estimation error increases significantly as the number of data becomes inadequate and therefore the real
spatial structure of data cannot be recovered. One of the instances where such situation may occur is in the case of modeling
hydrocarbon reservoirs where usually low amount of data is available. In this Section an approach to deal with this problem is
introduced where the lack of data is compensated for using a fractal based model. However, the question to answer is that how it is
possible to determine the fractal dimension corresponding to, for example, reservoir porosity enough accurately when it depends
on the density of the original data itself. The solution given here is based on an indirect approach where the stationary data of
reservoir is used to calculate the fractal dimension of reservoir property more accurately. This will lead to a better data simulation.
In Figure 7 a schematic fracture model from a fractured reservoir is shown versus an ideal fractured block. As is seen from this
Figure the fluid flow behavior in an ideal model is much less complex than that of a real fractured model. Also, the pressure and
pressure change in an ideal model is expected to be less than that of a real model, as in real fracture models the fluid pressure is
closer to litho static than hydrostatic pressure.
In Figure 8 the pressure and pressure drop (or drawdown) versus time in an ideal fracture block (with fractal dimension 2) and a
real fracture block (with fractal dimension 1.25) is shown. As it is seen from this Figure, as the fractal dimension increases both
fluid pressure and pressure drop are reduced in the reservoir. On this basis the standard fluid pressure and pressure drop in
reservoir corresponding to different fractal dimensions were calculated and the results are plotted in Figure 9. The point is that in
reality the pressure and pressure drop across a reservoir can be measured and hence if the results are plotted on the same graph
shown in Figure 9 a comparison can be made against the synthetic curves to obtain an idea of the fractal dimension of fractures in
the reservoir. Therefore it may be possible to use fractal simulators to model reservoir fractures while fractal dimension is kept
unchanged (Olarewagu, 1996).
As it is seen the amount of data available for estimation is larger in the case of fractal simulation than Kriging. This is because in
fractal approach we also included the stationary fluid pressure data into the analysis. Adding this information increases the

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accuracy of the estimation. Also, it can be seen that the smaller the fractal dimension, the closer the results of fractal simulator will
be to the Kriging estimation. This concludes that in the case of large fractal dimension of the studied variable (here is the reservoir
fractures) the use of Kriging is not promising and it is recommended to use fractal approach instead for estimation purposes.

Figure 7: An ideal (left) and diagrammatic representation (right) of a fractured reservoir (From Olarewagu,
1996)

Figure 8: pressure and pressure drop curves versus time in ideal fracture network (D=2) and in fracture
networks with D=1.25 (Olarewagu, 1996)

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Figure 9: Reservoir fluid pressure and pressure drop changes as a function of fractal dimension of property
(Olarewagu, 1996)

Conclusions and recommendations

In this paper Kriging, as being the mostly used geostatistical tool for estimation purposes, was compared against Fourier, wavelet
and fractal. As a result it was shown how variogram is unable to model the periodic and nest structures in hydrocarbon reservoirs.
In this situation the use of signal processing techniques such as Fourier, short time Fourier and wavelet was shown to be a more
appropriate approach. Also, the smoothing effect in Kriging estimation, especially when the data variation is large, was discussed
through some examples and therefore the use of fractal simulators was recommended in this situations. Finally it was shown how
estimation using geostatistics suffers from the shortage of the data in comparison with other methods. The practical importance of
this work in fractured reservoirs with larger data variability is obvious comparing to non fractured reservoirs.

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References
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Ljung L. 1999, System Identification Theory for the User, Second Edition, Prentice Hall Information and System Sciences Series, 609 p.
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Liu G.P. 2001, Nonlinear Identification and Control, A Neural Network Approach, Springer, 210 p.
Keller W. 2000, Lecture notes on wavelets, University of Stuttgart.
Luenberger D.G. Linear and Nonlinear Programming, Second Edition, Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 481 p.
Camacho E.F. and Bordons C. 2004, Model Predictive Control, Second Edition, Springer, 405 p.
Rivera N.A. Ray S. Jensen J.L. Chan A.K. Ayers W.B. 2004, Detection of cyclic patterns using wavelets: An example study in the Ormskirk
sandstone, Irish Sea, Mathematical Geology.
Olarewagu J. 1996, Modeling fractured reservoirs with stochastic fractals, SPE 36207-MS.