Large numbers of flow simulations are typically required for the determination of optimal well settings. These simulations are often computationally demanding, which poses challenges for the optimizations. In this paper we present a new two-step surrogate treatment (ST) that reduces the computational expense associated with well control optimization. The method is applicable for oil production via waterflood, with well rates optimized at a single control period. The two-step ST entails two separate optimizations, which can both be performed very efficiently. In the first optimization, optimal well-rate ratios (i.e., the fraction of total injection or production associated with each well) are determined such that a measure of velocity variability over the field is minimized, leading to more uniform sweep. In the second step, overall injection and production rates are determined. The flow physics in the first step is highly simplified, while the actual physical system is simulated in the second step. Near-globally-optimal results can be determined in both cases, as the first optimization is posed as a QP problem, and the second step entails just a single optimization variable. Under full parallelization, the overall elapsed time for the ST corresponds to the runtime for 1-2 full-order simulations. Results are presented for multiple well configurations, for 2D and 3D channelized models, and comparisons with formal optimization procedures (mesh adaptive direct search or MADS, and an adjoint-gradient method) are conducted. Three different fluid mobility ratios (M = 1, 3 and 5) are considered. Optimization results demonstrate that the two-step ST provides results in reasonable agreement with those from MADS and adjoint-gradient methods, with speedups of 5. or more. We also show that the ST is applicable in the inner-loop in field development optimization, where it will be especially useful since many different well configurations must be evaluated.
