3-D
Seismic Lithologic Modeling to Delineate Rapidly
Changing Reservoir Facies: A Case History from Alberta, Canada
Valery Gelfand, Gary Taylor, Jon Tessman, Ken Larner
The Lower Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs of southern Alberta, Canada, are
extremely difficult to develop due to abrupt variations in sandstone and shale
distribution. Such reservoirs occur intermittently throughout the study area
near Taber, Alberta, where estimated recoverable reserves are approximately 9.75
million bbl. In February 1984, three-dimensional seismic data were recorded for
a 4-km2 area to delineate one of these reservoirs. Data were
collected with a uniform bin size of 20 × 20 m and processed for amplitude and
phase compensation, spectral whitening, velocity and static correlations, and
poststack three-dimensional migration
. The seismic lithologic modeling process
(SLIM) was then applied to derive a thin-layer interpretation of the migrated
data. The process was loosely constrained by parameters from one of six
boreholes located within the survey area. The derived model showed remarkable
consistency with the remaining five boreholes and provided a reasonable basis
for estimating gross reservoir pore volume, hydrocarbon distribution, and
reserves in place. Development drilling based on this model is in progress.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91043©1986 AAPG Annual Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, June 15-18, 1986.