ABSTRACT: 3-D Modeling in a Complex Structural and Stratigraphic Environment, Huntington Beach Field, California

FLEMING-REESE, TRACEY, EarthQuest Technology, Inc, Bakersfield, CA; DAWNE PENNELL, EarthQuest Technology, Inc, Bakersfield, CA; DEBORAH OLSON, Digital Petrophysics, Inc., Bakersfield, CA; JOE DAVIDSON, Aera Energy LLC, Bakersfield, CA 

The Huntington Beach Field includes multiple turbidite reservoirs trapped within a highly faulted domal anticline. Nearly all field wells are extremely deviated. The Upper Main reservoir was chosen for modeling. It is stratigraphically complex with intense channeling and a lateral facies change from thick amalgamated sand packages on the west to a siltstone with occasional thin channel sands on the east. The sandy facies had been subdivided into flow units that could not be correlated into the siltstone facies, which was considered to be a single reservoir zone. The computer-based three-dimensional structural model includes 11 horizons and over 30 faults. Each fault was gridded separately using well cut data supplemented by artificial control points used to influence the projection of the fault plane beyond the modeled interval. The fault model is a valuable tool for reservoir surveillance when viewed in 3D along with the wellbores, which are color coded to indicate status. The structural model was developed by an iteration process through which problems in correlation or fault position were seen as anomalies in the 3D model and corrected. Artificial data points were added outside field limits and in sparsely drilled fault blocks to control the projection of the grid surfaces and ensure that the model was representative of a geologically reasonable structure. This was particularly important to handle the flow units to the east, where they had not been correlated but the modeling technique required their presence. The resulting structural surfaces were highly coherent and were used for reservoir management and also as input to a reservoir simulation.

FLEMING-REESE, TRACEY, DAWNE PENNELL, DEBORAH OLSON, and JOE DAVIDSON

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90911©2000 AAPG Pacific Section and Western Region Society of Petroleum Engineers, Long Beach, California