How To Estimate the Value of the Information (VOI) of a 4D Seismic Survey in One Offshore Giant Field

Abstract

Abstract The decision of acquiring or not, a new reservoir data goes through the difficult estimation of the economic value of this information. This paper presents the methodology used to estimate the value of information of a new seismic survey in the Marlim offshore giant field, located at Campos Basin, Brazil. The main objective of this new 4D seismic is to enhance the geologic characterization and show the fluid changes in the reservoir that will allow an optimization and a decrease of the risk of the new well projects and the identification of new opportunities. The estimate of the value of the information is based on the increment of the expected monetary value of the projects with a new 4D seismic data. The developed methodology has the following steps: Identification of the projects of new locations that would be benefit with the new seismic up to 2010; the analysis of uncertainties;quantification of the risks of the projects; definition in types of expected gains of the new information; estimation of the success probability with and without new seismic; estimation of the net present value of each project with flow simulation; estimation of the expected monetary value of each project with and without new seismic using the decision tree technique; and finally the estimation of the value of seismic information to be acquired. In this study the flow simulations were done respecting all production facilities, as processing capacities, well heads, slots in platforms and the schedule of initial operation of the wells, allowing more realistic results to support the decision to acquire a new 4D seismic.