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Reservoir prediction using Poisson impedance in Qinhuangdao, Bohai Sea

Lixin Tian* and Donghong Zhou, CNOOC; Guikang Lin and Longcong Jiang, Beijing Intseis Solutions, Inc.
Summary
As an elastic parameter, Poisson impedance (PI) is very
important for reservoir prediction and hydrocarbon
detection in practical application. However, PI calculated
by common C-value methods is not accurate enough, which
may affect reservoir prediction seriously. Therefore, this
paper presents a new method for calculating C-value via
the target correlation coefficient analysis (TCCA). The
proposed method is examined by real seismic data from
Qinhuangdao, Bohai Sea. Test results show that the TCCA
method can increase the accuracy of PI calculation, and
may improve the reliability of reservoir prediction.

With respect to usual elastic parameters mentioned above,

PI has the following advantages:
1) PI can finely characterize lateral variations of sandstonemudstone layers, and oil-gas-water layers.
2) PI can eliminate mudstone background of P-and-S-wave
impedance, therefore PI can be applied to areas with larger
structural amplitude (see figure 2).
3) PI has calculation stability, adaptability and strong antiinterference ability.
4) PI can convert 2D abnormality into 1D curve, which is
very convenient for lithology and fluid identification.
5) Cross-plots between PI and other elastic parameters with
lithological and fluid sensitivity may provide new methods
for lithology and fluid identification.

Introduction
With the applications of rock physics analysis and pre-stack
inversion in the field of oil and gas exploration, the level of
reservoir prediction and hydrocarbon detection has
increased greatly. Generally, some elastic parameters with
lithological sensitivity such as S-wave impedance, P-wave
impedance, density, shear modulus, and bulk modulus are
employed to distinguish mudstone and sandstone, good and
poor reservoir. At the same time, fluid sensitivity
parameters such as elastic wave velocity, Poisson ratio,
Lame constant, and the ratio of P-and-S-wave velocity are
used to identify water, oil, and gas. Quakenbush (2006)
proposed the concept and calculation method of Poisson
impedance (PI) [1]. PI is defined as the difference between
P-wave impedance and S-wave impedance with coefficient
C, that is
(1)
PI
= Z p C * Zs

With characteristics discussed above, PI has now become

one of the major objectives of geophysical inversion;
simultaneously, PI has been widely used in reservoir
prediction and hydrocarbon identification.
However, it is difficult to get the exact value of coefficient
C in equation (1) in practical application. In theory, C is the
slope of the line which divides the two different kinds of
data points in the P-and-S-wave impedance cross-plot. The
line is often derived by manual-fitting or auto-matching.
On one hand, auto-matching method does not work well
because it gives the line only according to the distribution
characters of data points and it can not take the reliability
and importance of the data points into account. On the
other hand, there are too many artificial factors existed in
manual-fitting method. [4][5]

where Z p is P-wave impedance , Z s is S-wave impedance,

and C is the slope of line which can divide the points of Pand S-wave impedance cross-plot into two different data
types of points (see Figure 1) [2][3].

Figure 1 A sketch map of PI

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Figure 2 PI with elimination of mudstone base-line

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Reservoir prediction using Poisson impedance in Qinhuangdao, Bohai Sea

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PI Calculation
It is critically important to choose C-value to correctly
characterize the distribution of reservoir properties and
fluid with PI. C-value needs to be fit for the problem to be
studied. For this purpose, we propose the following method:
build the relationship plates of PI with the clay content,
Natural Gamma or the hydrocarbon saturation, resistivity
and so on, and then compute the correlation coefficient and
determine C-value according to the correlation coefficient.
We call this method as target correlation coefficient
analysis (TCCA) method. The specific implementation
steps are as follows:
1) Generate P-and-S-wave impedance cross-plot and
determine C-value positive or negative and its general
scope;
2) Choose the target curve according to the study purpose.
For example, for identifying sandstone and clay, the clay
content or Natural Gamma curve could be chosen; for
identifying oil, gas, and water, the hydrocarbon saturation
or resistivity curve could be chosen;
3) Compute the correlation coefficients between PI and
curve mentioned above at different C-values;
4) Choose C-value corresponding to the maximum
correlation coefficients;
5) Calculate PI with well-log and C-value, and compare
with the result from lithology interpretation. If they are
consistent with each other, the C-value is reasonable.

Figure 3 P-wave impedance cross-plot

Real applications
In area of Qinhuangdao in Bohai Sea, formationlithological reservoirs have developed. The distributions of
oil and gas are related to structure background and
distribution of delta-sandstone. The result of rock-physics
analysis shows that it is difficult to distinguish sandstone
and mudstone in target reservoir only by use of P- or Swave impedance. At the same time, the variation tendency
of mudstone background can affect the application result of
elastic parameters, because of the structure amplitude
existing in this area. Therefore, we adopt PI to predict the
distribution of sandstone.
Firstly, we calculate the P-and-S-wave impedance crossplot of target zone and determine a positive C-value (see
figure 3). Secondly, we calculate automatically the
correlation coefficients between PI and natural gamma
curves for different C-values. C-value is 1.23 when
correlation coefficient reaches its maximum (0.72) (see
figures 4 and 5). Thirdly, we calculate PI volume and make
the horizon slices of PI(see figure 6). The results of log
curve show that sandstone and mudstone can be well
distinguished by PI. The distribution of sandstone described
by PI is well consistent with the structure and deposition
background in this area.

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Figure 4 Correlation Coefficients for different C-values

Figure 5 Comparisons between PI and Gr under different

C-values

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Reservoir prediction using Poisson impedance in Qinhuangdao, Bohai Sea

Figure 6 Slices of P-wave impedance and PI for different

C-values
Conclusions
1) There are two methods to calculate C-value in equation
(1) currently. Auto-matching method is greatly influenced
by quality of seismic data, while manual-fitting method is
exposed to artificial factors. Both of them will result in
lower PI accuracy.
2) According to the degree of correlation between PI curve
and the target well log curve under different C-values, the
TCCA method improve the accuracy of the PI.
3) The field test shows the validity of TCCA method. The
distribution of sandstone and mudstone not only accords
with drilling results, but also accords with sedimentary
background of area formation.

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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 2010
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.
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