A new development algorithm for permeability prediction: A new milestone

Permeability is one of the most important reservoir rock parameters in petroleum engineering, reservoir, and exploitation. This parameter causes the movement of hydrocarbon reserves in the reservoir rock. Therefore, it is an important parameter from the economic point of view because it greatly impacts the amount of extraction from the reservoir rock. In this study, the combined RBFNN-GA algorithm and 200 data sets collected from a field in the Middle East were used to predict permeability. Water saturation, porosity, and specific surface are the input variables used in this study. GA has advantages such as solving complex optimization problems of continuous functions and multi-objective problems. The advantages of RBF neural networks are that they are easy to design, strongly tolerant to input noise, and have good generalization. The RBFNN-GA model has the advantages of both algorithms. RBFNN-GA algorithm and experimental models have been compared in terms of performance accuracy. The results show that RBFNN-GA with STD = 89.8 and R-square = 0.9011 for the total data set obtained from a field in the Middle East has better accuracy and performance in predicting permeability than experimental models. Compared to other neural network methods, the RBFNN-GA model has a higher performance accuracy and is efficient for predicting other parameters. Oil researchers and engineers can use this method to predict other parameters in their studies and research.