Publications

The drilling of value-added infill producer and water injection wells is being optimized by 3-D seismic coverage in mature oil fields. Water movement and reservoir sweep efficiency have been linked to the seismic modeling world by a newly developed acoustics physics forward modeling program.The new forward modeling technique uses conventional open hole logs coupled with state of the art geophysical modeling routines to predict seismic attributes according to reservoir fluid properties, saturations, porosity and lithology. Seismic attributes, such as stacked amplitude and/or amplitude strength variation with offset (AVO) data, are extracted from the 3-D seismic data cube and compared to the attributes predicted by the forward model. Reservoir fluid saturations and sweep efficiency can then be mapped directly using the 3-D seismic coverage.The technique has been successfully used in West Africa, Australia's Northwest Shelf, the North Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. Case studies from several of these areas will be presented.