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Seismic engineering: a collaborative between geoscientists and engiineers

Proceedings Title : Proc. Indon. Petrol. Assoc., 31st Ann. Conv., 2007

Today, seismic is not only the domain of geoscientists but also (petroleum) engineers. Along with advancing technologies, the end product of seismic is not only for delineating, and describing static parameters of reservoir, but also for predicting and monitoring dynamic parameters of reservoir.The two main objectives of upstream oil and gas company, discovering and producing oil and gas reserves, could be expanded through seismic technology to all exploration and production cycle. An example of expanding this seismic technology is seismic engineering.Seismic engineering is simply defined as a branch of seismic that focuses not only on solving reservoir problems but also to solve engineering problems. This broad definition implies that geoscientists and engineers have to collaborate. The first example of this seismic engineering is predicting pressure distribution in the reservoir, a dynamic property of the reservoir.Pressure prediction (vertically and laterally) from seismic data is useful not only in designing drilling program, but also useful for example in designing EOR (enhanced oil recovery) programs to increase hydrocarbon recovery. Some companies run 4D seismic program in order to run EOR programs. With analysis of time lapse seismic data, some dynamic parameters of reservoir could be monitored, We can also analyze and predict dynamic parameters, such us pressure distribution from existing 3D data.The simple process of predicting pressure distribution for EOR programs has three main steps. First step is deriving pressure distribution from existing wells at the objective layer. Second step is constructing seismic attributes which related to pressure properties for that objective layer. And the final step is the process of combining pressure distribution from well and seismic data. Knowledge of the pressure distribution could be useful for example in designing EOR programs. An example of this process is being tried at one field in PT PERTAMINA EP.The second example of seismic engineering is time to depth conversion (TDC). TDC basically is dominated by geoscientists. According to seismic engineering definition, TDC is also basic input for casing design and another well materials (mud, BOP apparatus) which is an engineering domain. By collaborative communication throughout seismic engineering, this TDC will give optimal solution not only for geoscientist and engineer but also for the company. The example of TDC which use Vo-k method has been applied to some exploration and development wells in PT PERTAMINA EP.Because of increasing need of seismic engineering, intensive communication between geoscientists and engineer to fine tune this paradigm shift is needed. With focussed goals of seismic engineering, the main objectives of an upstream oil and gas company can hopefully be enhanced.

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