Referring to FIG. 1, a contemporary oil and/or gas production system 10 includes multiple production and injection wells 80 including corresponding boreholes 20 penetrating into an underground geological formation 30 bearing an oil deposit 40 and/or a gas deposit 50. Often, the geological formation 30 corresponds to one or more anticlines 60 which form a natural containment for the oil deposit 40 and/or gas deposit 50. The geological formation 30 is usually highly heterogeneous. The deposits 40, 50 are often contained within regions of porous rock with multiple fissures, cavities and structural weaknesses which define maximum pressures which can be sustained by the regions during oil and/or gas extraction. Excessive pressure applied to the geological formation 30, for example via water injection, can risk causing multiple unwanted fractures, namely “out of zone” fractures. When the geological formation 30 is associated with the system 10 being offshore, fracturing of boreholes 20 of the system 10 can cause multiple seabed surface fissures which can leak water and/or hydrocarbons, namely potentially causing severe environmental pollution in an offshore environment.
A contemporary problem is that software tools for controlling oil and/or gas production systems are insufficiently evolved for coping with complex dynamic characteristics of spatially-extensive porous oil and/or gas wells, namely a system of producers and injectors operating in conjunction with a heterogeneous porous medium.
During recent years, oil and gas production systems have evolved to use real time data to an increasing extent. As sensor technology has become more reliable, engineers operating these systems are increasingly desirous to receive downhole data such as pressure and temperature, acoustic noise data for sand detection, multiphase flow and similar. These data provide the engineers with valuable information regarding the system and are employed both for detecting occurrence of various events, for example sand bursts, and to optimize production.
Control of oil and/or gas production systems 10 having multiple input and output parameters has been previously described in a published international PCT patent application no. WO2008/100148A2 (Nordtvedt & Midttund, Epsis AS). When these systems 10 exhibit complex dynamic characteristics with potentially abrupt temporal phenomena occurring, correct and safe control of the systems 10 requires special attention for achieving optimal production performance whilst simultaneously ensuring that safe and reliable operation is achieved. A difficulty arising is that contemporary software tools for controlling the system 10 are insufficiently capable of coping with large amounts of dynamically-acquired data, such that control and operation of the system 10 risks being compromised