Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814

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Journal of Applied Geophysics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jappgeo

Realization ranking of seismic geostatistical inversion based on a

Bayesian lithofacies classification - A case study from an offshore field
Mostafa Zare Chahooki a, Abdolrahim Javaherian a,b,⁎, Mohammad Reza Saberi c
a
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 15875-4413 Tehran, Iran
b
Formerly Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, 1435444111 Tehran, Iran
c
CGG, Bordewijklaan 58, 2591 XR, The Hague, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Seismic inversion which is defined as the process of converting seismic boundary reflections into layer elastic
Received 24 September 2018 properties plays a vital role in different methods of seismic reservoir characterization. It can be done through ei-
Received in revised form 29 April 2019 ther deterministic or geostatistical approaches, and geostatistical inversion is the recommended approach for
Accepted 8 July 2019
heterogeneous and complicated reservoir due to its capability in capturing the details of a reservoir with the as-
Available online 15 July 2019
sociated uncertainties. However, a common issue with the geostatistical approach is generating a large number of
Keywords:
realizations with the same probability which needs to be ranked based on some pre-defined criteria. This study
Geostatistical inversion applied a pre-stack geostatistical inversion on an offshore field in the Persian Gulf using a Bayesian framework to
Realization ranking produce the joint posterior probability density function (PDF) of P-wave seismic impedance (IP) and S-wave seis-
Lithofacies classification mic impedance (IS). This global PDF was then, decomposed into local ones at the trace locations using a sequential
Bayesian theorem Gaussian simulation technique. Furthermore, these local PDFs were sampled and 250 realizations of IP and IS gen-
Oil probabiliy erated accordingly. These elastic properties were then converted into lithofacies, and were ranked based on the
oil-producing volume lithofacies. Well log data showed a useful distinction of the oil sand lithofacies in the IP vs.
VP/VS crossplot, and this domain was used to compute the PDFs for classifying lithofacies derived from the seismic
inversion. Moreover, the oil lithofacies volumes were calculated, and the realizations were sorted to generate the
probability of P10, P50 and P90 scenarios. Also, the probability of oil presence within the reservoir was computed
using all of the classified realizations.
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction et al., 2010). This smoothness in the reservoir properties, as a result of

The main objective of any seismic reservoir characterization
methods like inversion is to qualify or quantify subsurface petrophysical
properties (like porosity) using seismic measurements. A seismic sur-
vey is an indirect tool to monitor elastic changes at the boundary of
two layers, and an inversion process is a practical approach to convert
the measured boundary properties into layer properties. Therefore, seis-
mic inversion is considered as the heart of any seismic reservoir charac-
terization workflows and is defined as the process of extracting elastic
properties of subsurface layers from seismic data. In general, seismic in-
version is applied through either deterministic or stochastic approaches.
Deterministic inversion is only capable of providing the best determin-
istic solution for the seismic data without any uncertainty analysis
(Francis, 2005; Francis, 2006a; Francis, 2006b; Bosch et al., 2010). The
result of such methods is a smooth estimation of subsurface properties
which could be far away from the actual subsurface properties (Bosch
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Amirkabir University
of Technology, 15875-4413 Tehran, Iran.
E-mail addresses: javaherian@aut.ac.ir, javaheri@ut.ac.ir (A. Javaherian).
lower seismic resolution, makes deterministic methods not compatible
with other reservoir characterization methods like fluid flow simulation
and volumetric calculations of the reservoir (Azevedo et al., 2015;
Rainaud et al., 2018).
On the other hand, integrating stochastic methods with inversion
approaches which is known as geostatistical inversion can increase
the resolution of the inverted properties and add stochastical tools
(like error analysis) into seismic inversion process. Such methods can
overcome the band-limited nature of seismic data by using a spatial cor-
relation function named as variogram (e.g. Haas and Dubrule, 1994;
Srivastava and Sen, 2010). The variograms are the geostatistical tools
that can quantify, and model the spatial continuity of the investigated
properties (Krige, 1951). They play an essential role in adding missing
low- and high-frequency contents into seismic data and can be calcu-
lated in both vertical and horizontal directions to capture spatial conti-
nuity of the data in different directions. Well data are the primary source
to model vertical variograms while other geological information along
with well data are needed for calculating horizontal ones (Francis,
2005). These variograms weight any measured data which contribute
to the computation of elastic properties at any unmeasured location

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2019.07.008
0926-9851/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814
(Wackernagel, 2013). They not only compute an average value for each
location but also calculate the variance associated with the estimated
value at the same location. In other words, the unmeasured locations
do not take a single value but fall within a particular range of values
named as probability density function (PDF). The PDFs are crucial to as-
sess the uncertainties associated with the estimated properties by pro-
viding many solutions with the same probability (Azevedo and Soares,
2017). This means that the geostatistical inversion does not provide a
unique answer but an arbitrary number of isoprobable solutions (reali-
zations) which makes it a better tool to capture layer heterogeneity as
well as thin layer properties (Azevedo and Soares, 2017; Ghosh et al.,
2018). Another advantage of generating several isoprobable realizations
is the possibility for uncertainty analysis on the estimated reservoir
properties (Sullivan et al., 2004; Bosch et al., 2010; Grana and Della
Rossa, 2010). Such uncertainty analysis is a crucial step to evaluate the
risk of operation and can be used to make the best decisions for field de-
velopments by investigating the probability of occurrence for different
scenarios (Chavanne et al., 2008). The most practical probabilities in-
clude three scenarios of 10%, 50%, and 90% which for the estimated
properties less than them are known as P10, P50, and P90. Geostatistical
inversion defines several realizations (with the same occurrence proba-
bility) which in turn can make it difficult to find the most relevant one to
the actual subsurface. In other words, only a few numbers of these real-
izations must be selected for further studies, and as a result, it is neces-
sary to rank them based on some pre-defined criteria (Scheidt and
Caers, 2009; Virk, 2011). These criteria should be obtained from the ac-
tual subsurface by using two main approaches, reservoir engineering
outcomes or converting elastic properties into petrophysical properties.
The first approach which relies on the recoverable oil and gas volume
information from fluid flow simulation requires a longer time for rank-
ing, but it gives a direct insight into probable amounts of the oil and gas
volumes (Virk, 2011). On the other hand, the second approach can rank
realizations immediately after geostatistical inversion using the appro-
priate rock physics models and rank the realizations based on the P10,
P50 and P90 scenarios (Suleiman et al., 2012; Kong et al., 2013). This ap-
proach is quite fast but is an indirect approach and requires an accurate
rock physics model.
This study applies a Bayesian method of geostatistical seismic inver-
sion on a pre-stack seismic data from an Iranian oilfield in the West part
of the Persian-Gulf. P-wave seismic impedance (IP) and S-wave seismic
impedance (IS) realizations are generated in a Bayesian framework. The
generated realizations are then ranked using the aforementioned sec-
ond ranking approach based on the oil lithofacies volume from rock
physics modeling. Finally, a Bayesian classification method is applied
to all of the realizations to model the oil lithofacies within the reservoir.
This is followed by the calculation of P10, P50, and P90 scenarios and
statistical analysis of the reservoir. In the following, more details about
this workflow along with an offshore case study from an oil field are
presented.
2. Bayesian principle
Geostatistical inversion is aimed to include uncertainty into the
inversion results using two different approaches named as trace-
by-trace geostatistical inversion and global geostatistical inversion
(Azevedo and Soares, 2017). Trace-by-trace method first uses the se-
quential Gaussian simulation (SGS) technique to simulate IP at a se-
lected trace and then iterates on it to reach high correlation with
the measured trace at the same location. Then, the next trace is cho-
sen near this inverted trace and goes under the same iteration. This
process continues until the entire area is inverted and all of the syn-
thetic traces are compared with the measured ones (Bortoli, 1992;
Haas and Dubrule, 1994). On the other hand, Soares et al. (2007)
introduced the global geostatistical inversion method which is
based on a global match between the synthetic and measured traces.
In this method, several IP models are generated by direct SGS method
to make synthetics in order to compare them with the measured
seismic. The best local correlation is selected and will be used as
the secondary variable for the next simulation. This process is contin-
ued until the global cross-correlation coefficient between the syn-
thetic and measured seismic reaches above a certain threshold
(Soares et al., 2007). The trace-by-trace geostatistical inversion
method is a time-consuming process due to special conditions
needed for each trace or grid calculation. The mean and variance of
elastic properties from geostatistical simulations are computed for
each grid which requires more time and costs. However, computing
these PDFs through an analytical form like the Bayesian method
can dramatically reduce the time and costs of the inversion process.
The Bayesian method uses the prior knowledge of the elastic proper-
ties including well data, seismic horizons, geological information,
etc. to find a prior distribution of the elastic properties at the studied
area which is known as prior PDF. Combining this prior PDF with the
seismic data through the Bayesian theorem leads to a joint distribu-
tion of elastic properties known as posterior PDF (Buland and
Omre, 2003).
This study employs a trace-by-trace pre-stack geostatistical inver-
sion workflow using the Bayesian method based on a linear approxima-
tion of Zoeppritz equations (Zoeppritz, 1919). Among several linear
approximations of Zoeppritz equations, Fatti's equation is one which di-
rectly makes a linear relationship between seismic reflections and elas-
tic properties. Fatti et al. (1994) assumed weak and smooth contrasts
between elastic properties (P-wave velocity (VP), S-wave velocity (VS)
and density) of a two overlaying media with a flat reflector, and approx-
imated P-wave reflection coefficient (rPP(θ)) at near- and mid-angles
(θ) as:
2
1
 V
r PP ðθÞ ¼ 1 þ tan2 θ Δ ln ðIP Þ−4 S2 sin2 θΔ ln ðIS Þ; ð1Þ
2 V P
where V P and V S are the averages of VP and VS of the two overlaying
media, respectively. Two coefficients of elastic properties in Eq. (1) are
functions of incident angle θ which can be defined as a(θ) and b(θ), re-
spectively. Therefore, Eq. (1) can be rewritten as:
r PP ðθÞ ¼ aðθÞΔ ln ðIP Þ þ bðθÞΔ ln ðIS Þ ð2Þ
This equation, furthermore, can be written in a matrix form as
(Escobar et al., 2006):
rPP;i;θ ¼ Ai;θ m0i ; ð3Þ
where i denotes the trace location, Ai,θ is the matrix containing coeffi-
cients of Eq. (2) which for the trace location i and a set of angles is de-
fined as:
2 3
aðθ1 Þ bðθ1 Þ
6 7
Ai;θ ¼4 ⋮ ⋮ 5; ð4Þ
aðθn Þ bðθn Þ
mi′ is the numerical derivative of matrix mi with respect to layers,
and is defined as a matrix containing logarithms of elastic properties
of all layers (Layer 1 to layer n) at the trace location i:
 
ln ðIP Þ1 ln ðIP Þ2 … ln ðIP Þn
mi ¼ ð5Þ
ln ðIS Þ1 ln ðIS Þ2 … ln ðIS Þn
Buland and Omre (2003) and Aleardi (2018) assumed that if the
PDFs of IP and IS are log Gaussian, then the joint posterior distribution
of IP and IS in a Bayesian framework can be written as:
P ðdobs jmÞP ðmÞ
P ðmjdobs Þ ¼ ; ð6Þ
P ðdobs Þ
 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814
where P(m| dobs) is the joint posterior distribution of IP and IS, P(dobs| m)
is the likelihood function, P(m) is the prior PDF of IP and IS and P(dobs) is
the unconditional PDF of the seismic data (Buland and Omre, 2003).
Generally, seismic data are prone to have different types of noise, and
therefore, it is necessary to include noise effects in the P(dobs) calcula-
tion. Escobar et al. (2006) included random noise into P(dobs) calcula-
tion by assuming that the noise is uncorrelated with time and space
and wrote below equation for P(dobs) calculation:
! P ðci jxÞ ¼
1XX
T

P ðdobs jmÞ∝ exp − dobs;i;θ −Gi;θ mi Ci;θ −1 dobs;i;θ −Gi;θ mi
2 θ i
ð7Þ
The term Gi,θmi refers to the convolution process to generate syn-
thetic seismogram. Gi,θ is a combination of wavelet coefficients and
the constants of Eq. (2) (a and b) which its product with mi is equal to
the convolution of the wavelet and the reflection coefficients. The
noise covariance matrix (Ci,θ) should be estimated from the well data,
and the common midpoint gather at the well locations. This matrix is
a combination of the white and color noise that can be computed ac-
cording to the work of Buland and Omre (2003) which is beyond the
scope of this study. They gave prior PDF equation of IP and IS as:
 
1
P ðmÞ∝ exp − ðm−μm ÞT C−1
m ðm−μm Þ ; ð8Þ
2
where μm is the mean of the prior model and Cm is the covariance ma-
trix of the prior model. These prior models of IP and IS need to be calcu-
lated using both VP and VS logs. The VS log is not always available, and as
a result, it should be modeled either through rock physics modeling or
existing empirical models between VP and VS. One of the well-known
empirical models in siliciclastic rocks is the mudrock line equation
(Castagna et al., 1985) which is derived for water saturated sandstones
as:
V P ¼ 1:16V S þ 1:36; ð9Þ
where VP and VS are in km/s. If a rock contains hydrocarbon, then this re-
lationship is not valid, and brine needs to be replaced with hydrocarbon
using a fluid substitution model. The Gassman's equation is a very com-
mon model for such purposes which predicts bulk and shear moduli of a
saturated rock for other fluids. It has several assumptions about the rock
and pore space connectivity and pore pressure equilibrium (Gassmann,
1951; Mavko et al., 2009) and is written as:
K sat K dry K fl
¼ þ
; ð10Þ
K 0 −K sat K 0 −K dry ∅ K 0 −K fl
μ sat ¼ μ dry ; ð11Þ
where Ksat, Kdry, K0 and Kfl are the bulk moduli of the saturated rock, dry
rock, mineral frame, and fluid, respectively, ∅ is the porosity, μsat and
μdry are the shear moduli of the saturated and dry rocks, respectively.
In this study, Gassmann's equation is used to convert measured VP to
100% water saturated in the reservoir interval in which is required by
mudrock line equation to estimate VS for 100% water saturated. Then,
Gassmann's equation is used again for the second time to correct the
calculated VS from 100% water saturated to the desired saturation
within the reservoir area.
The modeled VS can now be used to substitute Eqs. (7) and (8) into
Eq. (6). This leads to a global joint posterior PDF of IP and IS which is dif-
ficult to sample due to its high number of dimensions. The sampling of
such a high-dimension PDF is a time-consuming process, and we need
to lower the number of dimensions in order to save time and money
(Belloni and Chernozhukov, 2009). Therefore, one needs to break
down this global PDF to some local PDFs using SGS technique at trace
3
locations. This generates multiple realizations of IP and IS which means
that there are several isoprobable answers. Therefore, it is necessary to
rank these realizations for more practical purposes. In this paper, reali-
zation ranking has been done using lithofacies classification, by calculat-
ing different seismic attributes like IP vs. VP/VS using a Bayesian method.
Here, IP vs. VP/VS crossplot for each realization is generated and then
lithofacies are classified using the following equation (Doyen, 2007):
P ðxjci ÞP ðci Þ
; ð12Þ
P ðxÞ
where in this case, ci denote the lithofacies classes (in this paper, there
are three classes), x is a two-valued vector (IP and VP/VS), P(ci| x) are
the probabilities of the lithofacies classes conditioned by the values of
IP and VP/VS, P(x| ci) are the probabilities of IP and VP/VS conditioned
by lithofacies classes which are also known as the likelihood functions.
The likelihood functions can be determined from the Kernel density es-
timation technique which calculates the multivariate density functions
of the lithofacies from the crossplot of IP vs. VP/VS (Scott, 2015;
Silverman, 2018). P(ci) are the prior probabilities of the lithofacies clas-
ses that and can be calculated from the well data. Doyen (2007) showed
that P(x) is a constant number and it does not play an important role in
the lithofacies classification and can be ignored.
The calculated lithofacies classes with the most probability can then
be assigned to each grid following a generic principle as:
1) If P(x| ci)P(ci) N P(x| cj)P(cj), then class ci are assigned to the grid,
2) If P(x| cj)P(cj) N P(x| ci)P(ci), then class cj are assigned to the grid.
One of the essential lithofacies is the oil lithofacies with the advan-
tage of calculating oil lithofacies probability. In this study, oil lithofacies
probability (Poil) has been calculated by all realizations within the reser-
voir interval using the following equation:
Noil
P oil ¼ ; ð13Þ
Ntotal
where Noil is the number of resulted oil facies occurrence in each grid
and Ntotal is the number of realizations (in this paper 250 realizations).
Eq. (12) is used to classify the lithofacies based on two attributes: IP
and VP/VS. In this equation, the 1st term, P(x| ci) or likelihood functions,
are determined by calculating multivariate density functions of each
lithofacies from the Kernel density estimation using IP vs. VP/VS
crossplot of that lithofacies. The 2nd term, P(ci), are the prior probabili-
ties of lithofacies, are computed by dividing the number of the well
points with lithofacies ci to the total ones. The 3rd term, P(x), does not
have an important role in the lithofacies classification and can be ig-
nored. Therefore, the two terms of the numerator of Eq. (12) are used
to classify the lithofacies based on two simple rules mentioned above.
After classifying lithofacies through all realizations, Eq. (13) is employed
to calculate the oil lithofacies probability by counting the number of oil
lithofacies occurrence in each grid and dividing it to the number of all
realizations.
3. Methodology and a case study
A pre-stack geostatistical inversion based on the linear relationship
between seismic reflections and elastic properties has been applied on
an oilfield in the southwest of the Persian Gulf. This is a structural
field related to the late Tertiary folding from Zagros orogeny move-
ments. The studied area consists of 75 m unconsolidated sandstone res-
ervoir with some interbedded carbonate layers which interfingers with
a limestone formation, a shallow-water non-reefal carbonate that is the
primary oil reservoir in Iran. In the seismic records, this sandstone res-
ervoir has been distinct by strong reflections at the top and bottom of
the reservoir. Seismic processing had been carried out by preserving
amplitudes which make this dataset suitable for any pre-stack inversion
4 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814

Table 1 algorithms. The processing steps sequence is observable in Table 1.

The sequence of processing steps which were applied on seismic data of studying area. Three main lithofacies were extracted from the well log data including
SEGD read and data editing oil sand, water sand, and carbonate lithofacies. Oil and water sand
Navigation merge lithofacies are recognized by low IP while carbonate lithofacies show
Deterministic zero phasing high IP on the well log data. Oil sand lithofacies mainly exist at the top
Lowcut filter 4 Hz
of the reservoir, water sand lithofacies at the bottom while carbonate
True amplitude recovery
Swell noise and interference attenuation lithofacies distributed everywhere with the main concentration at the
Forward τ − p transformation bottom of the reservoir. This complexity in lithofacies distribution
Predicted deconvolution 48/180-ms gap/operator makes it difficult to characterize this field using conventional ap-
Inverse τ − p transformation
proaches and geostatistical methods can be the right candidates for seis-
Old velocity input
NMO
mic reservoir characterization in this field.
k-filter spatial resampling Fig. 1 shows the proposed workflow for characterizing this field
CMPs to 75 m trace spacing using pre-stack geostatistical inversion. Here, well and seismic data
f − x trace interpolation are treated and processed in parallel. Well data (VP log) are used to es-
Static correction
timate and model VS, classifying lithofacies and determining prior PDFs
DMO
Prestack time migration with minimum velocity for each class which will be used to rank seismic realizations produced
Inverse NMO with old velocities from the geostatistical inversion. Seismic data (3D offshore CMP
New velocity picking gathers) are used to compute joint posterior PDFs, and generating
NMO with new velocities
different realizations of the IP and IS (from sampling of posterior
PDFs). Finally, well data and inversion results are merged for computing
three practical probabilities of oil lithofacies probability (P10, P50, and
P90) which can be used to locate residual oil with an estimation of the

Well data Seismic data

Estimating S-wave velocity using Computing joint posterior

rock physics models and distribution of elastic properties
constructing the prior model of using the Bayesian principle
elastic ro erties

Computing multivariate Decomposing posterior

probability density functions of distribution using SGS and
different lithofacies in crossplots sampling
of elastic ro erties

Lithofacies classification of each

Generating several realizations of
realization using the Bayesian
elastic properties
principle

Computing oil
Specifying P10, P50
lithofacies probability
and P90 scenarios
in the reservoir

Fig. 1. The overall workflow for lithofacies classification, geostatistical inversion and, ranking of realizations based on the Bayesian lithofacies classification. Well, and seismic data are
treated and processed in parallel. Castagna and Gassmann's equations are used to estimate and model VS from VP. Then, Vp and Vs logs are used for classifying lithofacies and
determining prior PDFs for all classes which areused to rank seismic realizations produced from the geostatistical inversion. Seismic data are used to compute joint posterior PDF, and
generating different realizations of the elastic properties. Finally, well data and inversion results are merged for computing three practical probabilities of oil lithofacies probability
(P10, P50, and P90) which can be used to locate residual oil with an estimation of the uncertainty.
 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814
uncertainty. This workflow is discussed with more details in the
following.
3.1. Rock physics modeling and lithofacies classification
The inversion process starts with checking well log data and prepar-
ing them for the next step which is lithofacies classification. There are
two wells in this area which are used for both inversion and realizations
ranking. VS has been measured only in well 1 and estimated in well 2.
Mudrock line in connection with the Gassmann's equation was used
to estimate VS from VP. Here, Gassmann was used to substitute reservoir
fluid to 100% brine and then return it to the actual reservoir fluid follow-
ing Eqs. (9) to (11). Fig. 2 is the crossplot of VP and VS for water satu-
rated rocks in well 1 and shows the validity of the mudrock line
(Eq. (9)) which almost fits the VP and VS of water-saturated rocks and
makes it applicable for our case study. Fig. 3 shows the final results of
the measured and predicted VS for well 1. This figure confirms the accu-
racy of the modeled VS for this field. It is needed to determine the
lithofacies log from other well logs to have a primary source to classify
the lithofacies in the whole area of study. Here, four well logs including,
VP, VS, density, and water saturation logs have been used to create a
lithofacies log. Fig. 4 shows these relevant logs with a lithofacies log
next to each one for easy interpretation. Oil sand lithofacies are specified
by water saturation logs while other logs show a slight difference be-
tween water and oil sand lithofacies. A crossplot of IP vs. VP/VS is gener-
ated with different colors for various lithofacies (oil sand, water sand,
and carbonate). Fig. 5 shows how these three different lithofacies are
fairly separated on this crossplot. Fig. 6 uses a rock physics template to
control the quality of the data related to the oil and water sand
lithofacies. A rock physics template was generated using unconsoli-
dated sandstones (soft-sand) model with oil and water saturation to en-
sure the validity of these two lithofacies (Avseth et al., 2010). This figure
shows that oil and water sand lithofacies are following the soft-sand
model and can reasonably be separated on the IP vs. VP/VS crossplot.
This separation can help with a better PDF computation for each
lithofacies by lowering the weight of the points scattered away from
the trends given by this rock physics template. Then, the Kernel density
Fig. 2. Crossplot of VP and VS of water-saturated rocks in well 1. The red line is the mudrock line which almost fits the points and makes it applicable for studying area. (For interpretation of
the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
5
estimation technique was used to compute a multivariate PDF for each
lithofacies using a sufficient number of the data points in the IP vs. VP/
VS crossplot. These calculated PDFs for the lithofacies which are
known as likelihood functions have a significant role in the Bayesian
classification and realization ranking. Fig. 7 displays the calculated
PDFs for each lithofacies along with the upscaled well data (averaged
in the vertical direction) in the IP vs. VP/VS crossplot. The averaged
well data in the vertical direction show how the lithofacies PDFs are
formed around the averaged data and how the PDFs are affected by
the average of elastic properties. These PDFs are used to classify
lithofacies which will be derived from the inversion results. In addition
to PDF calculation at the well locations, spatial continuity of the rock
properties must be modeled by calculating variograms in both the ver-
tical and horizontal directions. Variograms are meant to show how rock
properties are changed when getting away from the well locations and
are needed for construction of the prior model (Eq. (8)). The vertical
variogram was calculated in the reservoir interval from the well data.
The spatial continuity was measured for different distances and brought
into the diagram of variogram-distance. It is needed to replace the single
points with an analytical curve which fits the overall trend of the points
with Gaussian, exponential, and spherical (Azevedo and Soares, 2017)
types. We found an exponential model for the vertical variogram
which minimizes the error more than other models in the regression
process. On the other hand, the horizontal variogram was computed
based on the continuity of reflections in the seismic record which sat-
isfies the geological information of the studied area.
3.2. Geostatistical inversion
In the previous step, well data were prepared and analyzed to be
used in the pre-stack geostatistical inversion by refining log data and
determining different lithofacies along with their PDFs and variograms.
Geostatistical inversion process starts with building a prior model. For
this purpose, the entire area was divided into a large number of grids
which its vertical size is close to the well log resolution, and its horizon-
tal size (along crosslines and inlines) is close to the lateral seismic reso-
lution. Then, an ordinary kriging technique was used to merge well data,
6 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814

Fig. 3. Crossplot of the predicted vs. measured S-wave velocities in well 1. The mudrock line in connection with the Gassmann equation was used to estimate VS from VP. Gassmann was
used to substitute reservoir fluid to 100% brine and then returned it to the actual reservoir fluid.

variograms and interpreted seismic horizons together to build the prior
model. This method uses the known values of elastic properties (at well
sites) and variograms to estimate the properties at unknown points by
minimizing the variance of estimation errors or kriging errors. The dis-
tribution of elastic properties derived from well data is close to the nor-
mal distribution which satisfies the assumption of ordinary kriging
technique. Variograms contribute to the kriging technique to give
their effects on the weights of known points to estimate the properties
of unknown ones. The kriging technique, not only gives the most prob-
able values of the desired properties, but also provides variances which
represent the uncertainties of the estimated values (Azevedo and
Soares, 2017). The mean and variance values are used to build the
prior PDF of elastic properties in terms of “μ” and “C” in Eq. (8),
respectively. However, the final target for inversion is the PDF of “m”
which will be obtained from the Bayesian principle. By preparing the
prior model, it is possible to compute the prior PDF of elastic properties
according to Eq. (8). This prior PDF is one of the inputs for the Bayesian
theorem (Eq. (6)) to produce a PDF of the elastic properties (IP and IS).
Eq. (6) requires that pre-stack seismic data be converted from the offset
into the angle domain. To do so, the seismic data which had been sorted
in common midpoint gathers were converted into angle gathers using a
velocity model constructed from the refined well log data. Furthermore,
it also needs the prior model to be converted to the reflection coeffi-
cients matrix for different angles. This was done using Eq. (3), and
then synthetic seismograms for near- (3 to 15 degrees) and mid-
angles (16 to 27 degrees) were generated using appropriate wavelets.

Fig. 4. VP, VS, density, and water saturation logs of well 2 in the studied area. The lithofacies log is placed close to each log to make it easy for interpretation. Vs log has been estimated while
others have been measured from the borehole. These four logs are used to determine the lithofacies at well location. The green color is related to the oil sand lithofacies, blue color specifies
the water sand lithofacies, and red color indicates the carbonate lithofacies within the reservoir. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814 7

Fig. 5. Crossplot of P-wave impedance vs. VP/VS ratio for different lithofacies in the studied wells. The green color is related to the oil sand lithofacies, blue color specifies the water sand
lithofacies, and red color indicates the carbonate lithofacies within the reservoir. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version
of this article.)

Here, seismic data do not contain far-angle reflections due to the shal-
low depth of the reservoir, and as a result, far-angle synthetics are not
generated. The synthetics and real data were then feed into Eq. (7) to
calculate the likelihood function based on the best match between mea-
sured and synthetic traces obtained from the prior model. Then, these
prior PDFs along with the calculated likelihood function were feed
into Eq. (6) to generate a PDF of IP and IS for well log and seismic data
which is known as joint posterior PDF. This joint posterior PDF, further-
more, was broken down into several local PDFs at each trace location
using the SGS technique with conditioning each local PDF to the previ-
ous ones (Escobar et al., 2006). These local PDFs do not give a unique an-
swer, and as a result, we can produce an arbitrary number of possible
models of elastic properties using a random number generator and de-
fining a threshold for the match between real and synthetic seismic

Fig. 6. Crossplot of P-wave impedance vs. Vp/Vs ratio for the oil, and water sand lithofacies. The rock physics template for the soft sand model has been overlayed on the well data. The green
and blue colors are related to the oil sand, and water sand, respectively. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.)
8 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814

Fig. 7. Upscaled well log data and their multivariate density functions (PDF) for different lithofacies for P-wave impedance vs. Vp/Vs ratio. The averaged well data in the vertical direction
show how the lithofacies PDFs are formed around the averaged data and how they are affected by the average of elastic properties. The green, blue and red colors are related to the oil sand,
water sand, and carbonate lithofacies, respectively. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

data. In this study, 250 realizations of IP and IS were produced by the
sampling of the local PDFs at each trace locations using Markov Chain
Monte Carlo algorithm (Mosegaard, 1998; Ren et al., 2017). The Mont
Carlo approach refers to a stochastic process in which the random num-
bers between 0 and 1 are generated by a random machine generator
and used to sample the PDFs, while, the Markov Chain principle is
dealing with how the new random number is affected by the previous
one in a sequential process. It is noticeable that the new random num-
ber is just dependent on the previous one, not all previous ones. The sto-
chastic process is started by choosing a random number and continued
using Markov Chain principle (Van Ravenzwaaij et al., 2018). This
number of realizations makes it difficult to characterize the reservoir

Fig. 8. Crossplot of the P-wave impedance vs. Vp/Vs for the mean of IP, and IS realizations at the well location, and three inverted traces of IP, and IS around the averaged data. They have been
specified by purple circles and plotted in the presence of PDFs computed from well data. These PDFs are used to classify lithofacies on seismic inversion results. The lithofacies PDFs weight
the points and then the lithofacies with the most probability are selected. The green, blue and red colors are related to oil sand, water sand, and carbonate lithofacies, respectively. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814
properly, and we need to rank them based on some practical criteria. In
this study, the ranking was based on the oil lithofacies probability which
will be discussed in the following.
3.3. Realization ranking
The last part of the proposed workflow is ranking the seismic reali-
zations based on the volume of oil lithofacies determined from
lithofacies classification. The seismic realizations are in IP and IS domains
while the well log classification for three lithofacies is generated from IP
vs. VP/VS crossplot (Fig. 7). Therefore, it is needed to transform seismic
realizations into IP vs. VP/VS domain to compute their PDFs for assigning
lithofacies with higher probability to each grid. Fig. 8 shows an example
on how inverted traces were transferred into IP vs. VP/VS domain by in-
cluding the mean of the realizations at the well location, and the mean
of three inverted traces around the well. In each grid, the PDF of
lithofacies weighted the points, and the lithofacies with the most prob-
ability is selected. The same procedure was continued for all grids until
all of the lithofacies were classified for all of the realizations. Then, the
mean and standard deviation volume of the oil lithofacies for each real-
ization was determined by counting the number of oil sand grids
(amount of oil lithofacies) (Fig. 9). It can be seen that the stability of
mean and standard deviation of Fig. 9 can be reached after about 200 re-
alizations which refers that 200 realizations are good enough for statis-
tical analysis and more than this quantity does not significantly improve
our statistical parameters and as a result volume of the oil lithofacies.
The same results for the mean and standard deviation were confirmed
by calculating frequency distributions of the resulted oil lithofacies.
Fig. 9. (a) Mean and (b) standard deviation of oil lithofacies volume for different numbers of realizations. The diagrams of mean and standard deviation follow the same trend and are
stabilized (approaching a constant value) after about 200 realizations.
9
Fig. 10 shows the frequency distribution of the oil sand lithofacies for
50, 100, 150 and 200 realizations. This figure indicates that increasing
the number of realizations to 200 makes the frequency distribution of
the oil lithofacies approach to a stable Gaussian distribution. Therefore,
200 realizations have been selected as a reference for statistical analysis
of the oil sand lithofacies volume determination for P10, P50, and P90
scenarios. Fig. 11 depicts these three scenarios for oil sand lithofacies
for IP and IS. The calculated scenarios were then transformed into oil
lithofacies probability within the reservoir using Eq. (13). Fig. 12
shows the probability of the oil presence in this field within the reser-
voir interval along with most likely lithofacies section following the de-
scribed procedure. It is clear that the oil sand probability tends to be
decreased by getting far from the well location due to uncertainties as-
sociated with the estimated properties.
4. Discussion
This paper presented a pre-stack geostatistical inversion workflow
to characterize an offshore oilfield in the Persian Gulf. The proposed
workflow uses well data to generate one training set to recognize and
model different lithofacies and then generalizes such a modeling
method to seismic inversion results. The number of well data points
for different lithofacies is a crucial factor to compute their PDFs. It can
significantly affect the shape of PDFs and how they are scattered in
the IP vs. VP/VS crossplot. In other words, lithofacies classification can
be done more confidently by increasing the number of wells, and as a
result, statistical analysis for the oil lithofacies volume will be more ac-
curate. Another factor that influences the PDF computation for different
10 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814
Fig. 10. Frequency distributions of the resulted oil lithofacies volumes obtained from the Bayesian lithofacies classification for (a) 50 realizations, (b) 100 realizations, (c) 150 realizations,
and (d) 200 realizations.
lithofacies is the lack of measured elastic properties (like VS) in the
given wells. We used a combination of the mudrock line and
Gassmann's equation to predict VS. The mudrock line is valid for
water-saturated siliciclastics, and Gassmann's equation is used for
fluid substitution to satisfy the reservoir conditions. The mudrock line
and Gassmann's equation have their limitations regarding the lithology
and pore space connectivity which could be problematic for this field.
For example, the presence of some carbonate layers embedded within
the reservoir is an apparent violation of these model assumptions.
Moreover, Gassmann's equation has the assumptions of homogeneity,
isotropy, and validity at low frequencies (Gassmann, 1951) which is
quite hard to achieve on the actual fields. Therefore, any error associated
with the VS modeling can influence PDF computation for each
lithofacies which in turn will affect the final inversion results. In addi-
tion to VS estimation, we have used a rock physics template (soft-sand
model) to check the quality of the water and oil sand lithofacies on
the IP vs. VP/VS crossplot. Water sand points are not entirely compliant
with the template which could come from the difference between the
actual and assumed microstructures of the reservoir rock. The soft-
sand model uses Hertz-Mindlin's theory with lower modified Hashin-
Shtrikman (Hashin and Shtrikman, 1963; Mavko et al., 2009) to predict
elastics for unconsolidated sediments. Presence of the cement or even
changes in lithology can make inconsistency between the modeled
and measured velocities. Fig. 6 confirms that violation from the primary
assumption for the soft-sand model (assumption of no cementation)
mainly happens within the water sand lithofacies while oil sand
lithofacies follow better the template trend. It can be concluded that
the cementation occurs mostly in the brine sand lithofacies and oil
sand lithofacies is less affected by such a diagenetic process. Fig. 6
could be an indication of early oil introduction into pore space which
halts the cementation process within this lithofacies while it continues
in the water sand lithofacies. Such a process furthermore could be a rea-
son for higher porosity in this lithofacies.
The Pre-stack geostatistical inversion used in this study computes
both IP and IS simultaneously based on the Bayesian theorem. The ad-
vantage of such a method in comparison to the conventional methods
of geostatistical inversion is calculating joint posterior PDF of IP and IS
in an analytical form which significantly saves time and cost. However,
this method assumes weak and smooth contrasts between elastic prop-
erties of two overlaying media which may be not valid in all conditions.
On the other hand, this method works best when a full range of angles
are present but in our case study far-angles (more than 27 degrees in
this case) are missing due to the shallow depth of the reservoir. This
can make the results less accurate compared with a deeper reservoir
which includes far-angle information. The other important factor is
the variogram calculation which is done for the vertical and horizontal
directions. The vertical variograms can be computed at well locations
to find the vertical changes of rock properties. Therefore, they are not
 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814 11

Fig. 11. Elastic properties (IP and IS) of (a) P10 (b) P50 and (c) P90 scenarios of resulted oil lithofacies volumes from the Bayesian lithofacies classification. The calculated P-wave impedance
(IP) and S-wave impedance (IS) logs from well log data are shown as a colored overlay on the inverted seismic sections.
12 M.Z. Chahooki et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 170 (2019) 103814

Fig. 12. (a) Probability of oil presence in the reservoir calculated by the Bayesian lithofacies classification in the studied area for seismic, and well data. (b) The most likely lithofacies section
derived from the Bayesian lithofacies classification in the studied area for seismic and well data. The well location has been specified by lithofacies log. The green, blue, and red colors are
related to oil sand, water sand, and carbonate lithofacies, respectively. This lithofacies log has a good match with the oil probability driven from geostatistical inversion and confirms the
results of the proposed workflow. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

dependent on the number of the wells, but horizontal variograms which
control the lateral resolution of the results depend on the number of
wells. This means that using only two wells are not sufficient to find a
good lateral variogram. In this regard, we used seismic data for
obtaining the lateral resolution in the process of inversion.
In the last part of the geostatistical inversion, we ranked the realiza-
tions based on the separation of different lithofacies on the IP vs. VP/VS
crossplot. PDF of each lithofacies was computed using available data
points. For oil and water sand lithofacies, the points are close together,
and their PDFs take equal probability at the boundaries. In such condi-
tions, the rock physics template controls the location of the points on
the crossplot whether it is inside the oil zone or is close to the water sat-
urated line. Values of IP and IS in each grid were converted into lithofacies
for all realizations to compute mean and standard deviation of oil
lithofacies volume. The diagrams of mean and standard deviation follow
the same trend and are stabilized (approaching a constant value) after
about 200 realizations (Figs. 9 and 10). This number of realizations
(200) was selected as an optimum number for the statistical analysis
like the determination of P10, P50 and P90 scenarios for the oil probability
on different realizations. These three scenarios which present the lower,
intermediate and upper limits of the oil volume lithofacies, respectively,
are needed for reservoir management such as the cost forecast, man-
power planning, volume of equipment types, and overall planning of
the field. Another important application of such classification on the real-
ization is the possibility of computing the oil lithofacies probability within
the reservoir. A sufficient number of wells are necessary for accurate com-
putation of the oil presence in the reservoir. Fig. 12 shows that increasing
distance from the given well reduces the oil probability in the reservoir
which can be related to the uncertainties of the estimated elastic proper-
ties. It shows that near the well location there is a high probability of the
oil lithofacies, and the probability reduces by moving far from the well.
Such probability maps, in general, can help to select an appropriate loca-
tion for future drilling by reducing the risk of drilling, especially in the
complicated reservoirs. It can be seen that the number of wells plays a
vital role in final results, and therefore, geostatistical inversion is
recommended for the fields with a high number of wells to produce
more reliable results for estimating reservoir properties and their
uncertainties.
5. Conclusions
We applied a pre-stack geostatistical inversion to produce several
realizations and then ranked them based on the Bayesian lithofacies
classification. It was found that a crossplot of IP vs. VP/VS is capable to
separate oil sand, water sand, and carbonate lithofacies. Rock physics
template was also found to be useful in discrimination between differ-
ent lithofacies and improving their computed PDFs. Computing mean
and standard deviation along with frequency distribution of the oil
lithofacies showed that increasing the number of realizations to 200
leads to a stable Gaussian distribution which can be used for a more ac-
curate statistical analysis. This led to determine three practical probabil-
ity (P10, P50, and P90) scenarios for a better reservoir characterization
by providing the boundary of the changes for the oil sand volume. Fi-
nally, calculating oil lithofacies probability in the reservoir confirmed
that getting away from the well location reduces the oil probability
due to uncertainties associated with estimated elastic properties and
this can be related to the low number of the wells in this study.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to CGG Company for providing the aca-
demic license of Hampson-Russell software for the Department of Pe-
troleum Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology.
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