Arabian Journal of Geosciences (2019) 12:268

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4450-9

ORIGINAL PAPER

Modeling of porosity by geostatistical methods

Rachid Ketteb 1 & Mabrouk Djeddi 1 & Yacine Kiche 2

Received: 18 December 2017 / Accepted: 1 April 2019

# Saudi Society for Geosciences 2019

Abstract
Geostatistical reservoir modeling is an interpolation technique that allows geoscientists to generate different petroleum reservoir
models by integrating well logs and 3D seismic data. The application of this method involves using seismic attributes (e.g.,
acoustic impedance) with log data recorded in different wells, to predict the porosity distribution over the entire reservoir in a
geologically realistic model. The use of the Bayesian approach in the SGS algorithm adds the ability to control the variability of
the porosity in a statistical way, by taking advantage of the porosity’s probabilities of occurrence as a function of the acoustic
impedance value at each point in the reservoir.

Keywords Seismic inversion . Modeling . Characterization . Simulation . Acoustic impedance

Abbreviations Phi Porosity

Zi Measurement of a variable AI Acoustic impedance
Zv True value of the variable K(s) Kernel function
Z *v Estimator SGS Sequential Gaussian simulation
λ Constant
γ Variogram
h Distance between two measurements Introduction
Var Variance
2
σ Minimum variance
e Reservoir characterization is a critical process during a well’s
COV Covariance life, throughout its exploitation to its depletion. The character-
KDE Kernel density estimator ization success is highly dependent on the accuracy of
PDF Probability density function petrophysical property modeling and their geologic realism.
SE South-East This challenge requires a deep knowledge of the spatial
NW North-West distribution of petrophysical properties such as porosity and
f Function fluid saturation. Since it is not possible to measure these prop-
erties at all reservoir spatial points, geophysical tools such as
3D seismic reflection data are usually combined to extract
Editorial handling: A. Dehghani
valuable information capable of driving well property interpo-
lations in a consistent way.
* Rachid Ketteb
rketteb@usthb.dz
The measurements of the logs allow an accurate estimation
of the porosity. However, these measurements provide local
Mabrouk Djeddi information, and the petrophysical information obtained fo-
djeddimabrouk@yahoo.com cuses exclusively on the well path neighborhood. The models
Yacine Kiche
of calibrated reservoirs from these log data are therefore poor-
yacine.kiche@gogeo.biz ly conditioned as soon as one moves away from the well. It is
therefore obvious that logs alone are not enough to constrain
1
M’hamed Bougara University, Boumerdes, Algeria reservoir models.
2
Helioparc Technopole, 2 avenue of President Pierre Angot, 3D seismic method has the advantage of providing contin-
64000 Pau, France uous three-dimensional images, and their use is commonly
 268 Page 2 of 12
used during the construction of the geometrical envelope of a
reservoir model (Doyen 1988). However, using seismic data
in modeling is difficult because the relationship between po-
rosity and seismic amplitudes is unclear.
To overcome these deficiencies, inversion techniques are
used; they allow us to integrate the data (logs and seismic) in
order to create a reservoir model closely similar to the geolog-
ical reality. These techniques are based on geostatistical
methods, which offer powerful mathematical tool that allows
us to get a generalized model that integrates all parameters
(petrophysical, elastic, and acoustic) of the rock.
The aim of this work is to build an accurate model of the
porosity distribution in the Tensleep reservoir, by using
Bayesian geostatistical modeling which allows us to take advan-
tage of inversions using seismic impedance as an external drift.
Geostatistics overview
Geostatistical methods use statistics that deal with problems of
serial spatial data, interpolation, mapping of distributed data,
and related problems. Generally, they are those time series
analyses adapted and extended to spatial data (Ripley 1981).
Initially, the geostatistics were used by Krige (1951) as a sci-
entific method of mine valuation. Since, the success of these
methods has triggered its propagation into many science fields
in which data predictions are a basic requirement.
Accordingly, the oil and gas industry have rapidly adopted
these techniques where it becomes urgent to understand the
underground’s behavior with a minimum of uncertainties, in-
stead of having a rough estimation based on surface observa-
tions. Fortunately, the notable progress in computation de-
vices since the 1970s made the use of such hard processes
within the reach of every geoscientist. Consequently, the com-
puter revolution has opened the door to more complex adap-
tations, where it becomes possible to incorporate a large
amount of data to converge toward more realistic solutions.
Nowadays, thanks to geostatistical modeling, integrating geo-
logical and geophysical data in the same process becomes a
promising solution for higher accuracy prediction. Some
geostatistical basic concepts are highlighted below to have a
brief insight about the physical principles behind each tool
which may be integrated in the present work.
Variogram
Understanding geostatistics must necessarily go through the
understanding of the variogram which is a powerful statistical
tool that enables the modeling of a random-variable distribu-
tion law as a function of the spatial position and their orienta-
tion of each data pair. Hence, the variogram could be exploited
to identify the orientation and extent of geological structures,
either by integrating seismic attributes or well data. The data
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
point’s correlation is translated into an ellipse where the axis
parameters define the size and trend orientations. For two
measurements, Zi and Zi + 1 of a given variable (for example,
acoustic impedance) are spaced with a distance h in a given
field at the same level. The variogram in an unknown point Zn
is written as follows:
1 N ðhÞ
γ e ð hÞ ¼ ∑ ½Z i −Z iþh 2 ð1Þ
2N ðhÞ i¼1
where N(h) is the number of pairs whose points are spaced by the
same distance h. By varying the distance h to cover all the data
point pairs, and by considering the orientations of the vector
passing through each point pair, the directional variograms could
be gathered into the ellipse described above. Therefore, each
variogram will be defined by its sill (maximum value of the
variogram), the range (distance corresponding to the maximum
value of the variogram), and the direction.
Kriging and simulations
Kriging is a data interpolation method developed in the early
1970s by George Matheron as an alternative for the existing
linear interpolations (Matheron 1971); it is used for an optimal
estimation at unmeasured points based on the surrounding
known points commonly known as conditioning data, by sim-
ply solving a linear matrix system expressed in Eq. (2) (mea-
sured and unmeasured points are samples of the same physical
property denoted by the primary data). Hence, an unknown
data block V centered at the position (Xo, Yo) could be simu-
lated by combining linearly the variogram value Zi corre-
sponding to the distances separating the position (Xo, Yo) to
the surrounding known points (Xi, Yi). By solving the below
system, the weights λi relaying the conditioning data to the
unmeasured points could be found. The linear estimator can
be written as:
Z *v ¼ ∑ni¼1 λi Z i ð2Þ
where Zi denotes the variogram values of the random variables
corresponding to the sample points.
Jointly, the kriging enables also the prediction of the joint
variance, which will be a useful input for the incoming steps
of the present work:


σ2e ¼ Var Z v −Z *v


 ð3Þ
¼ Var½Z v  þ Var Z *v −2COV Z v ; Z *v
Co-kriging is another geostatistical variant allowing to con-
straint the prediction by an additional dataset (secondary
dataset) which will play the role of a trend driver. However,
this additional constraint will imply the use of two additional
variograms, namely, the secondary data variogram and the
cross-variogram between the primary and the secondary
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268 Page 3 of 12 268

8
datasets. The complexity raised on the co-kriging is, in gener- < f ðzÞ≥ 0
þ∞
al, resolved by the use of collocated co-kriging which is a ð5Þ
: ∫ f ðzÞ⋅dz ¼ 1
simplification by matrix size reduction (Xu et al. 1992). −∞
Other similar simplifications could also be found in the liter-
ature (Chiles and Delfiner 1999 for universal kriging and The 2D probability density function (PDF) is estimated
Sandjivy 1987; Daly et al. 1989 for the factorial kriging). using the non-parametric kernel density estimator (KDE)
Sequential Gaussian simulation (SGS) is probably the most (Rosenblatt 1956). The KDE of the porosity (Phi) and the
popular geostatistical method for data simulation (Deutsch acoustic impedance is expressed as follows by Wand and
and Journel 1992). It uses one of the kriging variants to sim- Jones (1995) for all the Bn^ points:
ulate a physical property over a block of desired positions. The    
1 n Phi−Phii AI−AIi
SGS goes randomly through the positions and simulate by f ðPhi; AIÞ ¼ ∑K K ð6Þ
nh1 h2 i¼1 h1 h2
kriging the unknown value by considering the conditioning
data around. However, the criteria of choosing the condition- where: h1 and h2 are the class widths of the kernel and K is the
ing data can vary for each given case. The most common kernel function.
technique is to consider the conditioning points for which
þ∞
the distance to the desired position is lower than the variogram
K ¼ ∫ K ðxÞdx ¼ 1 ð7Þ
range. The jointly simulated variance is used to define the −∞
Gaussian distribution law, corresponding to each simulated
value, and then, to be able to draw randomly multiple equi- Bayesian sequential Gaussian simulation
probable realizations within the Gaussian distribution law. At
the end of the process, the SGS delivers many possible simu- Furthermore, in contrast with kriging variants where the user has
lations for the data block, and the final simulation will be really no control on the calibration of the trend driven by the
taken by averaging all the available simulations. secondary data, an interesting alternative was proposed by Omre
(1987). The approach is called Bayesian kriging (BK). BK repre-
sents an intermediate solution of all the other variants, where a
Bayes theory priori probabilistic constraints are imposed on the trend coeffi-
cients (Omre and Halvorsen 1989).
Bayes theorem is introduced here as the corner point of the The simulation algorithm presented in this paper is SGS by the
approach proposed in this paper. The theorem describes the Bayesian approach. The Bayesian kriging has been integrated in a
probability of occurrence for an event, based on prior simulation loop identical to the classic SGS loop, to simulate the
knowledge about conditions that might be related to its porosity considering the acoustic impedance variation over all the
generation. For example, in geoscience, having a prior idea reservoir area as prior information. The specificity of this approach
about the lithology could be exploited to estimate the is that the probability function characterizing the simultaneous
probability of a reservoir to be porous. occurrence of porosity and the impedance is performed in the well
By definition, the conditional probability that an event A positions and used as a prior model for the Bayesian simulation.
will occur given a second event B is: The Bayes formula can be written in a less abstract form where
Phi (porosity) is the primary variable and AI (acoustic impedance)
PðA∩BÞ PðAÞPðB=AÞ is the second variable:
PðA=BÞ ¼ ¼ ð4Þ
PðBÞ PðBÞ
   
where: Phi 1 AI
P ¼ P  PðPhiÞ ð8Þ
AI PðAIÞ Phi
P(A ∩ represents the joint probability that events A and B
B) occur simultaneously. where: P(Phi/IA) is called a posterior distribution, P(Phi) is the a
P(A) is called the unconditional or marginal probability priori probability determined from the kriging and variogram pa-
of event A. rameters, P(Phi/AI) is the likelihood evaluated by the 2D PDF, and
P(AI) is a normalization factor.
Bayesian simulation steps are listed below:

Probability density function 2D
A random variable Bz^ is a variable taking a range of possible
values according to a probability distribution function if it
satisfies both of the following conditions:
1. The first step is to define a random path scanning each of
the nodes to be simulated;
2. For each node, the following needs to be calculated:
– The prior distribution
 268 Page 4 of 12 Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268

Fig. 1 The different stages

involved in the reservoir Seismic data
Well
modeling data

Structural Prestack data

Geostatistical interpretation gather
parameters
evaluation Frame work Angle
model decomposition

Stochastic • Near;
inversion • Middle ;
• Far.

• Histograms facies • Acoustic

discrimination. impedance
• Vertical variograms cube.
• RockPhysicsClusterin

Model :
Phi ;

– Likelihood function (the likelihood is then obtained 3. This process is repeated until all nodes in the grid have
from the joint probability density of the other variable been processed.
which is considered known in the node to be simulated)
– The posteriori distribution: these two distributions, eval-
uated at the same nodes, are then multiplied, and the
result is divided by the joint probability P(AI). This
latter probability is obtained by summing the densities Methodology
of the non-normalized posterior distribution;
– From this posterior distribution, a value of the param- The major steps of the standard reservoir modeling processes
eter (Phi) is drawn randomly and added to the grid of are shown in Fig. 1. However, these can vary depending on
the simulated values; the type of the reservoir and the data availability. This

a b
Fig. 2 a Location map. b Cross-line section
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
workflow shows how seismic and well data are integrated for
an efficient reservoir property modeling.
Known as a seismically driven reservoir characterization
workflow, this process has shown high performance in many case
studies of property propagation and similar prediction challenges.
The success is mainly coming from the use of geostatistical
simulation where the seismic data and its derivatives (namely
attributes and inversions) could be used to drive the propaga-
tion process instead of using pure mathematical interpolations.
These constraints brought a realistic geological meaning for
the generated models; therefore, the modeling uncertainties
have been effectively reduced.
In this paper, we attempt to model the Tensleep reservoir
porosity by taking advantage from the statistical relationship that
exists between the acoustic impedance and the porosity. The
integration of such relationship becomes possible by using se-
quential Gaussian simulation with the Bayesian algorithm de-
scribed in the section above to simulate the 3D extent of the
reservoir’s porosity field by taking the impedance as a trend.
The practical steps which have been followed in the present
work are listed here. First, a 3D structural grid is built from the
horizons and faults available around the area of interest. This
framework will hold all the available data including impedance
and porosity logs and the 3D impedance model. It is, therefore,
the container for all the simulation process. It is very important to
notice that the vertical sampling of this grid must be equal to the
seismic sample rate, to be able to hold all the seismic samples
without any losses. The porosity and impedance logs may need
to be downsampled to fit the grid cells size. The log upscaling is
very sensible operation and should be handled with care to not
disturb the data integrity. Abaqus averaging method is highly
recommended for impedance upscaling. Secondly, at the well
locations, the statistical parameters are defined; this includes the
porosity PDF law of porosity and the likelihood function be-
tween porosity and impedance by referring to Eqs. (6) and (8).
The variogram characterizing the porosity distribution is also
calculated from the lateral sampling of the porosity logs.
At the third step, the porosity logs are kriged using the SGS
to come out with a desired number of realizations. Each real-
ization is a possible true simulation of the porosity. SGS uses
the variogram to express the porosity through its covariance
matrix to make predictions of non-existing data as a function
of nearby known samples. The variogram major and minor
axes define the elliptical area from where the known samples
could be integrated into the simulations. The samples coming
from the wells out of the variogram ellipse area will not con-
tribute to the simulation process due to the low correlations.
At each node position, the PDF is used to generate various
realizations by simply taking random probabilities and grab-
bing the corresponding porosity values in the PDF curve.
The previous process came out with a number of possible
realizations which are mathematically possible. The likeli-
hood function characterizes the probabilistic relation between
Page 5 of 12 268
the porosity and the impedance. This means that for a given
impedance, there is a unique porosity range with a high prob-
ability of occurrence. In the fourth step, this relation is used to
filter out the SGS realizations to select only the more probable
porosity model according to the given impedance model.
This sequence is repeated for each grid node following a
random path until all the nodes are processed. The random path
scheme has an important role in the output simulation shape.
Hence, it is better to choose many random paths for the porosity
simulation. And at the end, we came out with a small number of
possible models which are globally similar. This allows us to
generate an average model, an optimistic and a pessimistic po-
rosity model. At this point, it is possible to bring a detailed
porosity model with uncertainty study. The QC of the final
models is done by taking a blind well test, where the data related
to this well is not used in any of the above steps. A correlation
between the real and simulated porosity will define the method
prediction ability and may prove the process performance.
Study case: application on real dataset
Data gathering
Teapot Dome, which includes the BTensleep^ formation is a
part of Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center and is located
35 miles north of Casper, Wyoming, USA. Tensleep reservoir
is composed of solid sandstone, with fine to medium grain
size. Generally, the largest grains are frosted. The sandstones
are porous and friable, although locally hard.
Seismic data
The seismic data consists of a 3D reprocessed seismic cube
(Fig. 2) of 345 inlines and by 188 cross-lines, spaced by
100 ft. (33 m), the time length of the traces is 3500 ms. The
seismic’s amplitude cube preserved with good-quality data in
terms of continuity, coherence, and resolution, the dominant
frequency is around 45 Hz.
Logging data
In order to carry out the modeling, ten vertical wells (Fig. 3),
targeting the Tensleep formation have been integrated. The well
lateral distribution is homogeneous and follows the diagonal
(SE-NW) extent of the Teapot Dome. Most of the used logs
are checked and corrected of any errors (spikes, washouts, etc.).
The geological events are marked by a set of top formations,
indicating the major event’s position according to the previous
core date interpretation.
 268 Page 6 of 12 Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268

a b
Fig. 3 a Well location map. b Different logs recorded in well 10_1

Seismic inversion amplitudes to acoustic impedances. However, it is impor-

Many options are available to build the 3D impedance
model needed for the Bayesian simulation described
above. Colored inversion and deterministic inversion of-
fers the fastest and the simplest way to invert seismic
tant to take in consideration that the correlation between
the impedance and the porosity should be higher (Buland
et al. 2008). Unfortunately, due to the low resolution, the
impedance produced by these inversions is not powerful
enough to capture the fast variations of the porosity.

Seismic A priori
data model

Quantitative Direct
comparaison problem

Change
If is Parameter
minimum

Yes

Use

a b
Fig. 4 a Seismic inversion workflow. b Results of a realization of acoustic impedance obtained by inversion
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
Fig. 5 Structural model
Alternatively, the stochastic inversion used here is able to
respond positively for this requirement. The theory of the
stochastic inversion technique is based on the use of
geostatistics to combine the seismic amplitude (which
covers the whole surface of the reservoir) with the well
data, to build a high-resolution impedance model (Haas
1993; Dubrule 2003). Figure 4a shows the simplified
workflow of the stochastic inversion.
By using the SGS described above, a trace of impedance is
simulated at a random position by kriging using as conditioning
data the impedance logs calculated at the wells from the sonic
and density. The simulation trend is driven by the variogram
parameters, and the corresponding variance is used to generate
multiple realizations of impedance traces at each single position.
The corresponding synthetic traces are compared with the origi-
nal seismic trace in the same area. Only high correlated realiza-
tions will be considered for the final impedance model.
Figure 4b shows an example of one of the realizations by
displaying the superposition of the impedance log on the seis-
mic sections (Inline) crossed by the wells. When the impedance
model matches perfectly the impedance log, the calculated
acoustic impedance model will be used to drive the simulation
of petrophysical property cubes (namely the porosity).
Fig. 6 Reservoir grid
Page 7 of 12 268
Construction of the reservoir grid
Before starting the modeling, the interpretation of the seismic
data must be done in order to map the layers of the reservoir
such as the top and the base of the reservoir and reveal the
existence of faults in the structure. This structural and strati-
graphic interpretation (Fig. 5) will be used in the processes of
geological modeling and porosity simulation.
The construction of the grid is the most important advance-
ment brought about by earth modeling software. The grid
constitutes the link between the geometrical and the property
models (Dubrule 2003). It is based on a defined structural
model Bframework.^ A 3D structure grid is built subdividing
laterally the 3D geological grid into cells of 33 × 33 m, as
shown in Fig. 6. The vertical grid layering is done by
subdividing the vertical axis to layers following the geological
events of the structural model and must respect the deposition
system in terms of stratigraphy.
The reservoir grid is a complex three-dimensional mesh,
generally defined in depths, where each cell will be filled by
the petrophysical and elastic properties that interest us, but for
this work’s purpose, where the inversions are required, the 3D
grid is built in the time domain. The depth conversion is
 268 Page 8 of 12
Deterministic inversion
Fig. 7 Seismic attributes snapping
carried out and operated at the end of the modeling process via
a 3D velocity model.
Seismic attribute snapping to the grid
The next step is to integrate the information issued from the
seismic inversion and attributes into the reservoir grid (Fig. 7).
A simple arithmetic averaging is used to calculate the average
impedance value to be attributed to each grid cell. For an
accurate result, the vertical layering should be as close as
possible to the seismic trace which itself needs to be
resampled to 1 ms. Fewer samples will be averaged and less
information will be lost.
Fig. 8 Histograms of acoustic
impedance and porosity
Well 10-1
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
Stochastic inversion
Evaluation of the main geostatistical parameters
The main parameters necessary for the porosity modeling by
the SGS method with the Bayesian approach are:
Acoustic impedance and porosity histograms
The histograms are calculated using the well logs, which pro-
vide information about the distribution of acoustic impedance
and porosity.
The histograms show the distributions of acoustic imped-
ance and porosity at the wells (Fig. 8).
The total histogram of the acoustic impedance shows a
distribution approximating to a normal one. On the other
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
Fig. 9 Variogram estimation
hand, the porosity histogram of all the data has a distribu-
tion approaching a normal log, with several low values
(between 0 and 1% of porosity) and some higher values.
However, SGS modeling gives better results when porosity
distributions are normal. This is not a necessary condition.
For this purpose, a normal transformation of the porosity
values is used to better differentiate the low values.
Fig. 10 Impedance vs. porosity bivariate cross-plot
Page 9 of 12 268
Variograms
It is important to be able to evaluate the spatial variations of the
porosity in order to simulate realistic models according to the
available information. An acoustic impedance cube serves as a
guide to the spatial variations of porosity by the relation existing
between the two properties. Using the Bayes approach method of
 268 Page 10 of 12 Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268

Fig. 11 Sequential Gaussian Choose a random

simulation (SGS) Simulate the value of P by Kriging
position
(or coKriging)

Calculate the CDF curve for P,

Selection of the and choose the most probable
Acoustic Impedance realization.
of cell n.

The simulated value of P becomes

input.

SGS, spatial variability of porosity is expressed by variograms
calculated from the porosity data evaluated on the logs.
The variogram function (Eq. 1), usually increasing, accord-
ing to h synthesizes a lot of information concerning the joint
behavior of the random variables and concerning the continu-
ity of the heterogeneity.
The horizontal ranges are evaluated from the seismic attri-
bute data, in particular, the acoustic impedance. The
variograms are calculated, and presented in Fig. 9, for all the
different interfaces of the Tensleep model following different
directions (azimuths). The variogram seal points are used to
define the minor and major ranges and therefore the variogram
ellipse. Vertical ranges are estimated directly from the scaled
logs, particularly the assessed porosity log.
Probability density function 2D: acoustic impedance
and porosity
The probability density function is used to find a relation
between the porosity and the acoustic impedance from the
logs.
Figure 10 shows the cross-plot of the acoustic impedance
and porosity data evaluated on resampled logs of 1 ms.
Simulations of porosity by SGS
It is a very common technique in geological modeling.
Figure 11 illustrates its concept. Starting from a point where

Fig. 12 The Tensleep reservoir porosity model

Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
Fig. 13 Tensleep reservoir porosity distribution
the property P is known, the magnitude of this property can be
predicted at another point in the reservoir model.
The simulation of the value of P in a given cell is done
under a number of assumptions:
& Normal distribution (zero mean and standard deviation = 1).
& Stationarity (statistical properties do not change according
to position).
The SGS method starts in the randomly selected grid cell,
then uses the corresponding acoustic impedance in which the
Fig. 14 Comparison between estimated and measured porosities
Page 11 of 12 268
cell n is located in order to calculate a number of realizations
of Phi by kriging the probabilities Pn(Phi) of the porosity
value using Eq. (4).
In the third step, we calculate the a priori distribution Pn(Phi);
this distribution is calculated by simple kriging using the
variogram. For each grid cell n, the global likehood P(AI/Phi) is
simulated based on the 2D PDF function of the acoustic
impedance.
By the multiplication of the a priori distribution and the
likehood evaluated at the same points, the posteriori
 268 Page 12 of 12
distribution is normalized by the marginal probability of the
porosity as well as by its total area under the curve.
Finally, the cumulative posteriori distribution of the porosity is
calculated and a random value of porosity is obtained and assigned
to the cell n to be modeled. This porosity value is then considered a
priori value for the simulation of the other grid cells. These steps
are repeated sequentially for all the cells until the porosity is sim-
ulated in all the grid’s cells.
After several iterations, we obtained a porosity model of the
Tensleep reservoir, as shown in Fig. 12.
To better analyze the porosity distribution in the area of
interest, a map of the porosity is extracted at each of the res-
ervoir horizons. By filtering the low porosity values on the
maps, the lateral variation of PHI at the top of Tensleep reser-
voir is shown in Fig. 13. The porosity becomes lower and less
concentrated when moving South in the Teapot Dome area.
Cross-plot porosity
To validate the model of the porosity that was obtained, a compar-
ison was made between the estimated porosity value and the total
porosity value measured on each log at the wells. Figure 14 shows
the results of the comparison.
Conclusion
The results of this study show the advantages of geostatistical
simulations in predicting the porosity distribution, despite the spe-
cial conditions of the Tensleep reservoir: a complex and varied
geology and a law porosity whose petrophysical relation with the
acoustic impedance is less correlated.
The integration of 3D seismic data (seismic amplitude and
acoustic impedance) and log data from sequential Gaussian
simulation with a Bayesian approach allowed the creation of
porosity models in Tensleep reservoir to better understand the
distribution of the porosity which is key for a relevant ad-
vanced characterization job.
The Bayesian approach makes it possible to control the
variability of the porosity relations by considering the proba-
bilities of the porosity occurrence as a function of acoustic
impedance value at each cell of the grid.
An advanced work can be driven on this trend by integrat-
ing the facies distribution as a constraint. Different classes
Arab J Geosci (2019) 12:268
related to the facies could be considered to have appropriate
statistical parameters locally. This will refine the relation be-
tween the porosity and its trend, namely the impedance, so the
resulting simulations may be better correlated.
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