Spectral decomposition aids AVO analysis in reservoir characterization: A case study of Blackfoot field, Alberta, Canada

Abstract

Blackfoot field, Alberta, Canada, has produced oil and gas from a Glauconitic compound incised valley-system. In this area channels can be filled with sands and/or shales. Differentiation of prospective channel sands and non-productive shales was always problematic due to the similarity in P-wave impedance of these two lithotypes. We study the spectral decomposition response to the hydrocarbons presence in the Glauconitic channel of Early Cretaceous age. From previous AVO analysis and modeling, a strong Class III AVO anomaly has been observed at the top of the porous sandstone in the upper valley, whereas shale had a very different AVO response. Furthermore, AVO inversion revealed additional information about lithology and fluid content in the channel. Our workflow starts from selecting a continuous horizon that was close and conforms to the channel interval; we then run spectral analyses for the channel area. Short Window Fourier Transform workflow could successfully image the channel's stratigraphic features and confirm results obtained from AVO analysis and inversion run on the data before being stacked. Additionally, the producing oil wells in the sand-fill channel were found to be correlating with high spectrum amplitude; while the dry wells in the shale-plugged channel fell in low amplitude anomaly.