Ahmadreza Younessi

Where, when and how a field-scale 4D geomechanical model should be built

Analytical approaches have been successfully used for decades to analyse different geomechanical related problems in the oil and gas industry. These approaches are still applicable for most problems. However, they may not be suitable for complex environments that the industry is increasingly facing nowadays. The challenges to develop complex fields require the industry to have a better understanding and prediction of the behaviour of reservoir rocks and their overburden formations during field production. This can be partially achieved by conducting a more comprehensive analysis by means of numerical methods in a wider scale of space and time. We refer to this as 4D geomechanical modelling. The concept of 4D geomechanical modelling is relatively new in the industry, and there is limited knowledge regarding the applications and advantages of this type of modelling within disciplines other than geomechanics. It is essential to understand in which type of reservoirs and at what stage of development this type of modelling should be considered. Here in this manuscript, after discussing these considerations, the techniques and procedures to build and interpret a 4D geomechanical model are discussed.