Crouch, Syrie V.¹, David. C Brown¹
(1) Shell Oil Company, Houston, TX

ABSTRACT: Bridging the Gap from Seismic to Sub-Seismic Reservoir Heterogeneities with Limited Well Control

In the process of building reservoir models of deepwater reservoirs to aid in appraisal and early development planning, the modeler must handle a wide range of uncertainties. These uncertainties have an impact at various scales throughout the static and dynamic model building process. Billion-dollar investment decisions are being made on the basis of predictions from these static and dynamic models.
This paper discusses the methodology of bridging the information gap between the seismic information, which is present across the entire field, and the isolated point of well control, with it’s detailed information in the vertical domain but exceptionally limited in the horizontal domain. The model may have a 5” ground truth in a single (perhaps undisturbed) core sample. On the other hand there are numerous outcrop studies illustrating the variety of deepwater depositional architectures and the importance of sub-seismic scale features on flow characteristics.
The process is fourfold: 1) Maximize the use of information hidden within the seismic, how far can we push the seismic structure and stratigraphy using a variety of technologies to tighten our coarse framework model? 2) Understand why the coarse model reacts like a tank and recognize what critical elements are not present; 3) Model and comprehend the impact of the fine scale features on dynamic fluid behaviour; 4) Understand the impact and the effect of upscaling back into the full field model.
However, this is the unconstrained world away from well control, therefore scenario modeling is vital. In this arena there are no certainties only ideas. The name of the game is scenario modeling and uncertainty management.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90026©2004 AAPG Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas, April 18-21, 2004.