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What is Permedia software?
Permedia software (formerly MPath) is a modeling framework for creating, risking, querying and visualizing high resolution datasets related to petroleum exploration and production. Complete with advanced querying and visualization tools, Permedia software is valuable to both the traditional basin modeler and reservoir characterization teams. Permedia software includes a suite of simulators, linking regional, basin and reservoir modeling. Permedia software's migration fluid-flow solvers are applicable to capillary-dominated flow operating under drainage conditions. Migration predicts petroleum migration trajectories and highly detailed petroleum emplacement patterns by rapidly simulating multi-phase flow behavior in porous and fractured media. Using Migration, you can model 3D, multi-scale, multi-million gridcell petroleum transport in a matter of minutes. Migration provides very high resolution model realizations of petroleum emplacement, at multiple lengthscales, but it cannot model petroleum recovery. Migration can tell you where petroleum is and how it got there, but not how it will behave under water flood. Permedia software's pressure, continuity, and mixing simulators, developed as part of Permedia's Fluid Mixing Research Program, close the loop. Not only can Permedia software predict where the petroleum is located, it can also provide information on its production properties.
It's fast. Migration executes a 100 million gridcell model in minutes on a modest workstation. And it can be run on distributed computing grids for fast execution of multiple realizations. It works at high resolutions. With Permedia software, data doesn't have to be upscaled, averaged or simplified to use. It honors uncertainty in input data. Permedia software can be used for risking the impact of a given input or input scenario. In fact, it is probably the best petroleum systems risking tool available since it can quickly evaluate so many realizations and scenarios, all at non-degraded spatial resolutions. It's flexible. Using Permedia software, you can simulate single and multi-phase migration, identify rock bodies (e.g., pay zones), risk multiple realizations, and visualize the results in 3D. And Permedia software supports a variety of formats from other modeling packages while using open and well-described file formats for its own data. It's easy to use. Permedia software uses straightforward graphical user interfaces for building models, entering simulation data, risking, and querying and visualizing the results.
How high a resolution can Permedia handle? The highest resolution model we've heard of is 850 million gridcells. A 1 billion gridcell model (and beyond) isn't out of the question due to the efficient way in which Permedia software handles memory resources. Essentially, data does not have to be "upscaled" to be used by Permedia software. If you have a basin model at seismic resolution, you can use it.
How fast is Permedia Migration? Permedia has two migration simulators: single phase (constant fluid properties) and multi-phase (multi-component, multi-phase, dynamic properties). A 100 million gridcell model, using the single phase option, executes in about 5 minutes on a modest workstation. The multi-phase algorithm is about an order of magnitude slower (but the performance gap is closing).
What makes Permedia Migration so fast? Basin modeling packages typically use the same set of flow equations and solvers that are used in reservoir simulators. However, the balance of forces operating at production timescales is entirely different to those operating at geological (migration) timescales. Permedia's migration simulators honor the physics controlling petroleum migration and recognize that these fluids are moving at extremely low flow rates and are almost exclusively controlled by simple driving forces (i.e., buoyancy and external water pressures) and simple resistive forces (capillary pressure). The assumption of capillary equilibrium operating under drainage conditions allows Permedia to avoid most of the numerical complexities of traditional migration solvers.
Are there any competing products for Permedia Migration? No other product can model migration and reservoir filling at anywhere near the resolutions and speeds of Permedia software. Developed for more than 10 years, Migration includes a host of supporting technologies to enhance petroleum system modeling. Others are starting to copy our work, but we see this as an endorsement of our technologies. If you want to honor all of your input data at the highest resolution possible, honor the controlling physics of petroleum migration and have simulation results fast, Permedia software stands alone.
Is Permedia just about Migration? No. Permedia software effectively bridges the worlds of basin and reservoir modeling, providing a rich set of tools for simulating processes that occur at regional, basin and reservoir scales. Permedia software can be used to identify rock bodies (e.g., pay zones) in high resolution models. This type of analysis can be combined with migration results to answer queries such as: "Find all pay zones in a high-resolution input volume, charge the model with petroleum and tell me how much of my pay sees the charge." Or "find all high vertical coherency objects in the model, assume they're faults or fracture zones, and model them as such for migration purposes". Permedia software includes a fully coupled basin simulator, for forward modeling pressures and temperatures in an evolving mesh, along with basin model building tools that allow you to build sophisticated 2D and 3D models. Permedia software also includes a high-resolution reservoir fluid pressure, continuity, and mixing solver. And all Permedia software comes with Permedia Viewers, a powerful suite of tools for visualizing, querying and ranking results; mapping tools for terrain, closure and category analysis; and tools for extracting data from volumes and performing transform operations on volumes and maps. One user described Viewers as "Gocad-lite with added simulators."
Can Permedia be used for reservoir modeling? Yes. Many clients use Permedia software to simulate the emplacement of petroleum into high-resolution (e.g., seismic resolution) reservoir models (so-called "reservoir filling" models). This is a new application of basin modeling and starts with the question: "given this high resolution petrophysical description of my reservoir, and assuming migration has taken place, where would I expect to see the petroleum? How much and what kind?" Because the migration routines assume drainage conditions (i.e., wetting phase decreasing), the existing migration algorithms can not be used to simulate petroleum recovery. Migration can tell you where the fluids are, but not how they will behave under production. Permedia's new mixing simulators are specifically targetted to understand compositional resevoir filling. We are also developing a Black Oil production simulator.
What platforms does Permedia support? MPath runs on Linux (RHEL 4 and 5), and Windows (XP, Vista, 7), in 32- and 64-bit.
What data formats does Permedia support? Permedia can use a large variety of file formats, including SEGY files, Irap, Eclipse, PetroMod, TemisPack, Zmap, CPS3, Petrel, Gocad, and more. Permedia supports OpenWorks® data stores. Seamlessly read in GDI wells with traces, markers and trajectory, horizons, and GDI grids. Sub-select the data in the data store by district, project, interpreter and well lists. Permedia also has seamless links with PetroMod and TemisPack, allowing you to run dynamic simulations on PetroMod and Temis models and then co-render the results in 3D Viewer and query the results using Permedia Viewers' post-processing tools, which are optimized for high resolution datasets. Permedia Viewers, the visualization and querying environment, supports dozens of industry formats, allowing you to co-render large, complex datasets from a variety of sources. More information on Permedia's data handling can be found here.
How does Permedia interact with other basin modeling tools? Permedia software supports PetroMod, Temis and Gocad meshes natively; you can run migration simulations directly on your basin models, without any conversion.
Why use coarse dynamic grids created in basin simulators in Permedia? Using conditioning fabrics, you can infill coarse basin or reservoir models with fabric information derived from seismic, geostatistical models, or other data, at its original resolution. Conditioning fabrics allow detail to be added to models at a resolution that is independent of the main modeling grid. In effect, using conditioning fabrics lets you "downscale" coarse basin models. One consequence of this is that petroleum migration calculations can be done at a much finer (e.g., seismic) resolution than the main input grid.
Permedia software is protected by the Landmark Access Manager license management system. Consortium members receive two perpetual licenses of Permedia Suite (which is exclusive to consortium members) as part of the research program, and can purchase additional licenses. See Get Permedia for more information. |
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Join the Permedia Research and Development Consortium and participate in the evolution of Permedia. Membership provides a unique opportunity to shape the product you need.
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