Calculating connected volumes

With the Connected Volumes tool (model > Facies > Connected Volumes or model > Rock Properties > Connected Volumes) you can calculate and visualize connected volume of grid cells in your reservoir. This can be useful for well planning, volumetric calculations or engineering purposes, for example when you want to identify moveable volumes connected to a particular well or connected bodies in the reservoir, or when you want to assess whether or not reservoir zones are connected across faults.

The connected volume calculation is based on juxtaposed cells that correspond to a particular criterion, which can be a geometrical property or a modeled (discrete or continuous) property. The tool provides several filtering and fine-tuning options; you can choose whether you want to honor faults, filter on zone ID and/or wellbore connectivity and set a floor (minimum) to the output volume.

To calculate connected volumes

Select the 3D grid from the Grid name drop-down list.

Settings tab

  1. Select your upscaled or modeled property for which you want to calculate the connected volume. Geometric properties such as Actnum, Cell Center location, Cell volume, etc. are available by default.
  2. Depending on the selected property, you can enter your criteria under Cutoff mode: for a discrete property, you need to select a class for the calculation (e.g. sand, channel); for a continuous property you need to define the cutoff (e.g. greater than, between, less than, etc.).
  3. Optionally, enter the Minimum cluster volume that you want to report/generate; all cluster volumes below this value will be ignored.
  4. When you check Connect volumes across faults, faults are ignored and the connected volume will be calculated as if no fault(s) are present. If you don't check the box, the fault will act as a cluster boundary, resulting in separate clusters at either side of the fault.

Zones tab

With the Zones tab you can optionally set a filter on the zones that you want to include in the connected volume calculation. If you don't use a filter, the highest level of your Stratigraphic Model (ZoneID_Level 1) is selected by default and all grid cells incorporated in the zones at this level will be included in the connected volumes calculation.

If you decide to select a filter, select one from the available filters in the Zone drop-down list. By default, the Geometry filter is available, containing ZoneIDs which refer to the zones at the different levels of your Stratigraphic Model (e.g. ZoneID_Level 1, ZoneID_Level 2, etc). Check the box for each zone that you want to include in the connected volumes calculation.

Wellbores tab

You can (optionally) check the box Only calculate volumes that are connected to selected well(s) and subsequently check individual wells if you only want to include volumes that are directly connected to the (selected) wells. When your wellbores are sorted in well groups, you can select a well group first as a filter. All clusters/volumes that are not connected to the (selected) wells, will not be reported. You can use this option in combination with the Group volumes by well option on the Output tab, if you want to see how much volume is connected to each well.

Output tab

  1. Type the name for the output property in the Output property field (by default 'Connected Volumes' is filled in). Check the box Overwrite the grid property if it already exists, if you want to overwrite an existing output property with the same name. If you don't check the box and a property under the same name already exists, a new property is created, with (1) printed behind the name.
  2. From the Volume unit drop-down list, select the unit in which you want to report the connected volumes.
  3. Group volumes by well - This option can only be used in combination with the selection of wells you make on the Wellbores tab. When you check the box, the report will show, per well, how much volume is connected to each well.
  4. Show only a number of largest volumes - Use this option if you want to report the n-largest most clusters; define n in the Number of volumes to show field below.

Click Apply or OK to calculate the connected volumes. The Connected Volumes Report now opens and the output property is added to the Properties item in your 3D Grids folder in the JewelExplorer.

Note that if you close the Connected Volumes Report view, you can re-access the report via the JewelExplorer. To do so, navigate to the 3D Grid item that contains the property that the report was created for. Inside the Properties folder of the 3D Grid, navigate to the Connected Volumes folder, right-click the Connected Volumes property to open the context menu and select Report > Connected Volumes Report.

Copying the connected volumes to another file

Click on a cluster in the Cluster Name column (it turns blue) and simultaneously press Shift and End on your keyboard (even though just one column is highlighted, all columns are selected); then copy-paste to, for example, an Excel™ spreadsheet. (Alternatively you can use other keyboard combinations with the Shift key.)

Visualizing the connected volumes in a 3D view

The output property is generated under the Properties folder under the 3D Grids item in the JewelExplorer. When you select it for visualization in the 3D View, all clusters will be visualized by default. If you want to inspect a particular cluster, you can use the filter options in the Inspector (Workspace > Panes > Inspector).