ARTICLE IN PRESS
Computers & Geosciences 34 (2008) 299–300
Book review
Petroleum Geostatistics, Jef Caers. Society of
Petroleum Engineers, Richardson, TX (2005). 96pp.,
US$47.50, Paperbound, ISBN: 978-1-55563-106-2
In this slim volume, Jef Caers deftly summarizes
the state of the art in geostatistical techniques for
petroleum reservoir characterization without getting
bogged down in technical details. The book is an
enjoyable read, due to Caers’ clear and unpreten-
tious writing style and the many well-crafted figures
illustrating key concepts. Caers presents the geosta-
tistical model of a reservoir primarily as a frame-
work for integrating information from various
sources, including conceptual geological models,
geophysical surveys, and well logs, along with
permeabilities and porosities measured on core or
inferred from well tests. In addition to its obvious
target audience of petroleum engineers and geolo-
gists, hydrogeologists should also find this book to
be of interest, since many of the concepts can be
applied to aquifer characterization studies as well.
In his introductory chapter, Caers describes the
typical industry workflow for building a high-
resolution geocellular model, with geoststatistical
methods employed to populate the cells of a large
Cartesian grid with values of facies, porosity, and
permeability based on well-log, core, and seismic
data. To build a calibrated reservoir flow simulation
model, the high-resolution geocellular model is
typically upscaled to a coarser grid, and the
permeability and porosity values in this coarser
grid are adjusted to match historical production
data. This process, Caers argues, leads to the
development of two models, ‘‘a geologically con-
sistent, high-resolution geocellular model that does
not match historical performance and a geologically
inconsistent reservoir flow-simulation model that
does match history.’’ One of his primary aims in this
book is to promote the use of methods to integrate
the flow calibration process into the development of
the geocellular model, allowing for the development
of a geologically consistent, calibrated model.
doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2007.07.002
www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo
Caers is an Associate Professor of Energy
Resources Engineering at Stanford University and
director of the Stanford Center for Reservoir
Forecasting, so it is not surprising that the book
emphasizes techniques developed by the Stanford
group, especially the training image-based sequen-
tial simulation approach developed there in recent
years. This approach aims to create model realiza-
tions exhibiting patterns of facies variation similar
to those observed in a predefined training image,
while at the same time allowing conditioning to
local well or seismic data. As Caers puts it, ‘‘the
training image expresses the pattern of geological
heterogeneity that one desires the facies model to
depict.’’ The training image can be developed from
different sources, such as an unconditional Boolean
facies model, geologic process models, or outcrop
analog information. This approach has been criti-
cized for introducing too much subjectivity into the
model development process, through the imposition
of the training image. Although Caers does not
argue the point in this book, the response to this
criticism is that traditional variogram-based geos-
tatistical simulation techniques in fact impose a very
particular style of variability on the resulting model,
namely the maximum entropy variability dictated
by the implicitly assumed multiGaussian model.
Chapter 4, Geostatistical Methods for History
Matching Under Geological Control, is most
central to Caers’ aim of promoting methods
allowing the fusion of static and dynamic informa-
tion regarding the distribution of reservoir proper-
ties. In this chapter, he describes two different
workflows for history matching with geological
constraints, the first involving upscaling of the
fine-scale geological model to a coarse-scale model
suitable for flow simulation and matching of
production history, followed by a subsequent
downscaling of the history-matched coarse-scale
model to multiple fine-scale models, allowing for the
‘‘reinjection’’ of fine-scale information into the
model. Multiple fine-scale models are generated
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300 Book review / Computers & Geosciences 34 (2008) 299–300
from the coarse-scale model because the down-
scaling process is non-unique. Caers points out that
while this approach can produce a geologically
consistent, history-matched set of models in some
cases, it will fail to produce a satisfactory result
when fine-scale structures exert a significant influ-
ence on the flow behavior. Thus, he concludes the
chapter describing methods that involve strictly
upscaling, in which the fine-scale model is iteratively
perturbed and then upscaled to produce a coarse-
scale model that matches the production history.
Caers briefly describes two methods for introducing
geologically consistent perturbations to the fine-
scale model that improves the history match: his
own probability perturbation approach, and the
gradual deformation approach developed by Hu
and colleagues at the Institut Franc- ais du Pétrole.
The final chapter discusses the assessment and
management of uncertainty, including data uncer-
tainty, parameter uncertainty, and model uncer-
tainty, concluding with a discussion of model
ranking and decision making.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking
for a brief introduction to the current state of the art
in geostatistical methods and especially methods for
performing inverse analysis of flow and transport
data subject to constraints provided by well and
geophysical data and conceptual geological models.
Readers will see that current geostatistical techni-
ques provide a framework for fusing various sources
of information in a geologically consistent frame-
work, rather than requiring the imposition of
multiGaussian variation on reservoir or aquifer
parameter distributions.
Geoffrey C. Bohling
Kansas Geological Survey, 1930 Constant Avenue,
Lawrence, KS 66047, USA
E-mail address: geoff@kgs.ku.edu