Sensitivity study of rock-physics parameters for modeling time-lapse seismic response of Norne field

Abstract

Time-lapse seismic modeling is an important step in joint inversion of time-lapse seismic and production data of a field. Rock-physics analysis is the basis for modeling the time-lapse seismic data. However, joint inversion of both types of data for estimation of reservoir parameters is highly nonlinear and complex with uncertainties at each step of the process. So it is essential, before proceeding with large-scale history matching, to investigate sensitive rock-physics parameters in modeling the time-lapse seismic response of a field. We used the data set of the Norne field to investigate sensitive parameters in time-lapse seismic modeling. We first investigated sensitive parameters in the Gassmann’s equation. The investigated parameters include mineral properties, water salinity, pore pressure, and gas-oil ratio. Next, we investigated parameter sensitivity for time-lapse seismic modeling of the Norne field. The investigated rock-physics parameters are clay content, cement fraction, average number of contact grains per sand, pore pressure, and fluid mixing. We observed that the average number of contact grains per sand had the most impact on time-lapse seismic modeling of the Norne field. The clay content was the most sensitive parameter in fluid substitution for calculating seismic velocities of the Norne field. Salinity and pore pressure had minimal impact on fluid substitution for this case. This sensitivity analysis helps to select important parameters for time-lapse (4D) seismic history matching, which is an important aspect of joint inversion of production and time-lapse seismic modeling of a field.