Petroleum Geomechanics Services

Get greater insight into the key role of geomechanical effects across the development and production cycle

Petroleum geomechanics provides insight to the mechanical properties and behavior of the subsurface, which influence the exploration, development and production of oil and gas. This includes reservoir-scale phenomena, such as faulting and fracture development, production-related compaction and subsidence, and induced faulting and seismicity. It also includes wellbore-scale phenomena, such as wellbore stability, hydraulic fracturing, formation/casing interaction during production, sand production and waste injection. Beyond oil and gas, geomechanics also has an important role to play in geothermal and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects.

Coupled Reservoir-Geomechanical Simulation and Specialist Studies:

Wellbore and casing integrity analysis
1D and 3D Pore Pressure Prediction (PPP) and Mechanical Earth Model (MEM) studies
Full field compaction/subsidence and heave modeling
Waterflood, PWRI, CRI EOR and waste injection modeling
Fault reactivation modeling
Sand production and cavity propagation modeling
Numerical and analytical PTA/RTA and mini-frac analysis

Applications for Specific Scenarios Include:

Thermal projects from heavy oil SAGD production to CCS injection
Tar sand heavy oil surface heave, caprock integrity and MOP
Injection into soft/unconsolidated reservoirs
Naturally fractured reservoir development
Shale play and tight formation well completion, stimulation and interference
Geothermal resource development
CCS injection and storage

Petroleum Geomechanics Workflow

GEOSIM Software

Stress Strain Model – FEM3D

Modeling of geomechanical response of the formation uses FEM3D, a poroelastic and thermoelastic finite element code, which describes elasticity and plasticity. It also utilizes a Newton algorithm with variable stiffness scheme to handle general non-linear and elasto-plastic problems. Its features include:

Advanced modeling options for linear and non-linear materials, including hyperbolic, elastoplastic, hypo-plastic, orthotropic, tabular, Barton-Bandis model
Capabilities to model time-dependent surface loading (e.g., landfill), temperature dependencies, tensile fractures, cavities and voids, associated permeability for joint elements
Advanced model-building tools that support region-dependent constitutive models, locally refined grids, faulted CPGs, automatic mesh extension outside the reservoir

The reservoir grid is a subset of the finite element stress grid, which will cover the overburden, flanks and possibly underburden. Each model component can be built separately, so the user can create only the ones relevant to the specific problem being investigated:

Reservoir model (ECLIPSE or TRS)
Stress-strain model and its interface (FEM3D and GEOINT)
Fracture interface (GEOFRAC)
Formation damage model

GEOSIM has been used extensively for a range of studies around the world, including:

Full-field compaction studies
Fault reactivation studies
Waterflood and waste injection studies
Modeling of conventional, unconventional and thermal fracturing for a variety of reservoirs
Stimulated reservoir modeling during hydraulic fracturing
Caprock integrity, maximum operating pressure, dilation startup, surface heave in oilsands projects
Carbon capture and storage and utilization
Sand production and dynamic cavity propagation
Underground coal gasification accounting for cavity in stress solution
Abandoned well reservoir-geomechanics integrity analysis
PTA/RTA