Regular Article

Estimating the chance of success of information acquisition for the Norne benchmark case

¹ University of Campinas – Center for Petroleum Studies, PO Box 6052, 13083-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
² SOLPE – Solutions for Petroleum Science and Engineering, Av. Alan Turing, 345, Room 12, 13083-898 Campinas, SP, Brazil

^* Corresponding author: botechia@cepetro.unicamp.br

Received: 26 April 2018
Accepted: 27 August 2018

Abstract

A key decision in field management is whether or not to acquire information to either improve project economics or reduce uncertainties. A widely spread technique to quantify the gain of information acquisition is Value of Information (VoI). However, estimating the possible outcomes of future information without the data is a complex task. While traditional VoI estimates are based on a single average value, the Chance of Success (CoS) methodology works as a diagnostic tool, estimating a range of possible outcomes that vary because of reservoir uncertainties. The objective of this work is to estimate the CoS of a 4D seismic before having the data, applied to a complex real case (Norne field). The objective is to assist the decision of whether, or not, to acquire further data. The methodology comprises the following steps: uncertainty quantification, selection of Representative Models (RMs), estimation of the acquisition period, production strategy optimization and, finally, quantification of the CoS. The estimates use numerical reservoir simulation, economic analysis, and uncertainty evaluation. We performed analyses considering perfect and imperfect information. We aim to verify the increment in economic return when the 4D data identifies the closest-to-reality reservoir model. While the traditional expected VoI calculation provides only an average value, this methodology has the advantage of considering the increase in the economic return due to reservoir uncertainties, characterized by different RMs. Our results showed that decreased reliability of information affected the decision of which production strategy to select. In our case, information reliability less than 70% is insufficient to change the perception of the uncertain reservoir and consequently decisions. Furthermore, when the reliability reached around 50%, the information lost value, as the economic return became similar to that of the case without information acquisition.