Simulation of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs. State of the Art

Use of fractured reservoir simulators can help reservoir engineers in the understanding of the main physical mechanisms and in the choice of the best recovery process and its optimization. Significant progress has been made since the first publications on the dual porosity concept in the sixties. This paper presents the current techniques of modeling used in industrial simulators. Following a description of the recovery processes and of the main physical mechanisms involved, a history of the fractured reservoir simulation is presented. Then the general mathematical formulation of dual porosity simulators is described. The paper ends with a presentation of the numerical simulation of flow in fractures and faults and of well modeling. The matrix-fracture transfer formulations, as well as techniques for uncertainty analysis and geology&flow-constrained history matching, will be addressed in the companion paper, Part 2: Matrix-Fracture Transfers and Typical Features of Numerical Studies