A New Stochastic Modeling of 3-D Mud Drapes Inside Point Bar Sands in Meandering River Deposits

The environment of major sediments of eastern China oilfields is a meandering river where mud drapes inside point bar sand occur and are recognized as important factors for underground fluid flow and distribution of the remaining oil. The present detailed architectural analysis, and the related mud drapes’ modeling inside a point bar, is practical work to enhance oil recovery. This paper illustrates a new stochastic modeling of mud drapes inside point bars. The method is a hierarchical strategy and composed of three nested steps. Firstly, the model of meandering channel bodies is established using the Fluvsim method. Each channel centerline obtained from the Fluvsim is preserved for the next simulation. Secondly, the curvature ratios of each meandering river at various positions are calculated to determine the occurrence of each point bar. The abandoned channel is used to characterize the geometry of each defined point bar. Finally, mud drapes inside each point bar are predicted through random sampling of various parameters, such as number, horizontal intervals, dip angle, and extended distance of mud drapes. A dataset, collected from a reservoir in the Shengli oilfield of China, was used to illustrate the mud drapes’ building procedure proposed in this paper. The results show that the inner architectural elements of the meandering river are depicted fairly well in the model. More importantly, the high prediction precision from the cross validation of five drilled wells shows the practical value and significance of the proposed method.