Numerical Comparison Between ES-MDA and Gradient-Based Optimization for History Matching of Reduced Reservoir Models

The Ensemble Smoother with Multiple Data Assimilation (ES-MDA) method has been popular for petroleum reservoir history matching. However, the increasing inclusion of automatic differentiation in reservoir models opens the possibility to history-match models using gradient-based optimization. Here, we discuss, study, and compare ES-MDA and a gradient-based optimization for history-matching waterflooding models. We apply these two methods to history match reduced GPSNet-type models. To study the methods, we use an implementation of ES-MDA and a gradient-based optimization in the open-source MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST), and compare the methods in terms of history-matching quality and computational efficiency. We show complementary advantages of both ES-MDA and gradient-based optimization. ES-MDA is suitable when an exact gradient is not available and provides a satisfactory forecast of future production that often envelops the reference history data. On the other hand, gradient-based optimization is efficient if the exact gradient is available, as it then requires a low number of model evaluations. If the exact gradient is not available, using an approximate gradient or ES-MDA are good alternatives and give equivalent results in terms of computational cost and quality predictions.