Citation: Ovsepian, M.; Lys, E.; Cheremisin, A.; Frolov, S.; Kurmangaliev, R.; Usov, E.; Ulyanov, V.; Tailakov, D.; Kayurov, N. Testing the INSIM-FT Proxy Simulation Method. Energies 2023, 16, 1648. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16041648 Academic Editor: Reza Rezaee Received: 26 December 2022 Revised: 19 January 2023 Accepted: 30 January 2023 Published: 7 February 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). energies Article Testing the INSIM-FT Proxy Simulation Method Mkhitar Ovsepian 1 , Egor Lys 2 , Alexander Cheremisin 1, *, Stanislav Frolov 2 , Rustam Kurmangaliev 2 , Eduard Usov 3 , Vladimir Ulyanov 2 , Dmitry Tailakov 3 and Nikita Kayurov 2 1 Petroleum Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technologies, 121205 Moscow, Russia 2 Novosibirsk R&D Center LLC, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia 3 Department of Physics, Novosibirsk State University, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia * Correspondence: a.cheremisin2@skoltech.ru Abstract: This paper describes testing of the INSIM-FT proxy simulation method (interwell-numerical- simulation model improved with front-tracking method) to assess the dependencies between produc- tion and injection wells, as well as to assess the forecast of oil/liquid production by wells depending on their operation parameters. The paper proposes the approach of taking into account the influence of various production enhancement operations. The method was tested on a synthetic hydrody- namic model and on a sector of a real field. The results show a good match between historical data and simulation results and indicate significant computational efficiency compared to classical reservoir simulators. Keywords: proxy modeling; ES-MDA; history matching; reservoir optimization 1. Introduction Waterflooding of oil fields is used to displace oil with water from the formations and maintain the formation pressure at a given level by injecting water. Water injection through injection wells is the main and most common way to maintain reservoir pressure. In Russia over 90% of oil fields are developed using this technology [1]. Mature oil and gas fields are characterized by a rapid increase in the water cut of the produced liquid and a decrease in the oil flow rate. This stage is associated with complications of the production process. The sweep efficiency and the oil recovery factor can be improved by application of efficient waterflood systems, primarily, focal ones as well as by changing the filtration flows [2]. Moreover, with the increase in the share of hard-to-recover reserves under development, the task of increasing oil production rates becomes relevant. With the development of the oil industry, geological and hydrodynamic simulation of hydrocarbon recovery has become one of the main tools for both predicting future performance of the reservoir in either the long-term or short-term period and selecting a reasonable development strategy for oil and gas fields. Moreover, it is an essential tool for the decision-making process in field development and petroleum production optimization where different operating conditions and actions are tested to increase productivity from existing wells or well patterns [3]. Full-scale hydrodynamic models are usually built on poor, averaged, and roughened geological models. Therefore, the insufficient accuracy of calculations performed on such models is associated with a high degree of uncertainty of initial information, especially of reservoir properties in the interwell space [4]. Moreover, to assess the efficiency of development methods, it is necessary to be able to carry out operational multivariate calculations. The use of three-dimensional hydrodynamic models in such cases is inefficient due to the following reasons [5]: 1. Long duration of the simulation; 2. Need to use large computational resources; Energies 2023, 16, 1648. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16041648 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies