How do faults impact fluid flow within reservoirs?

HAVANA software can be used to describe how faults affect fluid flow in reservoirs. This aids in understanding reservoir performance, mitigating risks and costs, and optimising resource extraction.

HAVANA can be used for:

  • studies of flow effects on all fault scales
  • adding faults to simulation grids by displacing grid cells or by modifying transmissibility multiplicators
  • studies of the geometric uncertainty of the faults on volumes.
Pure linearity modelled with HAVANA. Figure: NR.

HAVANA has a distinctive way of representing faults. Each fault is characterised by:

  • the fault plane geometry
  • the displacement along the fault plane
  • the volume influenced by the fault
  • a fault operator that can displace a 2D surface or 3D corner-point grid, and reverse the displacement to remove a fault from a 2D surface or 3D grid
Figuren viser linære forkastninger i form av ulike fargede streker og brudd.
Listeric fault modelled with HAVANA. Figure: NR.

Ariel Almendral Vazquez

Senior Research Scientist

Project: HAVANA

Partner: Equinor

Period: 1992 –

HAVANA – user manual

Simulation of new faults

This functionality uses an elliptic fault model and is mainly used to simulate sub-seismic faults, allowing for:

  • simulation of faults based on trends
  • simulation of secondary faults around larger faults
  • possibility to control grouping of faults
3D grid deformed by an elliptical fault. Figure: NR.

Fault surface uncertainty modelling

HAVANA can be used to study the uncertainty in fault surface geometry:

  • modelling and visualisation of fault surface uncertainty envelopes
  • deterministic change in fault location
  • deterministic change in fault dip
  • simulation of fault surfaces

Fault displacement modelling

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

  • prediction of fault displacement field
  • update of fault lines and horizons
  • simulation of fault displacement fields

Update of simulation grids

The simulation grid can be updated based on changes in the fault model:

  • addition of new faults to the simulation grid
  • alternation of permeabilities based on simulated (small) faults
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.
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