Lithology and fluid estimation in 3D based on seismic inversion and
geostatistics: the Rubiales field case.
Miguel Bosch, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Adriana Justiniano, Info Geosciences Technology and
Services, Gabriel Alvarez, Diego Morales, Vicmar Azuaje, Yohaney Gomez and Thais de Souza, Pacific-
Rubiales Energy.
Copyright 2012, ACGGP.
This paper was selected for presentation by an ACGGP Technical Committee following review
of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s).
Summary
Seismic data and well-logs are the major sources of
information for lithology discrimination and determination of the
spatial distribution of reservoir sands and fluids. In Rubiales
and other Llanos fields, conditions are adequate for accurate
mapping of lithology based on elastic inversion of seismic data
and petrophysical estimation of shale volume fraction. In
general, sandstones are more rigid and lighter than shale at
the basal Carbonera formation that comprises the reservoir.
Spatial distribution of sands derived from seismic information is
shown to be heterogeneous with layers and lenses of varying
reservoir quality and communication across stratigraphic
levels. The description obtained from the elastic inversion
corresponds very well with the acquired well-log information
and the geostatistical characterization of shale fraction derived
from well-logs. This morphological complexity accentuates the
importance of the 3D estimation of lithology and fluid saturation
in the area. Seismic sensitivity to fluid saturation in the
Rubiales field is smaller than lithology sensitivity, due to the
density similarities between the heavy oil and brine. However,
the spatial information provided by the large number of wells in
the field, combined with the seismic information on lithology
(which conditions the oil accumulation) provides an effective
mapping for oil-bearing sands in 3D. We achieve an adequate
combination of this information by geostatistical means,
conditioning the estimation of reservoir properties to well data
and seismically derived shale fraction. The study has been
relevant for the interpretation of the complex sand morphology,
water-oil contacts, the location of horizontal wells that increase
the productivity of the field and the definition of the static model
for the area.
Introduction
Heavy oil is produced at Rubiales field from the basal sands of
Carbonera formation, which overlay a Paleozoic basement at
approximately 800 m depth. The oil traps are stratigraphic, with
a complex morphology of interconnected lenses and strata.
Hence, the mapping of good quality sand bodies is of major
relevance, particularly for positioning horizontal wells. The
straight forward interpretation of the seismic amplitudes in full
stacks provides limited information as does not exploits the
amplitude information in pre-stack domain; some reflectors
exhibit important changes of amplitudes with offset. Seismic
inversion techniques, on the other hand, model the offset or
incidence angel reflectivity to estimate medium properties
providing relevant information for reservoir characterization
(Bosch et al., 2010). The information on elastic medium
properties obtained via seismic inversion can be used to
estimate reservoir properties and in particular medium lithology
and fluids.
We apply to 3D seismic data acquired at Rubiales field a
deterministic method of inversion for jointly estimating the
compressional seismic velocity, Vp, shear velocity, Vs, and
mass density, which are parameters that fully characterize an
isotropic elastic medium. From these parameters, elastic
moduli and relationships are also derived. As a second step,
we use various statistical classification methods such as linear
regression and discriminant analysis, to estimate the porosity,
shale volume fraction and major lithotypes, including oil
bearing sands. These methods exploit the relationship
between the reservoir and elastic medium parameters obtained
from well-log data. This step-wise approach to the estimation
of reservoir parameters is customary (see for instance the work
by Mukerji el al., 2001).
The results contribute to an accurate interpretation and a
3D description of the reservoir, with impact in the development
of a stratigraphic model for the area and location of horizontal
wells. The seismic derived lithology, estimated with the current
study, also contributes to the definition of a static model and
the corresponding simulations, in combination with the well log
data. We used geostatistical methods to define geobodies
conditioned to well-log data and the seismic derived lithology.
The inclusion of seismic information makes an important
difference to the realistic simulation of the permeability if
compared with a simpler approach based purely on well-log
data.
Methods
We treated the seismic pre-stack data (PSTM) to improve
reflections and reduce noise prior to the seismic inversion. We
then transformed seismic gathers to incidence angle domain.
Our seismic inversion procedure models the seismic data
according to incidence angle using an exact solution of the
Zoeppritz reflectivity equations. The method combines the
actual seismic data with prior information about the seismic
velocities and mass density. This prior information is derived
from the modeling of well-log data and available check-shots. It
consists of a smooth Vp, Vs and mass density model and the
 BOSCH, JUSTINIANO, ALVAREZ, MORALES, AZUAJE, GOMEZ AND DE SOUZA

geostatistical characterization of the well-log properties. The

source wavelet functions are also part of the prior information.
They are first estimated via modeling of the seismic data
against well-log information. The method considers that
seismic wavelets may vary in space within provided
uncertainties and estimate the wavelet deviations jointly with
the medium properties. These components of information are
combined in the posterior probability density,

σ(melas, msource) = c L(melas, msource) ρ( mres , msource), (1)

which is defined in the joint space of elastic, melas, and source

wavelet, msource, model parameters. The factor L(melas, msource),
above, is the seismic likelihood function and ρ(melas, msource)
the prior information probability density on the elastic and
source parameters; the scalar c is a normalization constant
(Bosch et al., 2007; Tarantola, 1987).

We characterize the relationship between the elastic

parameters and reservoir properties, such as shale volume
fraction, porosity, water saturation and litho-fluid types, based
on properties estimated from well-logs. Although this involves a
multivariable analysis, the crossplots of well-log derived
properties shown in figure 1 illustrate important issues of the
rock physics in the basal Carbonera formation. Figure 1a
shows a clear discrimination of clastic lithology in the elastic
parameter space, with sands towards the lower density and
larger Vs zone, due to shale compaction. Figure 1b, on the
other hand, shows that the acoustic impedance is poorly
correlated with lithology, and hence acoustic seismic models
are not useful in this area for lithology estimation. This also
explains the limitation of the seismic full stacks for an accurate
mapping of lithology strata. Figure 1c shows a weak sensitivity
of the well-log elastic data to the pore fluid, with a tendency of
oil-bearing sands towards the lower bulk modulus and density.

To describe the reservoir, we were interested in the

estimation of shale volume fraction (Vshale), total porosity and
categorical description of the lithology. For the latter, we
considered three basic litho-fluid classes: shale, brine-bearing
sand and oil bearing sands. We calibrated various classical
statistical methods to predict the well-log known reservoir
properties from the elastic properties estimated by the
inversion: linear regression, conditional modeling of probability
density functions and discriminant analysis. Linear regression
proves adequate for the prediction of the total porosity and
shale fraction with our data. The seismic reflection amplitude
was less sensitive to the saturation, and hence we categorized
the rock description by grouping the media in the three basic
litho-fluid classes already mentioned. We used a posterior Figure 1: Crossplots of elastic and reservoir properties
probability density modeling in the discriminant function space calculated from well-logs for the basal sands of Carbonera
to produce a suitable prediction of the oil-bearing sand litho- formation. (1a) Shear velocity versus density; the arrow
fluid class. indicates the direction of increasing vshale. (1b) Acoustic
impedance versus total porosity. (1c) Bulk modulus versus
density. Colour scales correspond to Vshale (1a and 1b)
and to water saturation (1c).

2
 LITHOLOGY AND FLUID ESTIMATION IN 3D BASED ON SEISMIC INVERSION AND GEOSTATISTICS

Figure 2: Seismic-derived shale volume fraction and most probable lithotypes for an inline extracted from the 3D seismic
volume. (2a) Shale volume fraction estimated from linear regression of elastic properties and mass density obtained from the
seismic inversion. Vshale well-log data (bold gray lines) is superposed for comparison at various well paths (straight gray lines).
(2b) Most probable lithotype estimated via discriminant analysis of elastic parameters obtained from the seismic inversion and
distance to the basement. Water saturation data (bold white lines) is superposed for comparison at various well paths (straight
white lines).

3
 BOSCH, JUSTINIANO, ALVAREZ, MORALES, AZUAJE, GOMEZ AND DE SOUZA

Our seismic-derived reservoir properties allowed for the

elaboration of various types of maps and the comparison with
the known well-log information. For a better integration with the
well-log data the properties and seismic attributes were
transformed from vertical TWT to depth. In maps and property
slices we characterized the spatial variability of the seismic
derived estimates, and compare them with the corresponding
characterization of the well-log data. Finally, we used the
information of spatial variograms and well-logs to improve the
estimation of the reservoir properties by combining well-log
and seismic-derived properties by geostatistical means, such
as cokriging, indicator kriging and geostatistical simulation. The
resulting property fields simultaneously comply with the
seismic and the well-log information in the area.

Seismic inversion results

Results for the elastic inversion of the seismic data provided

estimates of Vp, Vs, mass density, elastic moduli and ratios,
and by applying statistical regression and classification
methods we estimated the shale volume fraction, the total
porosity and basic litho-fluid classes.

Figure 2a shows a section of seismic-derived shale volume

fraction at the basal Carbonera sands, with superposition of
Vshale profiles calculated from well-logs at four well locations.
The figure shows the agreement between seismic and well-log
lithology, with 0.7 correlation factor, and high vertical resolution
of the seismic-derived shale volume fraction. The shale volume
fraction shown in this figure was calculated from a
multiparameter linear regression of the elastic properties
obtained from the inversion. We also estimated the total
porosity in a similar manner, with a correlation factor of 0.85 to
the well-log total porosity.
Figure 3. Territorial map showing lithotype classification zones
To overcome the smaller sensitivity of the elastic (bounded by black lines) and cross plot of known lithotype data
parameters to fluid changes, we combined seismic and well- at well locations (colored circles), based on the seismic derived
log spatial information to discriminate basic lithotypes: oil-sand, properties and distance to the basement.
brine-sand and shale. We used for this purpose the
discriminant analysis method, and posterior Gaussian
classification. In addition to the elastic parameters estimated
from the inversion, we also included the distance to the Figure 4 shows examples of maps in a detailed view over a
Paleozoic basement as spatial variable for the analysis. Figure sector of the area. These maps are computed in a 30 ms time
2b shows the most probable lithotypes, which include oil- window that is positioned in reference to interpreted horizons.
sands, estimated in this way for a section of the seismic Figure 4a shows the average vshale in the window, which is
volume. The oil-sand estimator showed positive agreement compared with known well-log data at the same time ranges.
with the well-log information with more than 70% success in Figure 4b shows the oil bearing sands thickness predicted by
classification of oil-sand samples; figure 3 shows crossplots in our method compared to the corresponding measured in well-
discriminant space of the known lithotypes at well locations. logs. The criterion of water saturation, Sw < 0.9, was used to
classify the oil sand from well-logs. Both maps show a very
Maps of the estimated sand thickness at the basal level of good correlation with the well-log information.
the formation were computed from the seismic derived shale
fraction, which show the heterogeneity of the formation with
typical correlation ranges of a few hundred meters. Also, the Geostatistical characterization and modeling
seismic-derived lithology was combined with well-log
information to model geobodies, permeability and distribution Seismic derived indicators for lithology and fluid provide
of oil sands in 3D, using various geostatistical methods. continuous information of the survey area, and particularly at

4
 LITHOLOGY AND FLUID ESTIMATION IN 3D BASED ON SEISMIC INVERSION AND GEOSTATISTICS

the target levels. For an improved estimation and simulation of
the reservoir properties, these results can be combined with
the well-log information. We characterized the spatial variability
of the vshale indicator and the resulting sand thickness, by
modeling the isotropic variograms. Figure 5 shows examples of
seismic vshale horizon slices and the corresponding
standardized variogram data and model. It shows an
exponential structure and a range (correlation length) of about
2 km. This measures the characteristic heterogeneity of sand
quality, which also corresponds with the observations obtained
by drilling. Sand thickness and shale fraction varies from one
well to a neighbor in relatively short ranges.
appropriate transformation of the seismic derived properties
and indicators. In figure 6a we show a horizon slice through the
volume of shale fraction estimated from the seismic inversion.
In figure 6b we show the same horizon slice through the
volume of estimated shale fraction that combines well-log and
the seismic vshale via a cokriging algorithm. It is clear that this
combination yields to a vshale configuration of improved
spatial resolution and supplemented morphology provided by
the combination of information.
Conclusions

The results also contributed to the simulation of geobodies Seismic reflection data in pre-stack domain contains
and static permeability model simulations, by combining the information of lithology for the basal level of the Carbonera
well-log data and the seismic shale fraction estimation. This formation. The estimated elastic parameters allow for a reliable
integration of information was done in the depth domain, after inference of lithology and porosity. Sensitivity of the seismic

Figure 4: (4a) Seismic-derived shale volume fraction averaged in a 30 ms time slab that ranges bewteen 40 msa and 10 ms
above the Paleozoid basement superposed to the average shale fraction at the corresponding times (color circles) at well
locations. (4b) Thickness of oil bearing sand as estimated from the statistical clasification based on the seismic inversion
results within a 30 ms time slab that ranges bewteen 40 msa and 10 ms above the Paleozoid basemen. Superposed (color
circles), the thickness of oil sands as measured in well-logs with the criterion of Sw < 0.9.

5
 BOSCH, JUSTINIANO, ALVAREZ, MORALES, AZUAJE, GOMEZ AND DE SOUZA

Figure 5: Horizon slices for the estimated shale volume fraction at (a) 5 ms bellow, (b) the center, and (c) 5 ms above a major sand
layer in the area. (d) Standardized isotropic variogram of the shale fraction derived from the seismic data calculated for various spatial
lags (black dots). The blue line shows an exponential model that fits the calculated variogram data.

data to fluids (heavy oil and brine) is smaller than for lithology
at this field. A combination of spatial well information with
elastic parameters obtained from the seismic inversion allows
for a suitable inference of the spatial distribution of oil-sands.
The inversion of seismic data with an elastic model has been a
useful tool for the reservoir characterization in this area. A
further step for detailed description of the reservoir is
accomplished by transforming from time to depth domain and
integrating the seismic-derived indicators with well-log
information via geostatistical methods. We produced estimated
and simulated 3D property fields, combining the seismic and
the well-log data, which contribute to a realistic static model of
the reservoir.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Pacific-Rubiales Energy and Info
Geosciences Technology and Services for their support to the
work and permission to publish these results.
References
Bosch, M., T. Mukerji, and E. Gonzalez, Seismic inversion for
reservoir properties combining statistical rock physics and
geostatistics: A review, Geophysics, 75, 5, 75A165-75A176,
2010.

6
 LITHOLOGY AND FLUID ESTIMATION IN 3D BASED ON SEISMIC INVERSION AND GEOSTATISTICS

Bosch, M., L. Cara, J. Rodrigues, A. Navarro and M. Díaz, Tarantola, A., 1987, Inverse problem theory: Methods for data
2007, A Monte Carlo approach to the join estimation of fitting and model parameter estimation: Elsevier Scientific
reservoir and elastic parameters from seismic amplitudes, Publ., 2005, Inverse problem theory and methods for model
Geophysics, 72, 6, O29-O39. parameter estimation: SIAM

Mukerji, T., A. Jorstad, P. Avseth, G. Mavko, and J. R. Granli,

2001, Mapping lithofacies and pore-fluid probabilities in a North
Sea reservoir: Seismic inversions and statistical rock physics:
Geophysics, 66, 988–1001.

Figure 6: Horizon depth slices though the estimated vshale volume obtained from (a) the seismic information via our inversion
methods and (b) the geostatistical combination of the seismic vshale and well-log data.