With petroleum exploration moving into increasingly deeper water, reservoir simulation modelling is a sophisticated technique that integrates all available data to allow the flow in petroleum reservoirs to be modelled and predicted in a computer simulation. The past twenty years have seen phenomenal development in this area.

By providing accurate representation of how a particular body of petroleum will behave, the performance and reserves of an entire field can be predicted. This allows the optimisation of reservoir performance, by assessing the effects of a specific location, and ensures that wells can be designed to minimise the total cost of drilling  programmes while maximising production. Even where no production history is available, reservoir simulation can be used to understand the range of uncertainties associated with future production. It also assists in pinpointing key uncertainties that should be focused on to ensure that the reservoir performance meets our objective.