HAVANA – Fault Modelling

We have developed a software tool to describe how fractures in the Earth’s crust affect fluid flow in reservoirs. With HAVANA, faults are not just planes or surfaces, but objects with properties that can affect and modify reservoir models. Our software can improve understanding of reservoir performance, reduce risks and costs and optimise resource extraction.

HAVANA can be used for:

  • studying flow effects on all fault scales
  • adding faults to simulation grids by displacing grid cells or by modifying transmissibility multiplicators
  • examining geometric uncertainty of faults on volumes

The illustration represents linear faults. The lines are shown in different colours.
A linear fault modelled with HAVANA. With HAVANA, faults are not just planes or surfaces but objects with properties that can influence and modify reservoir models. Figure: NR.

HAVANA employs a unique way of representing faults. Each fault is characterised by:

  • the fault plane geometry
  • displacement along the fault plane
  • the volume influenced by the fault
  • a fault operator that is able to displace a 2D surface or 3D corner-point grid, as well as reversing the displacement to remove a fault from a surface or grid.
The figure illustrates listeric fault modelling with HAVANA software. Lines are curved and colourful.
A listric fault modelled with HAVANA. Figure: NR.

Ariel Almendral Vazquez

Senior Research Scientist

Modelling new faults

HAVANA can simulate new faults. This functionality uses an elliptic fault model and is mainly used to simulate sub-seismic faults, which enables:

  • fault simulation based on trends
  • simulation of “child faults” around larger faults.
  • the possibility to control fault groupings.

Uncertainty modelling

It is also possible to use HAVANA to study the uncertainty in fault service geometry, which includes:

  • modelling and visualising fault surface uncertainty envelopes
  • deterministic changes in fault location
  • deterministic changes in fault dip
  • simulating fault surfaces.

The image shows a 3d grid in different shades of white, grey and black.
A 3D grid altered by an elliptical fault. Figure: NR.

Fault displacement modelling

HAVANA can create displacement fields for faults based on input fault lines. This means:

  • predicting fault displacement fields
  • updating fault lines and horizons
  • simulating fault displacement fields.

Updating simulation grids

The simulation grid can be updated depending on changes in the fault model, making it possible to:

  • add new faults to the simulation grid.
  • alternate permeabilities based on small, simulated faults.

To square illustrations next to each other. The faults are drawn as black lines across a white surface. To the left they are scattered randomly, in the right illustration they form a curve for the right.
Example of simulated faults based on underlying need. On the left, the faults are simulated at random volume, and on the right, the position and orientation are simulated based on underlying trends. Figure: NR.