Abstract
Marine broadband towed streamer seismic analysis and case studies in recent years have revealed several benefits of extended seismic bandwidth for the reservoir geoscientist – both for structural and quantitative seismic interpretation. Since 2007, dual-sensor towed streamer seismic technology (Tenghamn et al., 2007) has provided industry-wide access to seismic data with a significantly broader range of low and high frequencies. Benefits on the interpretation side include improved vertical resolution, enhanced geological texture, cleaner event continuity and character, sharper fault plane truncations and improved seismic-to-well correlations. The key benefit for quantitative seismic interpretation (QI) is a significant reduction of the low frequency model requirement and this allows seismic inversion to be derived from the seismic data rather than from a model extrapolation of a priori information. In addition, the quality and prediction of the reservoir properties derived from seismic data, without well log information, has significantly improved – resulting in the potential de-risking of prospects and discoveries. This paper describes the data analysis of dual-sensor 3D seismic from the West of Shetlands area and specifically focuses on wavelet extraction and low frequency phase stability. The study explores the relevance of these aspects to the inversion and investigates the estimation of reservoir properties, including porosity prediction, without the direct use of well information. The match of results from seismic only inversion to ‘blind wells’ demonstrates the potential of dual-sensor pre-stack data to reliably estimate elastic and reservoir properties in an exploration setting. Estimating reliable absolute reservoir properties away from wells has been a continuous challenge for reservoir geoscientists. Where it can be achieved, the value of the information can be significant in de-risking an opportunity and/or better characterising a prospect. In addition, in appraisal, development and reservoir optimisation, any reliable elastic information extracted from seismic data can potentially assist in optimising a well location and its trajectory for maximum recovery.
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