Transforming Seismic Uncertainties to Reservoir Parameters: An Integrated Approach to Characterising a Carbonate Reef

Abstract

Summary The Central Luconia Province, Offshore Sarawak, is one of the world’s largest reefal carbonate depositional complexes,with over 200 known build-ups of Oligocene and Miocene age (Cycle II and Cycle IV).In general, geological models are an essential part of reservoir studies, in which Gross Rock Volume (GRV) and porosity are main key inputs in resource estimation and static model for any field to be developed.However,the accurate prediction of reservoir quality is a major challenge for hydrocarbon exploration and development. In this paper, we will discuss a case study where advance seismic technique have been applied to reduce the uncertainty in reservoir characterization. The case study from Central Luconia Province, from the legacy seismic data, internal layer could not be interpreted due to the poor subsurface image quality. However, by using the newly broadband seismic data and seismic inversion technique, internal layering can be interpreted more accurately within the carbonate. Seismic inversion results clearly show this technique was able to delineate the variations in porosity and highlight the cyclical patterns found in this carbonate reservoir. The reservoir model has greatly improved the understanding of the distribution of porosity in the reservoir zones and could be a key success factor for future field developments and well target optimization.