A review of fuzzy logic applications in petroleum exploration, production and distribution operations

Petroleum exploration and production business thrives with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the subsurface. Technological advancement has helped in furnishing the industry with much information about the petroleum reservoir; however, a lot of uncertainties still exist due to the nature of the subsurface. The industry has strived to address this problem in diverse ways; regrettably, the classical methods relied upon have failed to provide a proper guide to management decision in exploiting these reservoirs. In recent times, artificial intelligence techniques, particularly Fuzzy Logic (FL), have been identified as a potential tool to deal with the uncertainties encountered in most exploration and production (E&P) operations. This research provides a review of FL applications in E&P operations under non-deterministic input parameters, possible challenges and solution procedures using FL sensitivity analysis and rule viewers. The focus is on reservoir characterization for reservoir evaluation, drilling/completion operations and stimulation treatment. The study also examines the extent FL could be applied to extract useful information from the large volume of historical oil and gas data already on the shelf and the future gaps to fill. A case study was presented which considered cost optimization in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) distribution operations using fuzzy logic.