Technology Focus: Seismic Applications (March 2010)

Abstract

Technology Focus Finding and producing hydrocarbons from increasingly complex reservoirs and the push to maximize recovery stimulated a decade of steady growth in high-end seismic solutions covering the full E&P life cycle. In challenging imaging environments, the improvements achieved with the latest acquisition and processing technology are significant. Not surprisingly, associated cost pressures and budget constraints increasingly force geophysicists to strive for adequate and cost-effective solutions. Simultaneously, we experience a renewed focus on adding value by pushing the integration with other disciplines to new levels. Papers reviewed for the new Seismic Applications feature highlight how seismic technologies pay dividends on the basis of an improved understanding of the subsurface. Several contributions discuss wide-azimuth seismic, which has become the norm in complex-imaging environments such as the Gulf of Mexico. Advances are not confined to marine surveys, and densely sampled wide-cross-spread surveys are being acquired onshore also. The logistical efforts for these modern surveys are large. Accurate planning and detailed survey design are essential for efficient and successful delivery. Beyond improved imaging, rich-azimuth seismic, probably in combination with multicomponent acquisition, has a realistic potential to enable fracture detection on the basis of azimuthal-anisotropy analysis. This technology can provide considerable value in carbonates and tight reservoirs in which fractures have a strong effect on connectivity and production rates. Robust and accurately calibrated rock-physics models are a prerequisite to bridge the gap between seismic and reservoir modeling. For carbonates, this is notoriously difficult, and enhanced physical models are being developed that result in more-reliable reservoir-property predictions. Reservoir models only approximate the actual subsurface, and seismic constraints are used more routinely to reduce remaining uncertainties. Next to static-model updates, repeated 4D-seismic surveys provide information about the dynamic-reservoir behavior. Permeability maps derived from 4D seismic can be incorporated during the history-matching process, providing a promising leap toward real integration of subsurface disciplines and improved recovery. Seismic Applications additional reading available at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org IPTC 13692 • “Multicomponent-Seismic Applications for Maximizing Efficiency and Production from Fractured-Carbonate Reservoirs in Idd El Shargi Field” by E. Maili, Occidental Petroleum of Qatar, et al. IPTC 13882 • “Microseismic Reservoir Monitoring in a Deep-Wellbore Carbonate Environment in Kazakhstan” by K.G. Maver, SPE, Schlumberger, et al. IPTC 13870 • “Wide-Azimuth Seismic Azimuthal Analysis in Offset Vector Domain for Velocity and Amplitude” by Jean-Luc Boelle, Total, et al.