Reservoir Simulation, PE-401 Made By: Maisam Abbas

ECLIPSE- theory and software work PE-038

INTRODUCTION TO ECLIPSE:

Simulators provide a real-life environment, i.e. the user has a “look-and-feel” of the real
world that is entirely authentic, with a simulated real-world feedback provided by a computer
program.

In reservoir simulators the objective is much the same – to simulate the exploitation of a real
reservoir without the costs of real life trial and error, e.g. to test different productions
scenarios to find an optimal one before the reservoir is actually put on production.

We cannot expect the reservoir simulator to provide an exact replica of flow in, and
production from the reservoir, because the description of the reservoir and the boundary
conditions for the equations for flow in a porous rock are known only with a great deal of
uncertainty. With such uncertainties both in the input data and the solution procedure, it is not
surprising that “exact” answers cannot be provided – typically manifested by comparing the
simulated data to actual field data after some time of field production.

Still reservoir simulation is regularly used with great success, and remains one of the support
pillars for decision making when field plans for development and operations are made. This
is, because even if there may be uncertainties tied to simulated results, the simulations reveal
invaluable information about the reservoir flow, and not the least, can point to areas which
need closer investigation or can represent elements of risk to the production scenarios.

Some of the tasks of the reservoir engineer in charge of doing reservoir simulations are,

 evaluate the quality of the input data

 transform the input data to a form suitable for simulation
 identify key data which may directly influence choice of operations plans, and
uncertainty tied to these
 perform reservoir simulations & evaluate quality of results from the simulations,
uncertainties
 point to potential future problems / solutions, suggest production plans

ECLIPSE Software:

ECLIPSE is Schlumberger reservoir simulation software. The ECLIPSE doesn't have one
interface, instead of this, there are solvers and software for preprocess and postprocess. They
can be launched with ECLIPSE launcher or ECLIPSE OFFICE.

ECLIPSE simulator suite consists of two separate solvers:

 ECLIPSE 100 for black oil modeling with gas condensate options;
 ECLIPSE 300 for compositional and thermal modeling.

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ECLIPSE 100 solves the black oil equations (a fluid model) on corner-point grids. ECLIPSE
100 is a fully-implicit, three-phase, three-dimensional, general purpose black oil simulator
with gas condensate option. ECLIPSE 300 solves the reservoir flow equations for
compositional hydrocarbon descriptions and thermal simulation.

There are other software packages for data preparation and postprocessing of the simulation
results, useful ones are:

 ECLIPSE OFFICE (preparation and analysis of model data),

 FLOVIZ (an interactive 3D visualization).

OFFICE allows to visualize the output of the simulation of ECLIPSE.

ECLIPSE Syntax- Simple ECLIPSE Data file inputs:

All data needed by Eclipse is collected in an input data file, which is an ordinary text file
(opened by WordPad or Word). The different data items are identified by keywords, and most
often followed by the associated data. The keyword data is always terminated by a slash (‘/’).

1. DATA ORGANISATION- DATA SECTION HEADER:

An Eclipse data file is comprised of eight sections headed by a section header. (Some of the
sections are optional). These sections must come in the prescribed order, but the order of the
keywords within each section is arbitrary (except the SCHEDULE section where time-
dependency is handled in the order it is defined).

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 The keywords are commented using lines starting with two dashes.
 The asterisk * used in multiplying must not be separated by space.

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2. KEYWORDS (WITH CLASSWORK TASKS):

Eclipse includes options for simulating “almost anything”, through several thousand
keywords. Each section header is composed of many keywords. the most common, subjects
and keywords are described in these notes, which hence can be a sufficient basis for setting
up input data files for a great deal of problems.

The objective of these lecture notes is thus to enable the user to understand the required input
data to a reservoir simulator, convert the input issues to Eclipse format and run simulations
with Eclipse.

The subdivision of the reservoir into finite volume cells is called as discretization of the
reservoir, and the set of elements/cells is called the reservoir grid, with each cell being called
as grid-blocks. The simplest grids are those which are comprised of a number of equal cube-
shaped cells. The grid is then uniquely defined by the size of each cube, and the number of
cubes in each of the major directions, X, Y, Z.

Eclipse convention: I, J, K are used for indices in X, Y, Z – directions, and the ordering is
defined as in “normal reading order”, i.e. I runs from left to right, J runs from top of a page to
bottom, and K runs from page to page. In a grid oriented along standard geographical axes, I
would increase from west to east, J would increase from north to south, and K downwards.
We denote the length of the cell (cube) in the X, Y, Z-directions by DX, DY, DZ
respectively. Then the simplest grid is comprised of identical cells, NX cells in the X-
direction, NY cells in the Y-direction, and NZ cells in the Z-direction, totally NX*NY*NZ
cells. A simple extension of this grid, is to allow for DX to be dependent on the I-index, and
DY to be dependent on the J-index. (Note that we don’t allow for DX to be dependent on J.)

Let’s start with the first section header- RUNSPEC.

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A. RUNSPEC (Run specifications):

The RUNSPEC section is the first section of an ECLIPSE data input file. It contains the run
title,
start date, units, various problem dimensions (numbers of blocks, wells, tables etc.), flags for
phases or components present and option switches.

 KEYWORDS INVOLVED IN RUNSPEC:

TITLE: This enables a run title to be set up, which is included in the Print file headers.
DIMENS: Specification of the number of cells in x, y, and z-directions (i.e. grid
dimensions). This keyword defines the basic size of the simulation grid. It is followed by
three integers, specifying the number of cells in the x, y and z directions respectively. The
arguments of the DIMENS keyword are frequently referred to as NX, NY and NZ, and , or
NDIVIX, NDIVIY and NDIVIZ.
NONNC: Disallow non-neighbor connections. Coarsening generates non-neighbor
connections, Grid coarsening automatically generates non-neighbor connections.
Transmissibilities and diffusivities across the cells are modified accordingly. If the NONNC

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keyword has been entered in RUNSPEC section, an error message is issued, and this option is
disallowed. So, it is required to remove this keyword while performing coarsening.

NOTE: IF YOU CHANGE LENGTHS DX, DY, DZ, MAKE SURE THE MAXIMUM
LENGTH E.G, DX LIE WITHIN NX, AND SAME FOR DY AND DZ.

OIL: This keyword indicates that a run contains an oil phase.

WATER: This indicates that the run contains water as an active phase, whose saturation can
vary.
GAS: This keyword indicates that a run contains gas.
VAPGAS: This indicates that the run contains vaporized oil in wet gas. The keyword may be
used only if both OIL and GAS are present.

DISGAS: This indicates that the run contains dissolved gas in live oil. The keyword may be
used only if OIL and GAS are both present.

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FIELD: This indicates that field units are to be used.

METRIC: This indicates that metric units are to be used.
LAB: This indicates that lab units are to be used.
START: This keyword specifies the start date of the simulation.

WELLDIMS: The data consists of up to 10 items, describing the dimensions of the well data
to be used in the run. The data must be terminated by a slash (/).

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B. GRID

Petrophysics input to Eclipse is porosity, net-to-gross ratios, and three diagonal components
of the permeability tensor. The general syntax is defined in the basic data input example, one
value for each cell. The GRID section determines the basic geometry of the simulation grid
and various rock properties (porosity, absolute permeability, net-to-gross ratios) in each grid
cell.

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DXV: This keyword specifies the size of the cells in the X-direction.

DYV: This keyword specifies the size of the cells in the Y-direction.

DZV: This keyword specifies the size of the cells in the Z-direction.

TOPS: Specifies the depth at the top of each grid block.

EQUALS: This keyword is used to assign or replace the value of a property for a box of cells
within the grid.

PERMX: This keyword specifies the permeability values in the X-direction.

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PERMY: This keyword specifies the permeability values in the Y-direction

PERMZ: This keyword specifies the permeability values in the Z-direction.

PORO: specifying the fractional porosity value for each cell.

COPY: This keyword is used to assign or replace the value of a property for a box of cells
within the grid, using the value of another property.

Grid block coarsening: Combining multiple grid blocks in to one.

Grid block refining: Dividing a grid block in further small parts.

GDFILE: This keyword allows the grid geometry to be defined by an external Grid file.
ECHO and NOECHO: NOECHO keyword is introduced to eliminate the echo of each run
of the data file. This keyword is then followed by a conclusion through keyword ECHO.
Eclipse has a keyword, NOECHO (no slash) which turns off writing of data to report file, and
ECHO, which turns it back on. So routinely, NOECHO is inserted at the start of the GRID
section, and ECHO at the end, to prevent writing of the voluminous GRID data.

C. EDIT:
The EDIT section contains instructions for modifying the pore volumes, block center depths,
transmissibilities, diffusivities (for the Molecular Diffusion option), and non-neighbor
connections (NNCs) computed by the program from the data entered in the GRID section. It
is entirely optional.
It has some keywords, DEPTH, PORV, TRANX, TRANY, TRANZ etc. to be used in the
EDIT section to overwrite data either for the entire reservoir, or for a set of
the grid blocks defined using the BOX keyword.

D. PROPS:
The PROPS section of the input data contains pressure and saturation dependent properties of
the reservoir fluids and rocks.

PVDG: The data comprises NTPVT tables of dry gas PVT functions, each terminated by a
slash (/).
Column 1 The gas phase pressure.
Column 2 The corresponding gas formation volume factor.
Column 3 The corresponding gas viscosity.

PVTO: The data comprises NTPVT tables of live oil PVT functions
Column 1 The dissolved gas-oil ratio (Rs).

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Column 2 The oil phase pressure (Po).

Column 3 The oil formation volume factor (Bo)
Column 4 The oil viscosity ( µo)

PVTW: The data comprises NTPVT tables of water PVT functions

Column 1 The reference pressure (Pref)
Column 2 The water formation volume factor at the reference pressure, Bw(Pref)
Column 3 The water compressibility
Column 4 The water viscosity at the reference pressure.
Column 5 The water “viscosibility”

GRVITY: The data comprises NTPVT records of gravity tables, each terminated by a slash
(/).
Column 1 Oil API gravity.
Column 2 Water specific gravity
Column 3 Gas gravity

ROCK: data comprises NTPVT records of rock properties, each terminated by a slash (/).
Column 1 The reference pressure (Pref).
Column 2 The rock compressibility

SOF3: The data comprises NTSFUN tables of oil saturation functions, each terminated by a
slash (/).
Column 1: The oil saturation.
Column 2: The corresponding oil relative permeability for regions where only oil and water
are present.
Column 3: The corresponding oil relative permeability for regions where only oil, gas and
connate water are present.

SGFN: The data comprises NTSFUN (see item 1 of keyword TABDIMS in the RUNSPEC
section) tables

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of gas saturation functions, each terminated by a slash (/).

The gas saturation
The corresponding gas relative permeability.
The corresponding oil-gas capillary pressure.

SWFN: The data comprises NTSFUN (see item 1 of keyword TABDIMS in the RUNSPEC
section) tables
of water saturation functions
Column 1 The water saturation
Column 2 The corresponding water relative permeability.
Column 3 The corresponding water-oil capillary pressure.

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RPTPROPS: Controls on output from PROPS section:

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The keyword should be followed by a list of mnemonics (memory learner) which control the
output of PROPS section data to the Print file. The list should be terminated by a slash (/).

E. SOLUTION:
The SOLUTION section contains sufficient data to define the initial state (pressure,
saturations, compositions) of every grid block in the reservoir.

RSDV: The data comprises NTEQUL (see keyword EQLDIMS) tables of dissolved gas-oil
ratio versus depth, one for each equilibration region.
Column 1 Depth values.
Column 2 The corresponding values of Rs, the dissolved gas-oil ratio.

EQUIL: The keyword sets the contacts and pressures for conventional hydrostatic
equilibrium. It is here that the initial reservoir pressure observed in the office plots was
specified (4000).

DATUM: The keyword should be followed by a single positive real number, the datum depth
for calculation of depth corrected pressures, and a slash (/).
RPTSOL: Controls on output from SOLUTION section.
The keyword should be followed by a list of mnemonics which control the output of
SOLUTION section data to the Print file. Wherever possible, the mnemonics correspond to
the related keywords. The list should be terminated by a slash (/).

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F. SUMMARY:
The SUMMARY section specifies a number of variables that are to be written to Summary
files after each time step of the simulation.
FOPR Field oil production rate
FGPR Field gas production rate
FWCT Field water cut
FOPT Field oil production cumulative total
Other keywords also mentioned here are FWIR, WBHP, CPR, BPR, saturations such as
BOSAT, BWSAT etc.

G. SCHEDULE:
The SCHEDULE section specifies the operations to be simulated (production and injection
controls and constraints) and the times at which output reports are required.
WELLSPEC: The keyword introduces a new well, defining its name, the position of the
wellhead, its bottom hole reference depth and other specification data.
COMPDAT: specifies the position and properties of one or more well completions.
WCONPROD: It specifies the control data for production wells
WCONINJ: It specifies the control data for injection wells
TSTEP: The simulator will advance the solution from one point in time to another. The user
will specify milestones (times or dates) of special interest. These milestones may be e.g.
times when a new well is put on production, when a well rate is changed, or simply to force
the simulator to dump output. These are the points in time which are referred to as time steps
(TSTEPS) in Eclipse, but are more correctly denoted milestones.

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