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Introduction
Within the last decade, new technologies such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have transformed
the potential of unconventional plays to a multibillion dollar industry. In addition, extracting hydrocarbons from
tight oil/gas formations is accompanied by geoscientific
and engineering challenges which are significantly different from the ones associated with conventional resource
exploration and production. The use of seismic-derived
rock properties to evaluate reservoir quality in unconventional plays has recently become a topic of interest,
which stems from the need to use more sophisticated
methods to identify high-producing resource plays. In
this paper, a seismic reservoir characterization (SRC)
workflow is presented where inversion-derived elastic
properties have been used to determine hydrocarbon
(tight-gas) production capacity in the Montney formation, northeast British Columbia, Canada. The Montney
formation is a stratigraphic unit of Lower Triassic age
and is mostly composed of low-permeability, highly
laminated organic clay, silt, and fine sand.
The workflow begins with seismic data conditioning, then prestack, simultaneous inversion for elastic
properties, followed by a petrophysical evaluation and
rock physics analysis to determine a spatial distribution of hydrocarbon production capacity. The result
obtained is corroborated with the available wells
drilled within the survey area. In addition, a volume of
seismic discontinuities representing natural fractures
and faults is used along with microseismic data to help
improve our understanding of the relationship between
reservoir production capacity and seismic-derived elastic properties.
Methology
The available data set (Figure 1a) used in our study
includes four conditioned seismic partial stacks (8
20, 2028, 2835, and 3545), horizontal and vertical wells (some with microseismic), and a volume of
natural fractures and faults (Pedersen et al., 2002) derived from poststack seismic data. A gas production
evaluation for the horizontal wells discussed in this
study is split into three zones of interest as shown in
Figure 1b. Zone 1 contains two medium-producing horizontal wells, Zone 2 includes two low-producing wells,
and Zone 3 encompasses three horizontal wells in close
proximity; one low, one medium, and one high-producer.
In addition, Zone 3 contains a vertical well with two perforated intervals with the shallow interval providing high
production, while the bottom interval produces much
less.
The work carried out in this SRC study has been
divided into four main components (Figure 2).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/INT-2013-0007.1. 2013 Society of Exploration Geophysicists and American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Figure 1. (a) Three-dimensional view of the project area displaying the drilled vertical and horizontal wells with associated mapped microseismic events, a time slice highlighting
the fracture and fault networks in the lower Montney formation as well as seismic and Poissons ratio cross sections.
(b) Seismic depth slice with fractures and faults showing
the horizontal wells discussed in this study along with mapped
microseismic hypocenters.
SB16 Interpretation / November 2013
Table 1. Various types of inversion processes along with their respective methodologies, well and seismic data
requirements, and possible volume outputs. For time lapse inversion, n-vintages refer to the unlimited number of
monitor surveys which may be used to determine the ratio change with respect to the baseline survey.
Seismic inversion processes and applications
Inversion processes
Method
Required
seismic data
Acoustic inversion
AVO inversion
Deterministic
Deterministic
Fullstack
Prestack
VP, RHOB
VP,VS, RHOB
Acoustic inversion
AVO inversion
Stochastic
Stochastic
Fullstack
Prestack
VP, RHOB
VP,VS, RHOB
Acoustic inversion
AVO inversion
Discrete spike
Discrete spike
Poststack
Prestack
VP, RHOB
VP.VS, RHOB
Deterministic
VP, RHOB
Time-lapse AVO
inversion
Deterministic
AVO azimuthal
inversion
Deterministic
PP Fullstack, PS
Fullstack
PP Prestack, PS
Prestack
Baseline
Fullstack,
n-vintages
monitor
fullstack
Baseline
prestack,
n-vintages
monitor
prestack
Prestack
azimuthal stacks
Crosswell inversion
AVO azimuthal
inversion
Inversion
applications
Lithology prediction
Deterministic
Deterministic
Fullstack
Prestack
VP, RHOB
VP.VS, RHOB
Method
Seismic data
Wall data
Rock physics
Prestack
Crossplot
analysis
Rock physics
Poststack,
prestack
Prestack
Neuial
networks
Rock physics,
neural
Geomechanics
Prestack
VP,VS,RHOB,Sw
Prestack
VP, VS.RHOB.Vsh, Vd
Prestack
VP, VS.RHOB.Vsh, Vd
Geomechanics
Prestack
Geomechanics
Prestack
Porosity
Joint porosity and
saturation
Water saturation,
resistivity
Volume of shale
Volume of clay
Pore pressure (high
resolution vels)
Mechanical
earth modeling
Wellbore
stability
Deterministic
Deterministic
VP.VS, RHOB
VP, RHOB
Output volumes
Al
Al, SI, VP/VS, PR, RHOB, LR,
MR, LM, FF, K, E, M, G, lambda
Al
Al, SI, VP/VS, PR, RHOB, LR,
MR, LM, FF, K, E, M, G, lambda
Al
Al, SI, VP/VS, PR, RHOB, LR,
MR, LM, FF, K, E, M, G, lambda
Al, SI
Al, SI, VP/VS, PR, RHOB, FF, K,
E, M, G, lambda
Baseline Al, n-vintages ratio
change Al
VP.VS, RHOB
VP, VS Isotropic, VS
Fast VS Slow, VS Fast
Azimuth, RHOB
Note: AI = acoustic impedance, SI = shear impedance, PR = Poissons ratio, LR = lambda rho, MR = mu rho, LM = lambda mu, FF = fluid factor, K = bulk modulus, E =
Youngs modulus, M = P-wave modulus, G = shear modulus, lambda = Lams first parameter.
the main inversion outputs for consideration in the seismic petrophysics part of this SRC workflow. As the inversion estimates the physical properties, the reflection
coefficients for each partial stack are calculated and
convolved with the appropriate wavelet to compare
the modeled seismic with the measured seismic data.
The mid-to-far stack strongly contributes to the estimation of VP/VS ratio and density. The high-resolution
contribution from the near- and midstacks is used without contradicting the low-frequency information in the
far-stack. For all input stacks, the application of a separate wavelet ensures that the synthetic seismic for
each partial stack has frequency content and phase
comparable to that of the measured seismic data.
The objective function Z of the inversion algorithm
for each layer property p may be written as
Z p arg min Eseismic E prior E horizontal E vertical ;
where:
Seismic petrophysics
Tight gas reservoirs are associated with a high degree of lateral and vertical heterogeneity, low matrix
porosity, and low permeability (Boyer et al., 2006).
To determine a proper understanding of the reservoir,
a simultaneous global error minimization solver is used
to perform the petrophysical analysis. Using standard
triple combo logs (gamma ray, resistivity, and neutron-density), core data, and available cuttings descriptions, we determine mineralogy, TOC, porosity, and
hydrocarbon saturation over the Montney formation.
The mineralogy (Figure 5) consists of a mix of clay, silt,
quartz, carbonates, coal, anhydrite, kerogen, and heavy
minerals. Quartz volume shows a high correlation with
porosity and is likely to be a key driver in determining
reservoir quality in the Montney formation.
Subsequently, a production classification is carried
out where all wells are split into three categories (high,
medium, and low) with respect to gas production. The
classification is based on a 30-day average, initial production (IP) rate, where a medium producer falls within
35 MMCFday. A good correlation is observed when
comparing 30-day IP averages versus the long term production of the well. Moreover, production rates are normalized to the lateral length of the horizontal wells.
A comparison between petrophysical properties and
production reveals that effective porosity, effective
water saturation, and clay volume best correlate with
production. In an attempt to represent the three production classifications in terms of petrophysical properties,
cutoffs are applied to these petrophysical logs. Although
all three affect reservoir quality, clay volume also influences the ability to effectively induce fractures in
the formation.
Next, an n-dimensional probability density function
(PDF) is established from a cluster analysis on the
log data as a representation of the variability in the formation properties. Bayesian decision theory is then
used to establish probability density functions for
solving rock physics classification problems (Duda
et al., 2000). The theorem allows for expressing the
Figure 4. Comparison of well logs (red curves), low-frequency model (green curve), and prestack inversion traces (blue curves)
at a vertical well for acoustic impedance (a), lambda/mu (b), and density (c). The Montney formation is highlighted in yellow. The
correlation between inversion results and well logs is high, giving confidence in the postinversion work carried out.
Interpretation / November 2013 SB19
Px; C j PxjC j PC j
;
Px
Px
;
1 2
where
:
2 2
Figure 5. Montney formation depth plot of mineralogy, compressional (DTP) and shear (DTS) slowness, water saturation (SW),
effective porosity (PHIE), and TOC for one of the vertical wells used in the seismic petrophysics analysis. The corresponding
mineralogy is labeled on the left-most track, where VCL is volume of clay, VSIL is volume of silt, VSAN is volume of sand, VCLC
is volume of calcite, VDOL is volume of dolomite, volume of coal is solid black, VANH is volume of anhydrite, VSM1 is kerogen,
VSM2 is heavy minerals, and VXBW is bound water. The perforated interval depths are indicated in the depth reference track
(upper perf at 1915 m, lower perf at 2050 m) as solid horizontal lines.
SB20 Interpretation / November 2013
cases, but not always. We hypothesize that seismicderived elastic properties, together with microseismic
data and a volume of seismic discontinuities representing natural faults and fractures can provide an understanding to hydrocarbon production capacity, leading
to more successful drilling decisions. Microseismic
monitoring of hydraulic fracturing treatments in tight
oil and gas reservoirs can provide useful information
about the results and the level of success of the rock
volume stimulated. For example, the length of the generated fracture systems and the geometry of the induced fracture system may be determined using
mapped hypocentral locations. In a naturally fractured
reservoir, hydraulic treatments may reactivate natural
fracture systems and therefore locally enhance permeability.
The color scheme used in the resulting hydrocarbon
production capacity (HPC) volume follows a traffic-light
approach where green corresponds to expected high
production, yellow to medium, and red to low; nonclassified samples are indicated in black. In Figure 6, a depth
slice comparison between the HPC volume and PR is
shown where two medium-producing horizontal wells
are located (cf. Figure 1b, Zone 1). The zone is dominated by relatively low PR. The HPC volume is primarily
yellow, indicating the expected production from a well
drilled in this zone is medium. Figure 7 documents the
mapped microseismic events as well as an estimated
stimulation volume (ESV). Most of the microseisms
are clustered within a zone where 35 MMCFday production is expected. The ESV uses microseismic event
Figure 7. HPC volume depth slice (a) and vertical intersection (b) through a medium-producing well showing microseismic events and an ESV where most of microseismic events are
clustered within a zone where medium production is expected.
Figure 6. Depth slice comparison (924 m TVD) between the HPC volume (a) and PR (b), where two medium-producing horizontal
wells are located (cf. Figure 1b Zone 1). The zone is dominated by relatively low PR. This observation is currently driving drilling
decisions in this asset play.
Interpretation / November 2013 SB21
Figure 8. Depth slice comparison of the hydrocarbon production capacity volume (a)
and PR (b), both with seismic-derived fractures and faults, where two low-producing
horizontal wells exist (cf. Figure 1b, Zone
2). Both wells were targeted based on PR.
The HPC cube accurately predicts the observed low production from these wells.
The available microseismic data event size
is proportional to S/N. The perforation locations are indicated by black disks.
induced microseismicity coupled to hydraulic fracture treatment and other applications (e.g., CO2 sequestration,
geothermal injection, etc.) using downhole, shallow wellbores, and surface arrays. Prior to joining Schlumberger,