Publications

Conventional petroleum reservoir modelling based on geocellular algorithms have been in use for the last twenty years and provide the basis of our understanding of the expected behaviour of petroleum systems. The approximations used in constructing geocellular models introduce a number of systematic errors which are increasingly difficult to ignore as the search for hydrocarbons intensifies. The inability of geocellular modelling to accurately represent the folded and complexly faulted systems, such as those found in Indonesia, is a significant barrier to resource exploitation. This paper presents a technique for modelling the subsurface that avoids the simplifications in the position, orientation and number of faults that can be modelled using geocellular techniques. The new system incorporates significantly more geological and stratigraphic information than before, allowing programs which use this representation algorithm to explore the nature of the structure with greater fidelity. As an added benefit, the new technique also increases the likelihood that estimation, interpolation, and stochastic simulation algorithms, either conventional or geostatistical, are more representative of primary deposition.