Smart oil field management system using evolutionary intelligence

This research proposes a new flexible intelligent system that manages the inflow control valve to improve oil production. For the efficient management of the smart oil field, the use of optimization algorithms is required. Traditional optimization methods tend to be inefficient in solving such problems due to many variables and the numerous locally optimal solutions, besides the effort of reservoir simulation. Therefore, this work presents the development of a methodology that allows optimizing both the control and the positioning of the valves, maximizing the reservoir Net Present Value obtained through the operation management, and analyzing the deployment cost of intelligent wells and their operational returns. Decisions of inflow control valve placement and its operation, flow control, throughout the reservoir’s life cycle are simulated to verify the efficiency of the methodology. In order to evaluate and validate the proposed intelligent system, the methodology was tested by building a new model with three evolutionary algorithms, allowing the placement and control of the flow (valve) as a single problem. The results demonstrated that the proposed approach has significant gains in the increased recovered oil volume and decreased water produced, indicating more efficient and sustainable oil production.