CONSTRAINED OPTIMIZATION FOR WELL PLACEMENT PLANNING

摘要

A method, apparatus, and program product utilize a constrained optimization framework to generate a well placement plan based on a reservoir model. Candidate well placement plans are generated from control vectors proposed by an optimization engine to optimize based upon an objective function that generally involves an access to a reservoir simulator. Inexpensive constraints that are not based on computation of the objective function are evaluated prior to accessing the reservoir simulator to avoid unnecessary accesses to the reservoir simulator for candidate well placement plans determined to be infeasible in view of the inexpensive constraints. For candidate well placement plans that are determined to be feasible based upon the inexpensive constraints, the objective function may be calculated and additional expensive constraints may thereafter be evaluated to further determine the feasibility of candidate well placement plans.