Ultra-fast screening of stress-sensitive (naturally fractured) reservoirs using flow diagnostics

Quantifying the impact of poro-mechanics on reservoir performance is critical to the sustainable management of subsurface reservoirs containing either hydrocarbons, groundwater, geothermal heat, or being targeted for geological storage of fluids (e.g., CO2 or H2). On the other hand, accounting for poro-mechanical effects in full-field reservoir simulation studies and uncertainty quantification workflows in complex reservoir models is challenging, mainly because exploring and capturing the full range of geological and mechanical uncertainties requires a large number of numerical simulations and is hence computationally intensive. Specifically, the integration of poro-mechanical effects in full-field reservoir simulation studies is still limited, mainly because of the high computational cost. Consequently, poro-mechanical effects are often ignored in reservoir engineering workflows, which may result in inadequate reservoir performance forecasts. This thesis hence develops an alternative approach that couples hydrodynamics using existing flow diagnostics simulations for single- and dual-porosity models with poro mechanics to screen the impact of coupled poro-mechanical processes on reservoir performance. Due to the steady-state nature of the calculations and the effective proposed coupling strategy, these calculations remain computationally efficient while providing first-order approximations of the interplay between poro-mechanics and hydrodynamics, as we demonstrate through a series of case studies. This thesis also introduces a new uncertainty quantification workflow using the proposed poro-mechanical informed flow diagnostics and proxy models. These computationally efficient calculations allow us to quickly screen poro-mechanics and assess a broader range of geological, petrophysical, and mechanical uncertainties to rank, compare, and cluster a large ensemble of models to select representative candidates for more detailed full-physics coupled reservoir simulations.James Watt Scholarshi