8. Reservoir Characterization

Reservoir Identification and Characterization using Volume Interpretation Techniques.

John R. Chapman

Landmark, Halliburton Digital and Consulting Solutions, Malaysia.


Abstract

With the growing pressure to replace oil and gas reserves it is essential to be able to identify new opportunities in a timely manner. It is important to be able to quickly build the structural framework of a prospect and then identify the geological environment and stratigraphic variations that may affect decisions about where to drill. In this case study, several techniques were used to rapidly make decisions about where it is best to invest further time and money.

The process includes rapid volume interpretation to build the structural framework, investigation of seismic attributes to determine the geological setting and reservoir imaging and prestack seismic interpretation to get a better understanding of reservoir characteristics and distribution.

Taking advantage of the ability to do multi-volume and multi-attribute interpretation it is possible to rapidly analyze large prospects which allows for more opportunity to investigate applied geophysical techniques to gain further insight into the reservoir potential. Using reservoir imaging techniques to study the frequency response of geological features, it is possible to gain valuable insight into reservoir potential and characteristics like distribution and lateral variation. To get a better understanding of the reservoir potential and validate the prospect, analysis of pre-stack seismic data proves to be an invaluable technique to see clear differences in the prestack response due to hydrocarbons or water in the reservoir. The ability to determine what an amplitude response is due to greatly improves the confidence to develop more high quality prospects.

To be able to do this interpretation in a 3D environment means that the reservoir characteristics in relation to structure is invaluable to validate prospects faster, and better understand reservoir potential.


Last modified: Fri May 26 20:50:26 2006