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Dennis Cooke*1, Arcangelo Sena 2, Greg O'Donnell 3 , Tetang Muryanto 4 and Vaughn Ball 4 . 1 ARCO Alaska, 2 ARCO Exploration Technology, 3 ARCO Indonesia, 4 Matador Petroleum formerly ARCO Exploration Technology
Summary It is possible to generate at least 30 different seismic attributes from a given seismic data set. This presentation addresses the question of which of those post-stack attributes is most appropriate to use for a quantitative seismic reservoir characterization. Our conclusion is that an absolute impedance inversion is the best attribute in theory, but, in practice, a relative impedance inversion is much more practical. Introduction Reservoir characterization is the process of mapping a reservoir's thickness, net-to-gross ratio, pore fluid, porosity, permeability and water saturation. Traditionally, this has been done in a field development environment using data from well logs. Within the past few years, it has become possible to make some of these maps using seismic attributes when those attributes are calibrated with available well control. The advantage of using wells and seismic instead of just wells alone, is that the seismic data can be used to interpolate and extrapolate between and beyond sparse well control. There is a multitude of different seismic attributes that can be generated from a given seismic data set. A quick review of one popular seismic interpretation package shows that one can generate at least 30 different seismic attributes from an input seismic survey. Some of these attributes are much better than others for reservoir characterization, but there has not been much discussion of this in the geophysical literature. The objective of this presentation is to try to classify seismic attributes and show which ones work best for reservoir characterization. One way to organize and understand seismic attributes is to separate them into the following four categories: 1)Qualitative attributes such as coherency - and perhaps instantaneous phase or instantaneous frequency - are very good for highlighting spatial patterns such as faults or facies changes. It is difficult if not impossible to relate these attributes directly to a logged reservoir property like porosity or thickness, and thus these attributes are not normally used to quantify reservoir properties. 2)Quantitative attributes: The simplest quantitative attributes are the amplitude (of a peak or a trough) on zero phase data, relative impedance data or absolute impedance data. In our opinion, these three attributes (zero phase amplitude, relative impedance and absolute impedance) are the most useful for quantitative reservoir characterization. 3)Interval attributes are those that are used to quantify a window of seismic data usually containing more than one peak or through. Most seismic attributes fall into this category. Examples of interval attributes are number of zero crossings, average energy and dominant frequency. These attributes are frequently used when a reservoir's seismic reflection(s) are so discontinuous that it is impossible 'pick' the same peak or trough on all traces. An interval attribute is analogous to a well log cross section with a number of thin, discontinuous sands that can not be correlated with any certainty. For this reservoir, a net-togross sand ratio map is made instead of individual sand (flow) unit thickness maps. A seismic reservoir characterization is always improved if all peaks and troughs over the reservoir interval can be 'picked' individually and thus have quantitative attributes extracted. If this is not possible, the use of interval attributes is warranted. 4)AVO attributes are those that are generated using a reflection's pre-stack amplitudes. Examples of pre-stack attributes are AVO gradient, AVO intercept, near amplitude and far amplitude. 3D pre-stack attributes have only become available recently with the advent of affordable pre-stack time migrations. Pre-stack attributes have a lot of promise, but are beyond the scope of this presentation. This talk will focus on the three main quantitative attributes (zero phase, relative impedance and absolute impedance) and address their respective advantages and disadvantages. Zero Phase Amplitudes All seismic attributes are calculated from the final migrated zero phase dataset (or what is believed to be zero phase). Clearly, the easiest, fastest, least expensive attribute is the zero phase amplitude. The convolutional model and the reflection coefficient formula show that a reflector's zero phase amplitude can be directly related to the reservoir's impedance. A thin-bed tuning curve model shows that zero phase amplitude is also directly related to reservoir thickness. Additionally, gas substitution modeling shows that a reservoir's zero phase amplitude can be influenced by changes in pore fluids. A solid theoretical conclusion is that
Figure2: Reflection coefficient probability distribution. Calculated using the impedances in Figure 1 and the formula: RC = (Z2-Z1)/(Z2+Z1) where Z1 and Z2 are the impedances of the cap and reservoir rock.
2)The second major motivation for using absolute impedance instead of zero phase amplitude concerns the amplitude scale and format problem that occurs with zero phase data. Consider an undrilled gas prospect on one 3D survey, with a second 3D survey that covers a nearby gas discovery. With zero phase seismic data, the prospect's amplitudes and the gas discovery's amplitudes can not be compared (unless a similar empirical scaling has been applied to both). Furthermore, the gas discovery's logs can not be compared the amplitudes on the zero phase seismic data. When both 3Ds are converted to absolute impedance, the seismic amplitudes can be compared to each other and to the impedance logs from the gas well. Disadvantages of Absolute Impedance Absolute impedance inversions can be very expensive in terms of both money and time delays. Frequencies in the inversion above the seismic bandpass will be non-unique. And since the input zero phase seismic data does not contain frequencies below the seismic bandpass (which are required for inversion), information at these frequencies must be supplied by the processor. The work that is done to prepare and constrain the low frequency portion of inversions can be very subjective and interpretive. Most often, this work on the low frequencies is not done by the interpreter, but by others who may not communicate to the interpreter the subjective nature of the low frequencies. A good way to understand the problem with the low frequencies in absolute impedance inversion is to consider a hypothetical inversion between two wells as in Figures 3A and 3B. Wells A and B at structural highs have tight
Figure 1: Probability density functions for the acoustic impedance of Sadlerochit reservoir and Shublik cap rock at Prudhoe Bay Field.
The data in Figure 1 are taken from a gas well and an oil well. As expected, the gas sand has slower impedance that
There are numerous ways to calculate a relative impedance inversion from the zero phase dataset. Perhaps the simplest method is based on Lindseth (1979) who rewrites the reflection coefficient formula to express impedance as the integral - or running sum - of the reflection coefficients. This running sum can also be expressed as a convolutional filter where the phase spectrum is a 90 degree rotation and the amplitude spectrum has a -6dB/octave filter. One very easy way to generate an relative impedance dataset is to use this 90 degree phase rotation filter. There are two advantages to absolute inversion listed earlier: 1) geology vs. derivative of geology and 2) the scale problem of zero phase dataset. The relative impedance dataset does just as good of a job as the absolute impedance on the first problem. However, on first inspection, the relative impedance inversion appears to have the same scale problem as the zero phase dataset it
Figure 4. Tuning curves made from synthetic relative impedance data scaled to match amplitudes with 3D survey.