Modern Microseismic Methods and Potential of their Applications in Oil and Gas Fields in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Monitoring of the productive layers with the help of passive microseismic is a new effective method to obtain reliable data in the development stage of oil and gas fields. Microseismic monitoring is the measuring of the microseismic vibrations that are caused by stress in the reservoir rocks, and pore pressure in the cracks formed during hydraulic fracturing (HF). The method allows solving problems with very low permeability in clastic and carbonate deposits, requiring the use of hydraulic fracturing to create corridors of migration of fluid. Microseismic method helps to determine where the best intervals for perforation are located, fracture orientation, monitoring features of fracture height containment, and also serves to optimize the length of horizontal wells for futher drilling programs. Additionally, microseismic monitoring is performed for viscous oil, steam injection and subsequent injection of fluids into the reservoir, allowing to track abnormal events in the propagation of fluid migration through the corridors of fracture and the presence of impermeable barriers. Using the method encounters as problems in data collection and interpretation, such as the presence of uncertainty in determining the location of seismic events, which results in ambiguity of interpretation of the geometry of discontinuity of cracks, and also the lack of standardized guidelines for the interpretation of microseismic events. To establish the potential in application of often unclear migration this fluids method especially using hydraulic fracturing (HF), we examined the Kumkol field in south-east of Karaganda region. This is clastic oil field. This field is characterized by the presence of Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic with variable permeability and content of low paraffin oil. In general, this abstract provides an overview of microseismic monitoring techniques and recommendations in particular for Kumkol oil field. As a result section of the reservoir at three sites is proposed to be examined by microseismic hydraulic fracturing in order to control the development of fracture systems. It is expected that this will lead to a significant economic effect of production and further improvement of the monitoring technique.