Introduction to bluebonnet

Installation

Run the command

pip install bluebonnet

Usage

bluebonnet has a collection of tools for performing reservoir simulation in tight oil and shale gas reservoirs. The main tools are:

  1. fluids for modeling PVT and viscosity of oil, water, and gas;

  2. flow for building physics-based production curves; and

  3. forecast for fitting and forecasting unconventional production.

What makes bluebonnet unique?

The goal for this package is to make it easier to forecast production from hydrofractured wells. It uses semi-universal recovery factor scaling curves scaled by drainage volume and time-to-BDF to achieve these feats. These methods have been used to make forecasts from the individual well level up to the basin and play level, depending on the availability of fluid property and bottomhole pressure data.

Compare to the most common unconventional production analysis tool. Empirical decline curve analysis (DCA) provides very fast answers, but lack physical meaning. Bluebonnet fits include estimates of the resource within the drainage volume and of permeability divided by interfracture spacing. A completion program purporting to increase the size of the fractured area can be tested with bluebonnet without requiring extensive 3D reservoir simulations.

Also, bluebonnet naturally handles flow transitions, unlike DCA and type curves. Arps, for instance, has to have multiple segments stitched together to capture well behavior after the start of boundary dominated flow.

Sometimes, 3-D reservoir simulation is absolutely necessary to understand the flow patterns around unconventional wells. However, due to the symmetries inherent in such flow and the independence of production between neighboring wells, one-dimensional methods like bluebonnet cover many of these use-cases.

How-to Guides

Bluebonnet is extremely customizable. You can mix and match your fluid properties, relative permeabilities, and fitting functions to your heart’s content.

Note

Bluebonnet will allow you to cut yourself. Want recovery factors greater than one? Fluids that behave in unphysical ways? Reservoir pressures lower than bottomhole pressure? You bet! Want negative Brooks-Corey exponents? Okay, that’s a bridge too far, but you get the idea.

These how-to guides are here to help you mix and match and fine-tune your models.

The API

In depth API documentation for every function and class is here:

Theory and background

Developer information

Interested in extending or contributing to this project? Read these: