Quantitative Evaluation of Information Loss in Reservoir Upscaling

Abstract Upscaling technique has become an increasingly important tool in recent years for converting highly detailed geological models of reservoir to simulation grids. However, how to qualify the upscaling results, i.e. whether an upscaled results provides a good or bad approximation, is one of the outstanding problems remained in this research field. Comparing the simulation results for the reservoir before and after scale-up is direct and adaptable. But the shortcoming is the simulation results of the original fine model is too costly even can not be obtained. This paper evaluates the characteristics of information loss in reservoir upscaling and proposes two new indicators of information loss, ILIa and ILIb. Based on information loss, a method- independent technique for evaluating upscaling results in reservoir engineering is proposed. The new validation method can be used to evaluate the upscaling results before simulation stage.