Volume calculation of subsurface structures and traps in hydrocarbon exploration — a comparison between numerical integration and cell based models

The volume calculation of geological structures is one of the primary goals of interest when dealing with exploration or production of oil and gas in general. Most of those calculations are done using advanced software packages but still the mathematical workflow (equations) has to be used and understood for the initial volume calculation process. In this paper a comparison is given between bulk volume calculations of geological structures using trapezoidal and Simpson’s rule and the ones obtained from cell-based models. Comparison in calculation is illustrated with four models; dome ‐ 1/2 of ball/sphere, elongated anticline, stratigraphic trap due to lateral facies change and faulted anticline trap. Results show that Simpson’s and trapezoidal rules give a very accurate volume calculation even with a few inputs(isopach areas ‐ ordinates). A test of cell based model volume calculation precision against grid resolution is presented for various cases. For high accuracy, less the 1% of an error from coarsening, a cell area has to be 0.0008% of the reservoir area