Sunday, September 09, 2007

Petroleum Geostatistics in a nutshell

I just finished reading the amazing book of Jef Caers of The Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting (SCRF) , "Petroleum Geostatistics” This thin and small, 90 pages book can be used as a guide for modeling petroleum reservoir. Jef has tried to keep everything simple and smooth and amazingly without involving too much of math he has made a precise explanation of application of geostatistics in reservoir modeling.

In the first chapter he explains the role of geostatistics in reservoir modeling. Then he goes through the modeling of geological continuity. Beside "object modeling" and "variogram modeling" he talks about "training images" and their application in modeling continuity. The next chapter is about building high resolution geocellular models (geological model). This chapter also covers application of seismic data in making geological model. Chapter four is about application of geostatistics to history matching under geological control. Finally in the last chapter he talks about modeling uncertainty and application of geostatistics in doing that.

Looking in title of each chapter does not show the real value of book. The real value of book lies on two things. One is the brief and crystal clear explanation of modeling workflow. The other value of book is the short tips given here and there about the pitfalls of modeling and application of geostatistics in it.

I recommend the book for beginners and intermediate level practitioners in the field. The book is useful for reservoir engineers and geoscientists and even can be used as a guideline for people who want to exercise working in integrated teams.