Patent ID: 6754589
Filing Date: 2004-06-22
Classification: G01V,G06K,G06N

Abstract:
A method of determining locations for offset wells for use in an enhanced oil recovery process in an oil and/or gas field comprising the steps of:developing an algorithm that iteratively presents a set of seismic data relating to one or more hydrocarbon producing areas and seismic data relating to one or more hydrocarbon non-producing areas to a portion of the algorithm that has a goal of minimizing the error over all of the data by propagating the error value back after each iteration and performing appropriate adjustments to a function that takes on characteristics or patterns in the data; terminating the algorithm after a sufficient number of iterations for the function to have taken on sufficient characteristics or patterns in the data; applying the function containing the characteristics or patterns to at least a portion of seismic data collected in the oil and/or gas field to determine areas where hydrocarbons have been produced; and determining one or more locations for offset wells based on the determined areas where hydrocarbons have been produced.