Thinly Bedded Reservoir Characterization, From Qualitative to Quantitative Approach, Case Studies in a Cenozoic Basin of Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract The limit of resolution of seismic data is a complex issue that involves not only wavelet frequency, phase characters, data quality (S/N), interference, tuning, but also criteria on how to measure resolvability, which can hamper confident lithology, porosity and fluid prediction of thinly bedded reservoirs. Widess's classic paper (1973) concluded that for thin beds (below ?/8 wavelength), the seismic character, peak/trough time and frequency do not change appreciably with thickness, and also amplitude varies almost linearly with thickness, which goes to zero at zero thickness. Thus, ?/8 of wavelength is considered to be the fundamental limit of vertical seismic resolution which depends on velocity and mainly frequency. Tirado's work (2004) revised Widess's model, which is not applicable to the real reflection, and concluded that as the bed thickness decreases, there is a gradual increase in the peak frequency, but below a certain thickness (at some fraction of tuning thickness), the peak frequency rolls off and return to the peak frequency of the wavelet at zero thickness. Thus, the key factor in determining seismic resolution is by enhancing the frequency spectral bandwidth which, nowadays, can be effectively achieved either by acquiring Broadband Acquisition or conducting Broadband Seismic Re-Processing. We demonstrated various case studies on thinly bedded reservoirs using qualitative and qualitative techniques in a Cenozoic basin in Malaysia. The qualitative techniques involve the -90° Phase wavelets with Relative Colored Inversion, Spectral Decomposition, and ThinMAN broadband spectral inversion. The quantitative approach includes an integrated multi-disciplinary technique combining with Cascading AVO Simultaneous inversion and Stochastic Inversion calibrated with conventional and SHARP-OBMI logs, which together, significantly enhance imaging of the thinly bedded reservoirs. This unique integrated workflow has been applied in the field study, resulting in an increase of about 30% of hydrocarbon in-place volume, and has been successfully validated with available production/well data as well as newly drilled wells.