Use of a Numerical Petroleum Reservoir Simulator to Model Aspects of Environmental Contamination and Remediation Processes

ABSTRACT

The use of numerical simulation to assess the productive response of petroleum reservoirs under various development operations is a powerful and valuable tool for the economic exploitation of oil and gas bearing reservoirs. The computational power and software coding has advanced to such a level that nowadays, that it is imprudent to develop most petroleum reservoirs without some use of numerical simulation to examine the optimality of various development opportunities. In this paper, we examine the application of numerical simulation, using Eclipse-100 (1), to model the processes of contamination of soil by a light hydrocarbon, and also the subsequent remediation of the contamination using water and air displacement. Some insight into what sort of data acquisition program is required to model the likely contaminant plume is provided. A better understanding of the process of contamination under various geologic scenarios, and how the remediation operation must be tailored to the situation, is demonstrated. Last, some thoughts on extending such numerical simulation models to better suit some of the key mechanisms of remediation are listed.

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