Seismic Through Simulation With Integrated Time-Lapse Workflow

Abstract

Abstract

A high fidelity seismic to simulation workflow is executed for a mature field case study spanning seismic cross-equalization through well planning for bypass pay identification with requisite infill drilling. Associated with the study is the examination of cross-domain technological collaboration, which highlights risk and uncertainty minimization through maintained consistency between the subsurface model and historical production. This consistency is achieved by relating the simulation results to the seismic, and vice versa, leading to accurate business decisions.

This work illustrates a high fidelity seismic to simulation workflow employed in a mature field. To demonstrate the fidelity of the employed method a dual quantitative cross-validation through time-lapse inversion workflow incorporating petro-elastic modeling in time as well as depth is used to enhance the interpretive capability of seismic reservoir properties for engineers. A priori planning of reservoir and simulation spatial grid scales is performed to help minimize the impact of resampling and upscaling on the time-dependent analysis of seismic and simulation. The accuracy of the solution is validated by computing the difference between concurrent seismic and flow simulation results.

The results show marginal variation between the results analyzed in time and depth. The variation in the results mainly come from the types of inversion methods, petro-elastic modeling methods, vertical and spatial resampling. The minimization in resampling by a priori spatial grid sampling reduced overall inaccuracies from being introduced into the comparative quantitative analysis. The processes used by the overall workflow are mostly agnostic to time or depth driven collaboration; therefore, they can easily be fully or partially incorporated into any existing workflow with simplicity in order to enable rapid and accurate reservoir decision-making. The final results show cross-domain bypassed pay analysis through efficient, streamlined interpretation and simulation.

The methods employed in the execution of this study reconcile seismic and simulation in depth and time driven 4D workflows in infill drilling to exploit bypassed pay. The early cross-domain consideration of scale and accurate velocity modeling help minimize upscaling ambiguities and resampling artifacts typically introduced in classical workflows.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90260 © 2016 AAPG/SEG International Conference & Exhibition, Cancun, Mexico, September 6-9, 2016