Gas detection from absorption attributes and

amplitude versus offset with artificial neural

networks in Grand Bay Field.
Andy Clifford*, Saratoga Resources, and Fred
Aminzadeh, University of Southern California.


Summary:

Absorption related seismic attributes and AVO analysis
using artificial neural networks has been applied to the
exploration for shallow Plio-Pleistocene gas in the Grand
Bay Field, South-East Louisiana. While traditional AVO
analysis can be used to detect Class 3 anomalies in the
shallow gas play, a more thorough investigation using
neural networks that combines different attributes could
prove to be an effective tool to high-grade potential shallow
gas prospects in the field for future exploration and
development. The artificial neural networks were trained on
seed points fromwell control and the interpreter's visual
inspection of the AVO and absorption related attributes.
Considerable data conditioning had to be undertaken before
successful application of these techniques. Efforts were
concentrated on two particular shallow sands of interest,
both of which had previously produced from one well
apiece the 1,550 Sand and the 3,500 Sand. The analysis
supports the presence of numerous undeveloped pockets of
shallow gas in the field as well as identifying new possible
leads.
Introduction:
From our experience with shallow Plio-Pleistocene gas
targets in South-East Louisiana, many 3D surveys fail to
image the section below 3,000 feet that is prospective for
shallow gas (Clifford and Goodman, 2010 and 2011). This
is usually because of over-muting of the gathers and a
general lack of interest fromoil companies in shallow gas
due to historically low gas pricing. The shallow section of
the borehole, corresponding to the surface casing, is rarely
logged such that many wells in South-East Louisiana do
not have logs covering the shallowest 2,000 to 3,000 feet of
hole.
Once the 3D seismic data had been suitably conditioned,
the authors found that combining absorption related seismic
attributes and AVO analysis using artificial neural
networks enhances the ability to detect gas reservoirs.
Based on the results, we present application of this method
as a powerful and effective tool for detection of
undeveloped pockets of shallow gas within the Grand Bay
Field and similar targets in South-East Louisiana and the
Gulf of Mexico.

Figure 1 Satellite image of Grand Bay Field showing
shallow gas prospect outlines and location of arbitrary line
A-A'.
Evaluation Techniques:

Different seismic attributes can be combined through an
artificial neural network (ANN) to determine the areas with
high probability of gas (Figure 2). For previous such
applications, for example, see Aminzadeh (2005) and
Aminzadeh et al (2005). The training is done by picking
seed points either fromwell data or using the interpreters
insight.

Figure 2 Flow diagramshowing application of ANN to
detect gas from AVO and frequency attributes (from
Aminzadeh et al, 2005).
Listed below are the different steps of the workflow for gas
probability based on AVO and frequency attributes, using
ANN:
1. Create Partial Stack Gathers (Near, Mid, Far
offsets);
2011 SEG
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Gas detection from absorption and AVO with ANN

2. Create Mid-Near and Far-Mid and Far-Near
volumes as measure of Amplitude Variations
with Offset (AVO);
3. Calculate suite of Frequency Dependent
Attributes;
4. Create Acoustic Impedance Logs from well
data;
5. Overlay logs in the 3D seismic volume;
6. From known gas-producing columns on the
logs, pick the corresponding locations in the 3D
seismic volume as known gas;
7. Train a neural network based on those seed
points and the previously calculated AVO and
Absorption attributes;
8. Use the seed points to find other locations in the
3D seismic volume with a similar set of
attributes;
9. Create the Gas (or Reservoir) Probability
volume;
Seismic Data Conditioning:

The original Grand Bay 3D seismic data were never
adequate to show the possible presence of shallow Plio-
Pleistocene gas accumulations, known to be productive to
the immediate north of Grand Bay. The shallow section had
a fairly severe mute applied making it impossible to follow
the extent of potential shallow gas reservoirs. The data
were not of sufficient quality for detailed AVO or attribute
analysis. The 3D data were then reprocessed in 2008 in
order to better image the shallow section above 700
milliseconds TWTT. A less severe mute was applied to the
gathers, which were left relatively raw.



Figure 3 PSTM RAP arbitrary line A-A' across Grand
Bay Field.
Once the reprocessing was completed, it was possible to
suddenly see the seismic amplitude response associated
with some of the gas discoveries to the north of the field. In
fact, a large number of seismic amplitude anomalies
became evident and many of these coincided with locations
where wells had been drilled for deeper objectives. Figure 3
shows an arbitrary line across the field through a number of
shallow gas prospects. The line of this section is shown on
Figure 1. The shallow section was rarely logged by
previous operators. A second phase of reprocessing in early
2011 involved some conditioning of the gathers.
AVO Analysis:

Shallow gas anomalies often have an AVO response and
attenuation, which is a gradual loss in intensity of seismic
energy. AVO analysis generally works well in evaluating
these shallow gas reservoirs. Shallow gas pay typically
shows up as Class 3 AVO anomalies, in which the acoustic
impedance of the gas sand drops with respect to the
encasing shales.
One of the best shallow amplitude anomalies in Grand Bay
coincides with the SE Baptiste Prospect. The QQ-15 well
had been drilled in 1968 with cumulative production of
over 140 Mbo plus 2.3 Bcf from 3 deeper sands. The
existing logs began at a depth of 2,544 feet and ran to total
depth of 10,300 feet.
AVO analysis of the amplitudes around the QQ-15 well
shows strong increased amplitude versus offset. The 1,550
sand is highlighted by the red arrow. The amplitude at the
1,550 sand level could be masked by shallower amplitudes
at the 1,200, 1,050 and 800 levels. The 1,050 sand may
also be absorbing seismic signal, thus masking the
amplitude at the 1,550 sand.
A pulsed neutron log (PNL) was run in the well and
showed the presence of 5 net feet of gas pay in the 1,550
sand. With the encouraging results from the PNL
interpretation, the QQ-15 well was determined to be the
best suited to test the shallow amplitude play.
The well was recompleted in the 1,550 Sand in late 2008
and put into production. The initial production rate was
1,648 Mcfpd and the well is still producing at a rate of
almost 600 Mcfpd more than 2 years later. The well is
conservatively expected to ultimately produce 545 MMcf
but more likely closer to 1 Bcf.
A simple subtraction of far and near gathers can give an
indication of the AVO effect associated with a particular
anomaly of interest. Under proper conditions (right class of
AVO) this may be correlated with areas with high
probability of gas.
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Gas detection from absorption and AVO with ANN


One particular zone of interest for further investigation was
the 1,550 Sand, which had been encountered in only a
handful of wells in the area and which was completed in
the QQ-15 well. There is a very strong Class 3 AVO
anomaly associated with this sand.
Absorption Attributes:
It has been demonstrated that high frequency content of
seismic response attenuates more extensively as it
propagates through gas-bearing reservoirs. For examples of
experimental work on the subject see Mavko and Nur,
1979, Spencer, 1979, and Betzel et al, 2006. Figure 4
shows the power spectrumand the commonly-seen shift of
the dominant frequency caused by the presence of gas in
the reservoir (Dasgupta et al, 2000).

Figure 4 Fluid Factor Attributes relative to the power
spectrum.
As shown in Dasgupta et al, five fluid factor attributes have
been identified, each with a specific and unique function as
shown in Table 1 below:

Table 1 Fluid Factor Attributes and their respective
functions.
Various 3D attribute volumes were derived for each of the
attributes listed on Table 1. The Dominant Frequency,
Average Frequency Squared and Frequency Slope Fall
attributes were not as useful as the Absorption Quality
Factor (AQF).
AQF is defined as the area of the power spectrumbeyond
the dominant frequency. The smaller the area, the larger the
high frequency loss and the higher probability for the wave
to have travelled through a thicker gas column. An example
of AQF fromthe Grand Bay 3D dataset is displayed in
Figure 5. Note the very strong shallow absorption
anomalies above 1 second two-way travel time (TWTT).
Usually the full impact of the high frequency loss is
observed in reflection response immediately below the
layer containing the gas column.

Figure 5 AQF attribute display of arbitrary line A-A'.
An areal distribution of AQF anomalies associated with the
aforementioned 1,550 Sand is shown in Figure 6. The
anomalies are mostly undrilled or not logged by existing
well penetrations.

Figure 6 PSTM 1,550 AQF attribute anomalies.
ANN to Detect Gas from AVO and Frequency
Attributes:

The artificial neural network (ANN) training was based on
three different methods of training as follows:
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Gas detection from absorption and AVO with ANN


1. Pick sets were chosen in AVO attribute (first
method);
2. Pick sets were chosen in AQF attribute (second
method);
3. Pick sets were chosen in both AQF and AVO
attributes (third method);
This initial part of the study assumes the absence of well
control and all seed points are provided by the interpreter
from a visual inspection of the attributes (exploration
mode). The later study incorporates well control and
training based on those wells (development phase). Based
on the AVO-related attributes, a neural network was trained
to further highlight gas probability.
Second pass ANN training was based on the AQF attribute
alone. Map displays were created for each of the more
interesting shallow sands and we noted a large number of
interesting anomalies spatially distributed with several
strong anomalies dotted around the field, one of which is
coincident with a successful completion and ongoing
production. Figure 7 shows the results fromthe second
pass ANN training with the seed points coming only from
the AQF attribute anomalies.

Figure 7 Second method (AQF only) ANN anomalies.
Following this, third pass ANN training was based on both
AVO and AQF attributes.
The next phase of the study was to incorporate well data.
One particular area of interest for deep gas potential is the
Zeus Prospect with Miocene Tex W through Big Hum
objectives. Three wells (A60, A69 and A184) were key to
this analysis but the A184 well in particular was interesting
fromthe shallow gas perspective too.
ANN training was done using neutron, sonic and gamma
ray logs. Figure 8 shows the 1,550 Sand response from the
gamma ray log training.
There appears to be a much closer match between AQF
anomalies and known occurrences of shallow gas,
especially those derived from ANN training using both
AVO and AQF. While further detailed analysis is
warranted, we already have a method for high-grading gas
prospects for future drilling.

Figure 8 ANN property prediction with Gamma Ray Log
for 1,550 Sand.
Conclusions:

Application of absorption attributes in conjunction with
AVO analysis using artificial neural networks can be a
powerful and effective tool when applied to exploration and
development of shallow gas. Because many operators never
adequately processed their 3D seismic data volumes to
detect shallow gas anomalies and failed to log the first
2,000 to 3,000 feet of hole, it is difficult for later operators
to detect such gas potential. 3D data have to be conditioned
before the analyses undertaken in this study can be useful.
The real power comes frombeing able to tie absorption and
AVO anomalies plus acoustic impedance attributes, derived
fromlog data, to examples of proven success.



Figure 9: Visualization cube plus arbitrary line A-A' from
Grand Bay 3D seismic volume showing AQF attributes.
Figure 9 is a visualization cube extracted fromthe Grand
Bay 3D showing AQF attributes. The red anomalies within
the cube either coincide with known shallow gas
production or, where they have yet to be drilled or logged,
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Gas detection from absorption and AVO with ANN


with shallow gas prospects. These anomalies are between
1,500 feet and 5,000 feet in depth. Some fault traces are
evident on the display. These faults are considered
important for migration of the shallow gas fromdeeper-
seated source beds.
Acknowledgments:

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the
following people whose work contributed significantly to
this study: Elizabeth Goodman fromSaratoga Resources,
Dan Todd and Richard Provensal, who reprocessed the 3D
data, and Asal Rahimi from USC. We also acknowledge
use of dGBs OpendTect and SMTs Kingdom Suite
software to generate much of the results in this paper.






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EDITED REFERENCES
Note: This reference list is a copy-edited version of the reference list submitted by the author. Reference lists for the 2011
SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts have been copy edited so that references provided with the online metadata for
each paper will achieve a high degree of linking to cited sources that appear on the Web.

REFERENCES
Aminzadeh, F., and F. Brouwer, 2006, Integrating neural networks and fuzzy logic for improved reservoir
property prediction and prospect ranking: 76th Annual International Meeting, SEG, Expanded
Abstracts, 17521756.
Clifford, A. C., and E. Goodman, 2010, Southeast Louisiana shallow gas 1: Louisiana Lagniappe:
Shallow gas play concept, evaluation techniques, analogs: Oil & Gas Journal, December, 6.
, 2011, Southeast Louisiana shallow gas 2 Conclusion: Louisiana Lagniappe: Case study from
Grand Bay gas prospects: Oil & Gas Journal, January, 3.
Dasgupta, S., J. Kim, A. Al Mousa, H. Al Mustafa, F. Aminzadeh, and E. Von Lunen, 2000, From
seismic character and seismic attributes to reservoir properties: Case study in Arab-D reservoir of
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2011 SEG
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This article has been cited by:
1. Mohammed Farfour, Wang Jung Yoon, Jalal Ferahtia, Noureddine Djarfour. 2012. Seismic attributes combination to enhance
detection of bright spot associated with hydrocarbons. Geosystem Engineering 15, 143-150. [CrossRef]
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