`DATES`

Recognised by the OPM Flow parserSCHEDULE

This keyword advances the simulation to a given report date after which additional keywords may be entered to instruct OPM Flow to perform additional functions via the SCHEDULE section keywords, or further DATES data sets or keywords may be entered to advance the simulator to the next report date.

If the DATES keyword is to be used during the simulation, then the START keyword in the RUNSPEC section must be declared to set the start date for the run.

Notes:

The keyword is followed by a number of data sets (or rows) representing one DATE record per row.

Each record (or row) is terminated by a “/” and the keyword is terminated by a “/”.

Note that OPM Flow uses the standard Gregorian calendar and therefore leap years are accounted for in the DATES keyword. Thus, it is more accurate to use the DATES keyword to progress the simulator through time if one is matching actual production data.

See also the TIME and TSTEP keywords in the SCHEDULE section.

Whenever possible it is a good idea to always set the start date to be at the beginning of the year, as like most simulators, OPM Flow reports are always stated at the number of days from the start date (and sometimes at a given date). If the start date is at the beginning of the year, then calculating the actual date is relatively straight forward and simple.

Records: One or more records, each terminated by /
Items per record: 4

Parameters

No.	Name	Description	Type	Default
1	`DAY`	A positive integer that defines the day of the month for the data set, the value should be greater than or equal to one and less than or equal to 31.	INT	None
2	`MONTH`	Character string for the month for the data set and should be one of the following 'JAN', 'FEB', 'MAR', 'APR', 'MAY', 'JUN', 'JUL' (or 'JLY'), 'AUG', 'SEP', 'OCT', 'NOV', or 'DEC'	STRING	None
3	`YEAR`	A positive four digit integer value representing the year for the data set, which must be specified fully by four digits, that is 1986.	INT	None
4	`TIME`	A numeric character string that defines the time for the data set in the form of: HH:MM:SS.SSSS The default value means in most cases this parameter can be defaulted. TIME is normally used when detailed DST matching is performed to enable the pressures and rates to be stated at specific dates and times.	STRING	00:00:00

Example

Given a start date of January 1, 2020 set via the START keyword in the RUNSPEC section, the following example advances the simulator from the start date of January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021, using quarterly reporting time steps.
-- ==============================================================================
--
-- SCHEDULE SECTION
--
-- ==============================================================================
SCHEDULE
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- SCHEDULE SECTION - 2020-01-01
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RPTSCHED
'WELLS=2' 'WELSPECS' 'CPU=2' FIP=2' /
DATES
2 JAN 2020 /
/
RPTSCHED
'NOTHING' /
DATES
1 APR 2020 /
1 JLY 2020 /
1 OCT 2020 /
/
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- SCHEDULE SECTION - 2021-01-01
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RPTSCHED
'WELLS=2' 'WELSPECS' 'CPU=2' FIP=2' /
DATES
1 JAN 2021 /
/
RPTSCHED
'NOTHING' /
DATES
1 APR 2021 /
1 JLY 2021 /
1 OCT 2021 /
/
The above example writes out a series of report at the start of the run and then advances the simulation one day to January 2, 2020 and switches off the reporting. The simulation then advances to April 1, July 1 and October 1, 2020 with no further changes to the run. After October 1, 2020 reporting is switched on again to enable a report on January 1, 2021, which is then subsequently switched off after the January 1, 2021 report time step has been completed.
Note if one wishes to terminate the run at the end of year (as opposes to the beginning of the year and get a final report for the year, then the next example demonstrates the keyword sequence to enable this.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- SCHEDULE SECTION - 2021-01-01
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RPTSCHED
'WELLS=2' 'WELSPECS' 'CPU=2' FIP=2' /
DATES
2 JAN 2021 /
/
RPTSCHED
'NOTHING' /
DATES
1 FEB 2021 /
1 MAR 2021 /
1 APR 2021 /
1 MAY 2021 /
1 JUN 2021 /
1 JLY 2021 /
1 AUG 2021 /
1 SEP 2021 /
1 OCT 2021 /
1 NOV 2021 /
1 DEC 2021 /
/
--
-- FINAL REPORT AND RESTART AT YEAR END
--
RPTSCHED
'WELLS=2' 'WELSPECS' 'CPU=2' FIP=2' /
RPTRST
'BASIC=2' /
DATES
31 DEC 2021 /
/
In the above example monthly reporting time steps have been used instead of quarterly and report is requested after the December 1, 2021 time step and is therefore written out on December 31, 2021.

Manual source: parts/chapters/subsections/12.3/DATES.fodt