--> Understanding Deep Water Turbiditic Environment Based on Stratigraphic Architecture, Fine Scale Seismic Picking, Outcrops and Present Day Analogues, by Jacques Vittori; #90037 (2005)

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Understanding Deep Water Turbiditic Environment Based on Stratigraphic Architecture, Fine Scale Seismic Picking, Outcrops and Present Day Analogues

Jacques Vittori
Total, Pau, France

Understanding turbiditic reservoirs in order to optimize production performances and middle to long term hydrocarbon production is the main goal of every company involved in today's deep offshore oil business. As a result, more and more integrated reservoir studies have focused their attention in the past few years on building highly refined 3D models covering whenever possible all ranges of uncertainties. This work has been made easier by progressively integrating data from analogues with fine scale seismic picking and architectural mapping.

The building of reliable reservoir models initially needs to be guided by 2 main parameters: -net sand thickness and its distribution -reservoir connectivity (horizontal and vertical) at different scales.

Net sand thickness is the main contributor to volumetrics. Most often this parameter is deduced from well calibration and model-based, probabilistic seismic inversion. Therefore, it will not be addressed in this presentation. On the other hand, reservoir connectivity, at its different scales, is closely linked to the geological infill scenarios. Its impact on development schemes, production profiles and ultimate recovery is very strong. Examples from some offshore West African Total's fields are used in this presentation to highlight how information, gathered on some of the best outcrop and recent day turbiditic analogues, are helping to assess the internal geometry of the reservoir in terms of continuity and communication at its different scales. Channelized and lobe complex static reservoir characteristics and dynamic behavior from production data are analyzed and their main heterogeneities are calibrated on analogue observations.

As always, in most operational studies, the relationship between static description and field performance is exploited as a measure of the accuracy of the geological model. Improvement of the model itself, through the use of dynamic information, usually takes place in a later phase.