Passive Microseismic Experiments at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Passive microseismic research is still a relatively new technology in the oil and gas industry. To date, very little has been explored by Middle Eastern universities and research centers on the use of passive microseismic data for reservoir monitoring and characterization, with the exception of hydraulic fracture monitoring which has recently been established as a commercial service. To fill this gap, I at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), under the National Science Technology and Innovation Plan of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) program, have initiated a pilot experiment to better understand subsurface reservoirs through the use of passive microseismic data. Meanwhile, recent advances in passive seismic research indicate that significant efforts are needed to separate the near-vertically propagating wavefield (possibly crossing a reservoir) from the near-surface noise (particularly in Saudi Arabia, which is very well known for its complex near-surface conditions). Such a separation is a key prerequisite for understanding and characterizing reservoirs. Some researchers suggest that good correlations exist between passive microseismic data and near-surface features (Hanssen and Bussat, 2008) as well as between passive microseismic data and weather, human activities (Ali et al. , 2010), and seasonal changes (Vesnaver et al. , 2003). Consequently, I have deployed an array of three-component passive microseismic recording stations over different geologic conditions on the KFUPM campus to better understand the origin of various near-surface noises and to develop algorithms to remove them. My long-term vision is to develop passive microseismic technology as an additional reliable tool for hydrocarbon exploration in Saudi Arabia. In this article, I present the preliminary results obtained from passive microseismic stations distributed at various locations of interest over the Dammam Dome structure on the KFUPM campus. Over the last decade, a number of workshops and dedicated technical sessions on passive …