Inclusion of seismic attributes in reservoir ensemble coverage analysis

Abstract

There is a lack of quality-control (QC) methods to ensure measured seismic data are within the span of modeled seismic data in the context of ensemble-based seismic history matching of reservoir models. The dimensionality of seismic data makes it difficult to visualize the data and further compare them to the large number of ensembles in an efficient manner. Two attributes called coverage and importance are introduced to incorporate the key elements of reviewing an ensemble. The coverage attribute delineates where the set of models replicates the measured data, and the importance attribute identifies where it is important to fit the data above the noise threshold. The two attributes are then combined to highlight in which spatial area our reservoir model ensemble appropriately models the data and where a significant discrepancy exists between our ensemble of models and the measured data. The attributes are closely connected to noise, as coverage always must be analyzed in terms of the noise level. Although noise may not be explicitly corrected for, the methodology corrects the attributes for the noise assessed. The method is applied on two data examples from field seismic data: a 4D absolute difference amplitude map and a 4D relative impedance difference cube. The first example shows how changing the oil-water contact of the ensemble can improve the coverage without any history matching, and the second shows how it is more difficult to get a good coverage using 3D seismic attributes rather than using 2D maps of seismic data. The proposed QC attributes provide tools to better manage coverage of seismic data in the ensemble.