MULTICOMPONENT SEISMIC ANALYSIS AND CALIBRATION TO IMPROVE RECOVERY FROM ALGAL MOUNDS: APPLICATION TO THE ROADRUNNER/TOWAOC AREA OF THE PARADOX BASIN, UTE MOUNTAIN UTE RESERVATION, COLORADO

This report describes the results made in fulfillment of contract DE-FG26-02NT15451, ''Multicomponent Seismic Analysis and Calibration to Improve Recovery from Algal Mounds: Application to the Roadrunner/Towaoc Area of the Paradox Basin, Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, Colorado''. Optimizing development of highly heterogeneous reservoirs where porosity and permeability vary in unpredictable ways due to facies variations can be challenging. An important example of this is in the algal mounds of the Lower and Upper Ismay reservoirs of the Paradox Basin in Utah and Colorado. It is nearly impossible to develop a forward predictive model to delineate regions of better reservoir development, and so enhanced recovery processes must be selected and designed based upon data that can quantitatively or qualitatively distinguish regions of good or bad reservoir permeability and porosity between existing well control. Recent advances in seismic acquisition and processing offer new ways to see smaller features with more confidence, and to characterize the internal structure of reservoirs such as algal mounds. However, these methods have not been tested. This project will acquire cutting edge, three-dimensional, nine-component (3D9C) seismic data and utilize recently-developed processing algorithms, including the mapping of azimuthal velocity changes in amplitude variation with offset, to extract attributes that relate to variations in reservoir permeability and porosity. In order to apply advanced seismic methods a detailed reservoir study is needed to calibrate the seismic data to reservoir permeability, porosity and lithofacies. This will be done by developing a petrological and geological characterization of the mounds from well data; acquiring and processing the 3D9C data; and comparing the two using advanced pattern recognition tools such as neural nets. In addition, should the correlation prove successful, the resulting data will be evaluated from the perspective of selecting alternative enhanced recovery processes, and their possible implementation. The work is being carried out on the Roadrunner/Towaoc Fields of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, located in the southwestern corner of Colorado. Although this project is focused on development of existing resources, the calibration established between the reservoir properties and the 3D9C seismic data can also enhance exploration success. During the time period covered by this report, the majority of the project effort has gone into the permitting, planning and design of the 3D seismic survey, and to select a well for the VSP acquisition. The business decision in October, 2002 by WesternGeco, the projects'seismic acquisition contractor, to leave North America, has delayed the acquisition until late summer, 2003. The project has contracted Solid State, a division of Grant Geophysical, to carry out the acquisition. Moreover, the survey has been upgraded to a 3D9C from the originally planned 3D3C survey, which should provide even greater resolution of mounds and internal mound structure.

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