Gypsy Field project in reservoir characterization. Quarterly report, October 30--December 31, 1996

The overall objective of this project is to use the extensive Gypsy Field laboratory and data set as a focus for developing and testing reservoir characterization methods that are targeted at improved recovery of conventional oil. The Gypsy Field laboratory consists of coupled outcrop and subsurface sites which have been characterized to a degree of detail not possible in a production operation. Data from these sites entail geological descriptions, core measurements, well logs, vertical seismic surveys, a 3D seismic survey, crosswell seismic surveys, and pressure transient well tests. The overall project consists of four interdisciplinary sub-projects which are closely interlinked: modeling depositional environments; upscaling; sweep efficiency; and tracer testing. The first of these aims at improving the ability to model complex depositional environments which trap movable oil. The second entails testing the usefulness of current methods for upscaling from complex geological models to models which are more tractable for standard reservoir simulators. The third investigates the usefulness of numerical techniques for identifying unswept oil through rapid calculation of sweep efficiency in large reservoir models. The fourth explores what can be learned from tracer tests in complex depositional environments, particularly those which are fluvial dominated. During this quarter, the main activities involved the modeling depositional environments sub-project, for which the progress is reported within