A reference page for the technically curious — what OPM Flow actually is, where the cloud model helps (and where it doesn't), how performance compares to E100, what we don't yet do, the migrator workflow, every platform capability, and why we host in Germany.
No installation, no IT tickets, no HPC queue. RUNSPEC runs entirely in the browser — simulation infrastructure managed for you, so you focus on engineering.
No compiling OPM from source, no Linux VM, no Python environment issues. Open a browser, sign in, build your deck and run. Works on any machine — Windows, Mac, Linux.
No dongles, no FlexLM servers, no annual renewal negotiations, no seat counting. RUNSPEC handles the infrastructure so teams scale without bottlenecks.
Every user runs the latest OPM Flow release with the newest solver improvements and keyword support. No version mismatches across teams, no manual updates.
Need more cores for a large model? The platform spins up dedicated cloud compute automatically. No HPC queue, no sysadmin requests — submit and monitor in real time.
Share projects across offices and time zones. Everyone sees the same deck, same results, same plots. No emailing ZIP files, no version confusion between team members.
TLS encryption, German-hosted infrastructure, GDPR compliance, automated daily backups — all handled for you. Your IT department doesn't need to provision, patch or secure anything.
OPM Flow is an open-source, fully-implicit reservoir simulator that delivers commercial-grade performance — without license fees, vendor lock-in or closed-source limitations.
A three-phase black-oil simulator developed by the Open Porous Media Initiative. Reads standard E100-format input decks. Supports dissolved gas (DISGAS), vaporised oil (VAPOIL), and a growing set of advanced physics including CO2 storage and hydrogen modelling.
No dongles, no vendor lock-in. Transparent development and open source code. Supports emerging workflows — CCS (CO2 sequestration), hydrogen underground storage, geothermal — that commercial vendors are slow to adopt or charge premium fees for.
OPM Flow covers the black-oil formulation that handles the majority of real-world simulation needs. For standard black-oil and dissolved-gas models, OPM produces results equivalent to commercial black-oil simulators.
Spectre is the reservoir-aware assistant built into RUNSPEC. It reasons about physics, builds complete OPM Flow decks from natural language, and — crucially — stays inside the same editor you use manually. Nothing is hidden behind a black box.
"A 30-well black-oil model, 200 mD average perm, aquifer support from the east, 5 years of history starting 2020." Spectre generates a complete OPM Flow deck — grid, PVT, rel-perm, wells, SCHEDULE — ready to run.
Spectre decides what to do next: checks material balance, flags inconsistent contacts, re-tunes rel-perm end-points when you change wettability. It pushes back when physics doesn't add up — and explains why.
Every action Spectre takes lands in the same keyword editor and UI you use by hand. Open the deck, read the keywords, edit them — the AI is a collaborator on your workspace, not a separate pipeline.
Early-stage screening used to mean days of keyword wrangling. With Spectre, a conceptual description becomes a submittable deck in under 5 minutes — then you tune, compare and branch scenarios without starting over.
Every change Spectre makes is recorded as a "User Edit" on the project — same mechanism as manual edits. You can review, revert or question each step. No silent rewrites, no lost provenance.
"Move the OWC up by 50 ft." "Switch to a stiffer aquifer." "Add two infill producers in the south-east corner." Spectre updates only what's needed and keeps the rest of the deck consistent.
Independent benchmarks confirm that OPM Flow matches E100 on standard black-oil models. Timestep sizes, convergence behaviour and final results are nearly identical.
On SPE benchmark cases and real-field models up to ~1M active cells, OPM Flow delivers run times within 5–15% of E100. For conceptual and full-field black-oil studies there is no practical performance difference.
Material balance, pressure matches and saturation front propagation align closely. The Norne field benchmark — a public North Sea model — demonstrates excellent agreement across key summary vectors.
We believe in transparency. OPM Flow is excellent for the majority of simulation tasks, but there are areas where commercial simulators still have an edge.
OPM Flow supports the black-oil formulation. Full EOS-based compositional modelling — gas condensate phase behaviour, miscible gas injection tuning — requires a compositional simulator.
OPM covers the most commonly used keywords from the E100 format. Some niche or legacy keywords are not yet supported — advanced multi-segment wells, certain analytical aquifer options and some SCHEDULE actions may require workarounds.
Commercial simulators have 40+ years of industry adoption with extensive training materials and large support networks. OPM's community is growing rapidly but still smaller. Documentation is solid but less comprehensive.
Already running E100 black-oil models? The built-in Migrator converts your decks to OPM Flow, flags unsupported keywords with severity levels and gets you running — without rewriting your model from scratch.
Upload your E100 DATA deck including all INCLUDE files. The Migrator parses every section, identifies all keywords and flags those not yet supported by OPM Flow — with severity levels and suggested alternatives.
Compatible keywords pass through unchanged. Problematic keywords are highlighted with clear explanations: what's unsupported, why it matters, and what you can do about it. The output is a clean, runnable OPM Flow deck.
Open the converted deck in the full keyword editor with syntax highlighting and validation. Make adjustments, then submit directly to the simulation queue — all without leaving the browser. Every user edit is version-tracked.
Everything a reservoir engineer needs for rapid technical assessments — from first concept to production forecast, in one browser-based workspace.
Define grids (NI×NJ×NK), draw structure contours, assign multi-layer porosity, permeability and NTG, configure aquifers and set contacts — all interactively, no text files required.
Describe what you need in plain language. The Agentic AI assistant writes keywords, places wells, sets constraints, generates PVT tables and tracks every edit with full audit trail.
Standing, Glaso, Vasquez-Beggs for oil; McCain for water; critical-property methods for gas. Preview curves live, generate PVTO/PVDG/PVTW tables automatically.
Two-phase and three-phase rel-perm with wettability presets. Adjust Corey exponents, end-points and capillary pressure. Generates SWOF/SGOF keywords ready for OPM Flow.
Draw depth contours and faults directly on the map canvas, import contour images, calibrate with scale tools and let the interpolator generate a smooth structure surface.
Click to place producers and injectors on the map. Set rate targets, BHP limits, perforation intervals and scheduling — per well or by group control.
Inspect your reservoir in a WebGL-powered 3D viewer with property colouring, well trajectories, cell picking, I/J/K slicing and multiple colour scales.
Rate, cumulative, pressure, GOR, WCT — at field, group, well and region level. Add annotations, compare scenarios side by side and save plot templates for reuse.
Upload E100 DATA decks — the Migrator parses all keywords, flags unsupported ones with severity levels and alternatives, and produces a clean OPM Flow deck ready to run.
Import production history, map columns to wells automatically, overlay measured data on simulation results and iterate towards a match — all in the browser.
Submit runs to a server-side OPM Flow queue with live progress tracking, timestep monitoring, log streaming and automatic result loading — no local installation needed.
Organize work with tags, notes and filters. Duplicate projects, export .simdeck archives and switch between scenarios instantly.
OPM Flow supports CO2 storage and hydrogen underground storage modelling. Configure injection strategies, monitor plume migration and assess storage security — using the same deck-building tools.
Model geothermal reservoirs with OPM Flow — heat extraction, reinjection strategies and thermal drawdown. Build decks with the same interactive tools used for oil and gas studies.
Your reservoir models, production data and simulation results contain commercially sensitive subsurface knowledge. We host exclusively in German data centres so that this data stays under Europe's strongest legal protections.
The German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) adds an extra layer on top of GDPR — the strictest data protection regime in the world. Your data is legally shielded from foreign government access.
Unlike US-owned cloud providers, German-hosted servers are not subject to the US CLOUD Act. No foreign authority can compel access to your reservoir models or production data.
Our infrastructure runs in Hetzner data centres with ISO/IEC 27001 certification — independently audited information security management, physical access controls and redundancy.
Reservoir models, well data and production forecasts are strategic assets. Hosting in Germany ensures they remain under EU jurisdiction — critical for NOCs, JV partners and regulatory compliance.
Central European location means fast response times across Europe, the Middle East and Africa — where most of the world's upstream operations are managed.
Clear data processing agreements, documented backup procedures, encryption at rest and in transit, and incident response protocols — all auditable and available on request.
Interactive introduction to reservoir simulation — 14 chapters built into the app for subscribers, with direct links to Runspec tools and the Spectre AI assistant.
Corner-point grids, NI×NJ×NK layouts, layer properties, faults and pinch-outs. How OPM interprets GRDECL and what makes a grid "well-behaved" for simulation.
Black-oil formulation, PVT tables (PVTO/PVDG/PVTW), Corey relative permeability, capillary pressure, wettability and three-phase saturation functions.
Well placement, completion definitions, rate vs BHP constraints, group control, workovers and scheduling. Reading WELSPECS, COMPDAT and SCHEDULE.
Importing historical rates, matching pressures and water cut, iterating on rock/fluid properties, and validating the match before prediction runs.
Extending history-matched models into forecast mode, varying well count, injection schemes and operating constraints — and building side-by-side scenario comparisons.
Using the same black-oil machinery for CO2 sequestration, hydrogen underground storage and geothermal heat extraction — what changes, what stays the same.
Explorer tier is free forever — full Runspec app, keyword editor and Spectre AI. No credit card.
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