The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 05, 2013
Filed:
Nov. 13, 2008
Chul-sung Kim, Houston, TX (US);
Mark W. Dobin, Houston, TX (US);
Chul-Sung Kim, Houston, TX (US);
Mark W. Dobin, Houston, TX (US);
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A method is disclosed for determining the connectivity architecture of a hydrocarbon reservoir in terms of locally optimal paths between selected source points, e.g. wells. In one embodiment of the invention, a fast-marching method () is used to compute the distance field (or the time of arrival field) from N selected source points in a heterogeneous media, i.e. in a non-uniform velocity field. This is done by propagating N labeled () fronts simultaneously from N objects. Then, a method () is disclosed for detecting Voronoi curves or Voronoi surfaces, where fronts of differing labels meet each other. Then, saddle points are found on the Voronoi curves or surfaces (), and each saddle point is used to determine a locally optimal path () between a pair of equidistant (from the saddle point), closest (to the saddle point) source points.