This study proposes and develops a streamline approach forinferring field-scale effective permeability distributions basedon dynamic production data including producer water-cutcurve, well pressures, and rates. The approach simplifies thehistory-matching process significantly.The basic idea is to relate the fractional-flow curve ata producer to the water breakthrough of individualstreamlines. By adjusting the effective permeability alongstreamlines, the breakthrough time of each streamline is foundthat reproduces the reference producer fractional-flow curve.Then the permeability modification along each streamline ismapped onto cells of the simulation grid. Modifying effectivepermeability at the streamline level greatly reduces the size ofthe inverse problem compared to modifications at the gridblocklevel. The approach outlined here is relatively directand greatly reduces the computational work by eliminating therepeated inversion of a system of equations. It works well forreservoirs where heterogeneity determines flow patterns.Example cases illustrate computational efficiency, generality,and robustness of the proposed procedure. Advantages andlimitations of this work, and the scope of future study, are alsodiscussed.
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