Reservoir Modeling for Horizontal Exploitation of a Giant Heavy Oil Field - Challenges and Lessons Learned

摘要

The Hamaca Field, located in Venezuela’s Orinoco Heavy OilrnBelt, is a giant extra-heavy oil accumulation operated byrnAmeriven, an operating agent company for PDVSA, Phillipsrnand ChevronTexaco. Over the 35-year life of the field, morernthan one thousand horizontal laterals are planned in order torndeliver 190,000 BOPD to a heavy-oil upgrader facility.rnReservoir models are built to support a broad continuum ofrnactivities in order to meet this objective. This paper willrnreview the Hamaca reservoir modeling process, the challengernof integrating many sources of geologic and geophysicalrnconstraints including horizontal well information, the focus onrncontinuous model improvement, and issues unique to Hamacarnrock and fluid properties.