1

Abstract
Reservoir management is based on the
prediction of reservoir performance by
means of numerical simulation models.
Reliable predictions requires that the
numerical model mimics the known
production history of the field. Then, the
numerical model is iteratively modified to
match the production data with the
simulation. This process is termed history
matching (HM.
Mathematically, history matching can be
seen as an optimisation problem where the
target is to minimi!e an ob"ective function
quantifying the misfit between observed
and simulated production data.
#ne of the main problems in history
matching is the choice of an effective
parameteri!ation$ a set of reservoir
properties that can be plausibly altered to
get an history matched model. This issue is
known as parameter identification problem.
%n this paper we propose a practical
implementation of a multi&scale approach
to identify effective parameteri!ations in
real&life HM problems. The approach is
based on the availability of gradient
simulators, capable of providing the user
with derivatives of the ob"ective function
with respect to the parameters at hand.
Those derivatives can then be used in a
multi&scale setting to define a sequence of
richer and richer parameterisations. 't
each step of the sequence the matching of
the production data is improved. The
methodology has been applied to history
match the simulation model of a (orth&)ea
oil reservoir.
The proposed methodology can be
considered a practical solution for
parameter identification problems in many
real cases. This until sound methodologies,
primarily adaptive multi scale estimation of
parameters, will become available in
commercial software programs.
Introduction
*redictions of the reservoir behaviour
require the definition of subsurface
properties at the scale of the simulation
block. 't this scale, a reliable description
of the porous media require to build a
reservoir model by integrating of all the
available source of data. +y their nature,
we can categorise the data as prior and
production data. The former type of data
can be defined as the set of information on
the porous media that can be considered as
,direct- measure of the reservoir
properties. The latter type of data includes
dynamic data collected at wells, e.g. water
cut, shut&in pressure and time&lapse data.
*rior data can be incorporated directly in
the set&up of the reservoir model and well
established reservoir characterisation
workflows are widely used to capture in
this procedure the inherent heterogeneity.
*roduction data can be incorporated in the
definition of the model only by HM the
simulation model. The agreement between
9th
European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery Cannes, France, 30 Auust ! " #eptem$er "00%
A practical, gradient-based approach for parameter
selection in history matching
Al$erto Cominelli, Fa$ri&io Fer'inan'i
"
simulation and observations can be
quantified by using a weighted least&
squares type ob"ective function J,
R C R J
T .
/
.

=
, (.
where R is the residual vector which i&th
entry is the difference between the
observed (o and simulated (c production
datum for the i&th measure,
i i i
c o R =
,
(/
while C is the correlation matri0,
accounting for both measurement and
modeling error. The matri0 C is symmetric
and positive definite (otably, in many
practical circumstances the matri0 C is
assumed to be diagonal.
HM can the be seen as the minimi!ation of
the function J by perturbing the model
parameters x$
( (
/
.
min ( min
.
x R C x R x J
T
u x l u x l


=
(1
where l and u are lower and upper bounds
for the parameters vector x. The problem in
equation (1 is as an inverse problem,
where the target is to recovery some model
parameters by matching the production
data. 's inverse problem, HM is ill&posed$
errors affect both the model and
measurement process, the production data
do not include enough information to
condition all the possible model parameters
down to the simulator cell scale.
%ll&posedness can impact the reliability of
the production forecast because models
very similar from an HM point of view
may differ significantly as far as the future
of the reservoir is concerned. )etting&up
the problem in a +ayesian framework, then
adding a quadratic term which accounts for
the prior information on the model, can
provide the required regulari!ation to turn
the problem into a well&posed one.
However in real studies a prior term can
hardly be defined and the choice is to
restrict the set of possible parameters by
means of some kind of !onation, i.e. a
division of reservoir cells into !one of
equal permeability or porosity. Most of the
time this is done with some sensitivity
simulation usually supported by the
physical knowledge of the field at hand.
Then minimi!ation methods for least&
squares problems are often far from being
effective in practical cases. Moreover,
when an acceptable result is achieved, the
trade&off is often an over&parameterisation
of the model, with large uncertainty in the
estimated parameters. Hence, there is a
widely recogni!ed need of practical, cost
effective tools and methodology for
parameter identification.
The methodology to identify HM
parameters applied in this work belongs to
the family of multiscale parameter
estimation (M*2 techniques.
M*2 has become really attracting as way
to estimate parameters in history&matching
type problems. %t usually provide with a
connection between the solution of the
inverse problem and the scale lengths
associated to the production data. %n this
work we implement the idea proposed by
3havent et al
456
to use fine&scale
derivatives of the ob"ective function J as an
engine to define a richer and cost&effective
parameteri!ation in a multiscale process.
The paper proceeds as follows$ after a
review of multi&scale parameter
estimations, the gradient based
methodology is presented, an application
on a real case is described7 and, finally,
conclusion are drawn on the basis of the
result obtained.
Multiscale Parameter Estimation
Multiscale estimation aims to avoid over&
parameteri!ation by adding parameters in a
hierarchical way. ' multiscale estimation
process starts from a rather poor coarse
scale parameteri!ation, typically one
parameter for the whole reservoir. Then,
ordinary multiscale estimation (#M2
3
proceeds by adding at a given level of the
hierarchical evaluation all the possible
parameters
4.64/6
. %n this way at the n&th stage
of the estimation process the optimi!ation
problem has 2
dn
degrees of freedom in a d&
dimensional case, see 8igure ..
This approach can be effective as regards
the solution of the minimi!ation problem
but it does not ensure that over&
parameteri!ation does not occur. Moreover,
in real 19 problems the dimension of the
optimi!ation problems that has to be solved
at each stage of #M2 increase rapidly.
a( $(
c( '(
a( $(
c( '(
Figure 1 - Ordinary Multiscale Estimation: in a
!"! cells model #a$ 1-%-1& parameters #b to
c$are added in three steps of the estimation
se'uence(
:ith adaptive multi&scale estimation
4;64<6
('M2 the parameters space is not refined
uniformly. Rather, new parameters are
added only if they are warranted by the
production data.
(otably, an analysis of the dependency
between non linearity and scale of
parameteri!ation for similar but simpler
parabolic&type problems has shown that
fine&scale permeability features are
responsible for highly non&linearity in the
model response, while conversely coarse
scale updates are associated with linear
behavior of the model response.
The 'M2 algorithm is terminated when
production data are matched or any richer
parameteri!ation is unreliable.
'M2 has proven to be a cost&efficient
strategy for parameter estimation in /9
case, both for simple problems
4;64<6
and for
comple0, field&like cases
4=6
. However an
implementation of this methodology in a
real HM study, including the need to work
with 19 geometry, is not available. This
motivated the application of a similar but
simpler multi&scale parameter estimation,
where, following 3havent et al.
456
, the
engine used to define new possible
parameters is based on gradients of the
ob"ective function computed for a
reference fine&scale parameteri!ation.
Gradient Driven Multi-Scale Estimation
%n multi&scale parameter estimation the
definition of richer parameterisation at a
given step of the process is based on
geometrical considerations. %n #M2 each
parameter has to be refined (see 8igure .
by regular cuts of the domain. %n 'M2 the
refinement of the parameterisation is
selective, nonetheless also in 'M2
geometrical considerations play a ma"or
role. >radient +ased Multiscale 2stimation
(>+M2 use the gradient of the ob"ective
function to guide the refinement of the
parameterisation.
To introduce the methodology, let us
assume as reference problem to estimate
the permeability of a /9 model consisting
of N?@0@ cells cartesian grid.
%n a multiscale setting a uniform
permeability distribution can be estimated
by minimising the ob"ective function J with
respect to on a single parameter x
0
. 'n
optimal value J(x
0
! can then be found and
the corresponding permeability grid " is is
a uniform grid with N#$% entries equal to
x
0
.
(e0t, the gradient J
0
of the of the
ob"ective function with respect to the
permeability values of the <; model cells
can be computed$
9th
European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery Cannes, France, 30 Auust ! " #eptem$er "00%
%
( ) ( ) . , A
B C
B C
,&&,N i " J J
x "
i
T
i
i
= =
=
,
(;
8ollowing 3havent et al.
456
, the gradient
J can be mapped on the computational
grid, see 8igure /&a.
+ased on such map, a new !onation can be
defined by including cells with positive
derivative in one !one (red cells in 8igure
/&b and cells with strictly negative
derivative in another one (light blue cells in
8igure /&b. Two parameters, x
'
'
and x
'
2
,
can then be defined to characteri!e the
permeability in the two regions.
+y definition, the bound&constrained
minimi!ation of the ob"ective J with
respect to x
0
equals to the minimi!ation of
J under the constraint
. C ,
.
/
.
.
= = x x
(=
Then, the proposed parameteri!ation can be
seen as a rela0ation of the constraint (=
and the corresponding Dagrange multiplier
,
A ( A (
.
/
B C .
.
B C
x J x J = =
,
(<
can be interpreted as a measure of the
impact on the ob"ective function of the
rela0ation of constraint (=,
C
B C
A (
=
=

d dJ
,
(5
thus +en&'meur et al.
416
named a
refinement indicator.
+y construction the refinement of the
coarse parameteri!ation on the basis of the
gradients sign is likely to give the best
cost&effective parameteri!ation in terms of
reduction of J. The new parameterisation
can be used in the second step of the
>+M2 to improve the match, then getting
two calibrated parameters,
, (
B .
/
B .
.
B .
x x x
T
=
,
and a value for the ob"ective function
(
B .
B .
x J J =
. (otably, by definition
B C B .
J J
. 'lthough the new value
B .
J
represents and improvement of the HM, it
is quite likely that a further improvement is
required.
b
c
Figure ! )*radient map after the first step of the
*+ME #a$, the related ! parameter ,onation #b$
and the % parameter ,onation #c$(
Then, at this point the calibrated
parameters x
.
B can be used to compute the
gradient of the ob"ective function J
'

with respect to the <; permeability values

on the fine scale. The parameteri!ation
)
shown in 8igure /&b can be refined by
lumping the cells in each !one according to
the sign of the corresponding gradient. The
cells in the light&blue region in 8igure /&b$
are so split (8igure /&c$ in two regions,
light&blue and dark&blue. )imilarly, the red
!one (8igure /&b can be partitioned in two
!ones, red and yellow (8igure /&c.
+y associating a uniform permeability
value to each of the four sub&!ones new
parameterisation consisting of ; degree of
freedom, x
2T
?(x
'
2
, x
2
2
, x
(
2
, x
%
2
, can be
defined. The couple (x
'
2
, x
2
2
! comes from
the refinement of the parameter x
'
'
, while
the couple (x
(
2
, x
%
2
! comes from the
refinement of the parameter x
2
'
& This
parameteri!ation can be calibrated in the
ne0t step of the >+M2 to get an ob"ective
function
(
B /
B /
x J J =
, with
B C B . B /
J J J
.
More generally, at the n&th step of the
>9M2 2
n
calibrated parameters can be
refined by means of the corresponding

fine
scale gradient J
n
. The refined
parameterisation consists of 2
n)'
degree of
freedom to be calibrated in the n)' step.
The n&th step parameteri!ation can be
recovered from the n)' by adding n
equality constraint
n i x x
i
N
i
n
i i
,.., . , C ,
.
/
.
. /
= = =
+ +

.
(@
+efore the n)' step regression the
effectiveness of the proposed ricer
parameteri!ation can be evaluated by
computing the n refinement indicators
associated to the corresponding equality
constraints$
A ( A (
.
/
B .
. /
B + +

= =
n
i
n n
i
n
i
x J x J
,
(E
:ith respect to #M2, >+M2 is more
efficient because the number of parameters
increase as a power of / at each step, while
in #M2 this happens only for .9
problems. 'M2 is more efficient because
the parameters are added selectively.
The selection criterion is based on the
estimation of the potential uncertainty
associated with a proposed
parameteri!ation. This usually prevents the
risk of over&parameteri!ation. %n the
current >+M2 the refinement indicators
i
can provide with a guess on the
improvement in the parameteri!ation
associate with the refinement of the i&th.
However, the refinement indicators do not
represent an estimate of the reliability of
the n new couples of parameters. %n this
work we have dealt with the over&
parameteri!ation issue only a posteriori by
means of a D&curve type analysis
4;64.C6
,
where the uncertainty in the calibrated
parameteri!ation
B n
x
is based on the
ma0imum eigenvalue of the posterior
parameters covariance matri0
.
(
F

= R C R C
T
.
8rom a computational point viewpoint the
bottleneck in >9M2 is the computation of
the fine scale array of derivatives, which
entails the computation of a large number
of HM parameters. The ideal choice, one
parameter for each cell, can be selected
only if the gradient J is computed by
means of 'd"oint formulation. %n this work
we used a commercial simulator
4@6
which
computes HM parameters by means of the
so&called forward gradient methods.
This approach is quite effective, because it
directly provides with the sensitivity matri0
R. This allows to compute the >auss&
(ewton appro0imation to the Hessian
matri0, R C R
T

.
, hence cost&
efficient methods like
Devenberg.Marquardt can be implemented.
However, way of computing gradients is
time consuming
4@64E6
, because the cpu&time
scales linearly with the number of
parameters. Hence, in real or even realistic
cases it is prohibitive to define a parameter
for each cell.. %n this work we introduced
the concept of finer allowed
parameteri!ation (8'*, which means the
finer parameteri!ation that can be used for
9th
European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery Cannes, France, 30 Auust ! " #eptem$er "00%
*
a detailed gradient computation at each
step of >+M2. The 8'* constraints are
case dependent and their definition is
tightly related to the cpu&time required to
simulate the model.
' /9 problem to highlight the concept of
8'* is shown in 8igure 1&a$ a /9 reservoir
with an highly permeable channel up to
.CCC m9, embedded in a low permeable
matri0. )ynthetic history data have been
created by simulating a water flooding with
one producer, located in the channel, and
two in"ectory. Then, using as baseline
permeability a constant @Cm9 value, a
>+M2 was carried out, using as 8'* the
@0@ parameterisation shown in 8igure 1&b.
The parameteri!ations calibrated in the
second and third step of the sequence are
shown in 8igure 1&c and in 8igure 1&d,
respectively.
'lthough the 8'* is relatively coarse (/0/
bo0es, nonetheless the first 8'* gradient
evaluation gives a rough but reasonable
estimate of the permeability trend (see the
green area in 8igure 1&c.
Figure ) 1&"1& cells permeability distribution
-ith an high permeable channel along the main
diagonal#a$, a FAP consisting of &% !"! cells
bo"es #b$, stage ! parameter ,onation #c$ and the
stage parameter ,onation #d$(
Application to +almoral .istory Match
The +almoral field is a *aleocene
undersaturated oil reservoir located in the
GH 3ontinental )helf of the (orth )ea.
The field has brought onstream for
production since ..A.E@< by means of .;
production wells. 8or pressure maintenance
purposes water was in"ected till .EE@. 'fter
.EE@ the surrounding acquifer still
provided with enough energy to support
reservoir pressure largely above the bubble
point. )ince ..A.E@<, only water cut
(:3T data have been systematically
collected. To predict field production the
reservoir has been simulated by means of a
dead oil model. >rid model consist of
;<0.=C01E cells, with only ==1E; active.
Dayer . to E correspond to the main oil
bearing sand I 8 I while the sequences ..&
/= and /<&1= correspond to 2 and 9 sands.
%n this work we implemented the >9M2 to
reconcile the baseline model with the :3T
data collected in a history time&window
going from .E@< to /CC/. 8ield production
was simulated by running the model with
liquid rate boundary conditions. >9M2
have been implemented to calibrate the
model by selecting as HM parameters
hori!ontal transmissibility multipliers
(HMTR(JK. 3onstant, uncorrelated
:3T measurement error of C.C= was
chosen.
8rom a practical point of view we assumed
that a single >+M2 would run in a day,
with the cpu time&consuming 8'* gradient
simulation running overnight.

Figure % ) FAP defined for the balmoral field:
/e- from the top
+
%n addition, to preserve the main geological
layering, it was required that the fine scale
!ones associated to 8'* did not mi0 cells
belonging to different oil bearing sands.
To fulfill both aforequoted constraints a
8'* consisting of <;= regions were been
defined. The regions are columns of cells
spanning vertically an entire oil&bearing
sand, with base bo0 of 101 cells, see in
8igure ;. a view from the top of the 8'*
regions.
#n a *c with Jeon 1./ >Ht! processors the
cpu time to compute the 8'* gradients was
about @ hours, with .. minutes required to
simulate the production time&window.
>+M2 has been run until the value of the
root means square (RMS production
misfit, defined as
R C R RMS
T .
= ,
is lower than .. This is the default stopping
criterion in a commercial gradient based
HM package
4E6
.
't each step of >+M2, the parameters
were optimi!ed by using a commercial
implementation
4..6
of Devenberg&
Marquardt method in the framework of a
research HM package.
Numerical Results
' sequence of < >9M2 steps were run
until the stopping criterion was fulfilled
with a final parameteri!ation consisting of
1/ regions. The sequence of the optimal
values J is plotted in 8igure = vs the
number of parameters, alongside with the
values of the RM).
0
1000
"000
3000
%000
)000
*000
+000
,000
9000
10000
0 ) 10 1) "0 ") 30 3)
Number of HM parameters
O
b
j
e
c
t
i
v
e

F
u
n
c
t
i
o
n
0
0-)
1
1-)
"
"-)
3
R
M
S
O$.ective Function
RM#
Figure 0: ob1ecti/e function and 2M3 /alues
/ersus the number of parameters(
The behavior of the ob"ective function J
shows some typical feature of multiscale
type history matching$ larger improvement
are achieved in the early steps of the
process, where the linearity associated to
large scale features in the Iunknown I
property trend dominates. 8iner
parameteri!ation generated at later stage
are associate with small scale feature and
leads to more and more moderated
improvements as the sequential estimation
proceeds. :e e0pected then to notice some
trade&off between accuracy in the matching
and reliability of the parameter estimate.
8ollowing 4;6 we have measured the
uncertainty in the parameteri!ation by
means of the ma0imum eigenvalue of the
parameter covariance matri0 C
F
. Then, the
tradeoff between accuracy and reliability
can be visuali!ed by means of a D&curve
plot, where the ob"ective function J is
represented vs the ma0imum eigenvalue of
the corresponding C
F
matri0.
0
1000
"000
3000
%000
)000
*000
+000
,000
0 " % * , 10 1" 1%
Maximum eigenvalue
O
b
j
e
c
t
i
v
e

F
u
n
c
t
i
o
n
8 Parameters
32 Parameters
Figure & ) 4-type cur/e: optimal ob1ecti/e
function /s( the ma"imum eigen/alue of the
posterior co/ariance matri"(
+y means of this analysis, see 8igure <, we
noticed that the uncertainty in the
parameteri!ation is fairly constant up to the
;
th
stage of the >+M2 sequence (@
parameters space, while a rapid increase in
the uncertainty could be seen in the two
subsequent step
9th
European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery Cannes, France, 30 Auust ! " #eptem$er "00%
,
/ell 0A"
0
0-1
0-"
0-3
0-%
0-)
0-*
0-+
0-,
0-9
1
0 1000 "000 3000 %000 )000 *000
time !a"s#
$
%
&
/ell 0A!1"
0
0-1
0-"
0-3
0-%
0-)
0-*
0-+
0-,
0-9
1
0 )00 1000 1)00 "000 ")00 3000
time !a"s#
$
%
&
Figure 5 ) 678 /s time for -ell PA!#top$ and
PA-+!: history #blac9$, baseline model #blue$, :
#green$ and ! #red$ parameters *+ME models
results(
Thus, the price for improvement in the
RMS value from stage ; (RMS#'&'* to
stage < (RMS#0&+* is a fairly large
increase of the uncertainty in the
parameters. %n most of the wells the
difference between @&parameters and 1/ I
parameters simulation models is fairly
small, see for instance well *'&/ results in
8igure 5. (onetheless, in the case of well
*'&+/ (see 8igure 5 the less uncertain @&
parameters model falls short of matching
the history data .
7onclusions
%n this work an implementation of the
methodology to select parameteri!ation in
a multiscale setting by means of gradients
456
has been presented.
The application was performed on a real
cases by e0ploiting the gradient capabilities
of a commercial simulator, together with a
HM gradient&based package. %n terms of
reduction of the ob"ective function J, the
implementation has achieved the goal.
However, the >+M2 methodology is still
sub"ect to the risk of over&parameteri!ation,
as shown by means of a D&curve type
analysis.
The methodology then has be improved by
means of the addition of selective
parameteri!ation criterion. #ne possibility
is to use the refinement indicators, see
equation (E, to select new possible
parameters
416
. 'lthough of easy
implementation, this solution does not
provide with any guess on the reliability of
the proposed parameteri!ation.
The use of sensitivity matrices
4<6
to guess
the potential improvement in the ob"ective
function and associated standard deviation
is much more promising.
+esides the risk of over&parameteri!ation, a
real limitation of this approach is the
computation of 8'* to define new
parameters. 3urrently the forward
sensitivity simulation is time&consuming
and in many real cases the dimension of the
8'* space may become unrealistically
small because of computational constraints.
%n this case, the e0tension of 'M2 type
methodologies
4;64=64<6
to 19 problems could
provide with a sound and cost effective
alternatives.
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'.,Lasco, 9. :, +eherens, R. '&, '
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4/6 Dee, ).H., Malallah, '., 9atta&>upta, '.,
Higdon, 9.$ ,Multiscale 9ata %ntegration
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<1C<<, )*2 'T32, /CCC.
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Dudlow, :', G)', Mune .1&.@ .EEE.
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H. Grkedal. ,'daptive multiscale
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Refinement of *arameterisation-,
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4E6 )imopt /CC1' Gser >uide, /CC1, )chlumberger,
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4.C6 Hansen, *.3.$ ,'nalysis of discrete ill&posed
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+3D)M routine documentation.
9th
European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery Cannes, France, 30 Auust ! " #eptem$er "00%