Abstract

Obstacles and Pitfalls of the Everyday Interpreter

Glenn E. Winters
Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd., Midland, Texas

With the advent of resource plays dominating current drilling programs, geophysics has gone from the driver of selecting drilling locations into a secondary role as engineers and landman attempt to modify the drilling process into an assembly line structure. While to a certain extent the drilling and completion procedures can be duplicated over numerous wells over a significant area, seismic data helps in differentiating geologic changes across the basin. Staying in zone, drilling the sweet spots first and avoiding geohazards is priceless when comparing the costs for acquisition of a new 3-D survey or reprocessing and inversion of existing 3-D seismic data in comparison to drilling a well that encounters those problems as mentioned above. In order to assist the drilling department in the design of the horizontal well path and to circumvent geohazards, today’s geophysicist must not only use traditional data sets but also incorporate techniques like bandwidth extension, inversions both poststack and prestack where several rock property volumes are generated and coherency applied either on a surface or upon a volume. Converting horizon surfaces to depth using multiple techniques that render the same answer is also critical. This poster will demonstrate how an interpreter can utilize these techniques in order to provide benefits in drilling resource plays.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90164©2013 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Fredericksburg, Texas, April 6-10, 2013