Methods and systems for automatic well placement planning during reservoir simulation

A system comprising:

• a reservoir simulator, configured to:
• obtain a reservoir simulation model for a hydrocarbon reservoir, wherein the reservoir simulation model comprises a grid of computational voxels representing the hydrocarbon reservoir, a free-water level boundary, and a location of each of a plurality of pre-existing production wells,
• define a location for each of a plurality of candidate wells, wherein the location for each of the plurality of candidate wells lies within an area enclosed by the free-water level boundary,
• form a first filtered set of candidate well from the plurality of candidate wells, wherein a distance between a location of each well in the first filtered set and the location of each pre-existing production well in the plurality of pre-existing wells is greater than a first threshold distance;
• form a set of candidate production well locations from the first filtered set, wherein each candidate well location in the set of candidate production well locations is further than a second threshold distance from the free-water level boundary,
• using the reservoir simulation model, for each candidate production well location in the set of candidate production well locations:
• determine, using the reservoir simulation model, a trajectory for each of a number of lateral branches of a well commencing at the location of the candidate production well;
• and
• determine, using the trajectory for each of the lateral branches of the well, a combined predicted production rate,
• rank the candidate production well locations based, at least in part, on the combined predicted production rate of each candidate production well location;
• select a set of planned production well locations based, at least in part on the rank of each candidate production well locations;
• and
• a drilling system, configured to drill a production well guided by the trajectory of each lateral branch of the well commencing at the candidate production well location.

A non-transitory computer-readable memory comprising computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed on a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

• obtaining a reservoir simulation model for a hydrocarbon reservoir, wherein the reservoir simulation model comprises a grid of computational voxels representing the hydrocarbon reservoir, a free-water level boundary, and a location of each of a plurality of pre-existing production wells,
• defining a location for each of a plurality of candidate wells, wherein the location for each of the plurality of candidate wells lies within an area enclosed by the free-water level boundary,
• forming a first filtered set of candidate well from the plurality of candidate wells, wherein a distance between a location of each well in the first filtered set and the location of each pre-existing production well in the plurality of pre-existing wells is greater than a first threshold distance;
• forming a set of candidate production well locations from the first filtered set, wherein each candidate well location in the set of candidate production well locations is further than a second threshold distance from the free-water level boundary,
• using the simulation model, for each candidate production well location in the set of candidate production well locations:
• determining a trajectory for each of a number of lateral branches of a well commencing at the location of the candidate production well;
• and
• determining, using the trajectory for each of the lateral branches of the well, a combined predicted production rate,
• ranking the candidate production well locations based, at least in part, on the combined predicted production rate of each candidate production well location;
• selecting a set of planned production well locations based, at least in part on the rank of each candidate production well locations.