Reservoir Permeability Prediction Based on Analogy and Machine Learning Methods: Field Cases in DLG Block of Jing’an Oilfield, China

Abstract

Abstract Reservoir permeability, generally determined by experimental or well testing methods, is an essential parameter in the oil and gas field development. In this paper, we present a novel analogy and machine learning method to predict reservoir permeability. Firstly, the core test and production data of other 24 blocks (analog blocks) are counted according to the DLG block (target block) of Jing’an Oilfield, and the permeability analogy parameters including porosity, shale content, reservoir thickness, oil saturation, liquid production, and production pressure difference are optimized by Pearson and principal component analysis. Then, the fuzzy matter element method is used to calculate the similarity between the target block and analog blocks. According to the similarity calculation results, reservoir permeability of DLG block is predicted by reservoir engineering method (the relationship between core permeability and porosity of QK-D7 in similar blocks) and machine learning method (random forest, gradient boosting decision tree, light gradient boosting machine, and categorical boosting). By comparing the prediction accuracy of the two methods through the evaluation index determination coefficient (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE), the CatBoost model has higher accuracy in predicting reservoir permeability, with R2 of 0.951 and RMSE of 0.139. Finally, the CatBoost model is selected to predict reservoir permeability of 121 oil wells in the DLG block. This work uses simple logging and production data to quickly and accurately predict reservoir permeability without coring and testing. At the same time, the prediction results are well applied to the formulation of DLG block development technology strategy, which provides a new idea for the application of machine learning to predict oilfield parameters.