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Abstract
Seismic data provides a unique source of information widely
used for reservoir characterization. High resolution 3D seismic
impedance field is critical for building a model of facies
distribution. 4D seismic time-lapse can reflect the water
saturation difference (time-lapse), hence could point towards
potential facies (dis)continuities not originally apparent from
the static data.
An interactive procedure is proposed to improve the prior
facies model by spotting areas of large discrepancies between
the recorded 4D seismic data and the corresponding forward
simulated time-lapse data. Various indicators of discrepancy
are proposed. The subsequent correction honors the prior
geological scenario. It is fast because it does not call for any
iterative optimization.
Introduction
Seismic images are dependent on two distinct classes of
reservoir properties, the static (non-time-varying) rock
properties such as lithofacies types, porosity, and the dynamic
(time-varying) fluid properties such as saturation, pore
pressure and temperature. Given a single seismic survey at a
given time, it is difficult to separate the contributions of the
static geology and the dynamic fluid movement, unless that
survey includes both P-wave and S-wave velocity data (for
instance AVO data). 4D (time-lapse) seismic surveys,
however, can image the specific impact of the reservoir fluid
flow, because static geological effects can be filtered out by
examining the difference between two or more successive
seismic surveys1.
The goal of this research is to develop a practical methodology
to utilize 4D seismic data to better predict present and future
water saturation fields, hence helping to locate new wells and
monitor fluid movement.
are: 0.15 in sand, and 0.30 in mud corresponding to a waterwet mudstone which contributes a substantial amount of oil.
One injector is located in the SW corner at grid node (10,10),
and one producer in the NE corner at grid node (90, 120), see
Figure 1. The water injection rate is 40,000 STB/day. During
production no gas is emitted from the oil phase. The Eclipse
simulator was run on that reference reservoir M0 for water
flooding over a period of 20 years starting Jan.1, 2000.
Figure 2 gives the reference water saturation difference
between year 2007 and year 2000. Notice the fingering of
water due to the injection well intersecting or being close to a
channel in most sub-layers: this is most notably seen in layers
5 to 7. Note also that the water invades into the mud facies,
see the red area north to the injector in layer 5. Beware that, in
practice, these true water saturation values are available only
at well locations.
Forward Seismic Amplitude Simulation
Given the reference water saturation, seismic amplitude traces
were forward simulated on the reference reservoir (M0) using
a normal incidence 1D convolution model with Fresnel zone
lateral averaging3,4. Figures 3 and 4 give the seismic amplitude
maps for the initial survey (year 2000), and the 7 years seismic
amplitude time-lapse (2000-2007). The seismic amplitude
cubes (Figure 3) reflect poorly the actual channel locations
(Figure 1); this can be explained by the poor resolution of
amplitude data and the fact that seismic amplitude are more
apt at detecting vertical facies discontinuities than locating
those facies. The 4D time lapse seismic amplitude (Figure 4)
does, however, qualitatively reflect the water saturation
difference (compare to Figure 3), even though the overall
point-to-point correlation between Figures 2 and 4 excluding
zero time lapse seismic data is quasi zero at 0.02.
Seismic Impedance
The seismic amplitude data of Figure 3 can be inverted into
corresponding seismic impedance data. Using inverse theory
techniques5, one could retrieve a reasonably good seismic
impedance field from the seismic amplitude data. Instead in
this research, we obtained the experimental seismic
impedance by moving a vertical window over the true
impedance field. The window size 1115 is related to the
incidence wavelength. Note that the seismic (both amplitude
and impedance) is first calculated in the true depth coordinate,
then converted back to the stratigraphic coordinate for each
sub-layers, hence some background effects may be introduced
at the top and the bottom layers.
Figure 5 show the seismic impedance maps at years 2000.
These impedance maps are remarkable and can be used for
detecting channel locations: compare Figure 5 to the reference
channel maps of Figure 1. The 4D time lapse seismic
impedance cube is shown in Figure 6: it reflects reasonably the
true water saturation difference of Figure 2 with a point-topoint correlation 0.83 much superior to that obtained from the
4D time lapse seismic amplitude. Recall that in practice the
true water saturation of Figure 2 is not available. Instead the
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conditioned to the well hard data, the soft probability cube and
the prior geological scenario, displayed in Figures 7 to 9.
Some layers of the estimated sand model M1 retained are
shown on Figure 10: the global net to gross ratio is 0.60.
Channel sand was attributed a constant 25% porosity and
550md permeability. The non-channel (mud) was attributed a
constant 7% porosity and 1.5md permeability, these values
were taken equal to the corresponding reference (true) average
values. By so doing, we ignore the impact of within-facies
porosity/permeability distribution and we focus this study to
the sole uncertainty associated to the channel geometry and
location.
The initial water saturation is set at 0.15 in sand and 0.30 in
mud, the same values exactly as for flow simulation on the
reference model M0. The same fluid properties used for model
M0 were also used, which amounts to filter out (ignore) this
aspect of performance prediction uncertainty.
Prediction of Saturation
The injector and producer wells are at the same locations
considered for the reference model M0, see Figure 7. The
same Eclipse setup was used to simulate water flooding from
year 2000 to year 2020, but this time using the estimated
reservoir model M1. Figure 11 gives the predicted water cut
(red) at the producer well vs. the reference curve (black).
Water breakthough is predicted around June 2016 almost three
years later than actual: this is due to model M1 poorly
depicting the continuity of channels particularly their
connection with the injector at the SW corner, compare
Figures 10 and 1.
Figure 12 gives the 7 years water saturation difference cube
estimated from the reservoir model M1, to be compared to the
true values of Figure 2 and to the 4D seismic impedance timelapse of Figure 6. The significant water channelling seen on
the reference cube (Figure 2) which will lead to an earlier than
predicted breakthrough, is not reflected on the estimated cube
(Figure 12) nor was it reflected clearly on the 4D time lapse
seismic impedance cube (Figure 6). Note also the large water
saturation difference next to the model injector on the
estimated cube (Figure 12), due to the model M1 not showing
important channel drains from that injector well. The
corresponding 7 years 4D seismic impedance from model M1
is given in Figure 13. Comparing to Figure 12, it appears that
the two time-lapse maps (seismic and saturation) have similar
structures, as expected.
Correcting Model M1
We now look at ways to improve an initial poor model (M1)
from the data brought by the additional seismic survey, see
Figures 4 and 6.
One way to to improve the initial facies model M1 is to locate
the discrepancies between the M1-predicted 4D seismic data
(Figure 13) and the actual 4D seismic time-lapse (Figure 6),
and correct accordingly the facies distribution and
connectivity in these areas.
The Flowchart
The proposed approach is detailed as follows:
1 Calibrate the original 3D seismic cube from well hard
data into a facies probability cube;
2 Run a facies modeling algorithm (here program snesim)
to simulate an initial facies model (denoted as model
M1) conditioned to both the well hard data and the
previous facies probability cube;
3 Populate or simulate the other petrophysical properties
into model M1;
4 Run both flow simulation and forward seismic
simulation based on model M1, and retrieve the 4D
seismic impedance data seis1 and saturation time-lapse
(1)
1 : seis0 z 0
I 0H ( u; z 0 ) =
0 : otherwise
(2)
1 : seis1 z1
I 1H ( u; z1 ) =
0 : otherwise
(3)
dc H ( u) = I 0H ( u; z 0 ) I 1H ( u; z1 )
(4)
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(5)
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4
Nomenclature
dc = discrepancy
I H = 4D seismic indicators of high values
N/G = net to gross ratio
P = probability value
u = node location
Z = 4D seismic threshold
seis = observed seismic time-lapse
0
seis
sw
sw
References
1 Lumley, D.E. and Behrens, R.A.: Practical engineering
issues of 4D seismic reservoir monitoring: paper SPE
Figure 1: Facies distribution of the reference reservoir in 3D and layers 5 to 7 (overall N/G = 0.53).
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well location
130
120
110
100
90
North
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
East
Figure 7: The well locations (blue dot: injector; red dot: producer; asterisk: observation wells).
Figure 8: Training image for the channel distribution in 3D and layers 11, 13 and 19 (N/G=0.48).
Figure 9: Sand probability given a local template of seismic impedance data in layers 5 to 7.
Figure 10: Sand distribution of the estimated reservoir model M1 (N/G = 0.60).
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Figure 12: Estimated water saturation difference 2000-2007 (model M1, available in practice).
Figure 13: Estimated seismic impedance difference 2000-2007 (model M1, available in practice).
Figure 14: Indicator discrepancy of 4D seismic impedance in layers 5 to 7. Indicator cutoff is defined as the 90th percentile of 4D seismic.
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Figure 15: 4D impedance discrepancy in layers 5 to 7 (only the discrepancy values higher than its 90th percentile are plotted).
Figure 16: Updated sand probability given a local template of seismic impedance data in layers 5 to 7.
Figure 17: Sand distribution of the estimated reservoir model M2 in layers 5 to 7 (N/G = 0.59).
Figure 18: Improved prediction of water saturation difference 2000-2007 (model M1, available in practice).