Decisions regarding the development and production of oil and gas reservoirs are guided by reservoir models. Making the best decision depends on how good and how fast such models can be generated.
The quality of reservoir models essentially depends on the physical rock properties with which they are populated. Therefore, fast and accurate core analysis is of paramount importance for such decisions. Rock properties are determined either through physical core analysis in a laboratory or by numerical core analysis on a computer, also called Digital Rock Physics.

DRP is the innovative technique to perform numerical core analysis

DRP offers the following advantages in comparison with laboratory analyses:

• saves time and costs
• allows performing multiple numerical experiments on exactly the same sample,
• conducts different analyses simultaneously on one sample
• investigates rock properties under multiple scenarios
• tests different production strategies or improves recovery scenarios

Digital Rock Physics

Computer simulations help reservoir engineers and geoscientists to digitalize and automate the analysis of physical rock properties. Through computer simulations, new insights into the processes going on in the rocks are retrieved and will help to understand the causes for uncommon behavior of hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Simulations on the computer can be used to:

• compute the physical rock properties determined during routine core analysis and special core analysis.
• evaluate the quality of laboratory based analyses.
• simulate reactive transport like carbonate dissolution.
• predict the results of experiments in microfluidics systems.
• analyze the geometrical properties of rocks (pore space, grains).

Through digital analysis and the simulation of pressure and temperature conditions, the material properties of rock samples can also be determined under in-situ conditions.

The GeoDict DRP package has been developed for the simulation of the physical properties of rock cores.
The DRP package includes image processing tools to import and treat 3D-images of microCT scanners, scanning electron microscopes, etc. as well as generators of 3D models of rocks and material property predictors to characterize fluid flow, two-phase fluid flow, deformation, and electrical conduction.

Simulated and computed parameters for DRP:

• Geometric parameters: porosity, pore size distribution, percolation, surface area, tortuosity, pore sphericity, pore shape...
• Flow parameters: absolute permeability, upscaling of flow, multi-phase flow, relative permeability, capillary pressure curve
• Electrical parameters: Formation factor, resistivity index, saturation exponent, cementation exponent
• Mechanical parameters: Elastic moduli, stiffness, in-situ conditions

^* The specific field of application determines the appropriate modules.