Time-Lapse Seismic Data Integration Incorporates Pressure and Saturation Effects
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 166395, ’Streamline-Based Time-Lapse Seismic-Data Integration Incorporating Pressure and Saturation Effects,’ by Shingo Watanabe, SPE, Jichao Han, SPE, Akhil Datta-Gupta, SPE, and Michael J. King, SPE, Texas A&M University, prepared for the 2013 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New Orleans, 30 September-2 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

This paper presents an efficient history matching approach that simultaneously integrates 4D repeat seismic surveys with well production data. This approach is particularly well-suited for the calibration of the reservoir properties of high-resolution geologic models because the seismic data are areally dense but sparse in time, while the production data are continuous in time but averaged over interwell spacing. The joint history matching is performed using streamline-based sensitivities derived from either finite-difference or streamline-based flow simulation.

Introduction

Previous studies have made attempts at quantitative 4D seismic history matching. However, the reconciliation of reservoir model heterogeneity with temporal changes in seismic attributes remains a particularly complex task. Several dynamic data integration algorithms have been proposed in the literature, which can be categorized broadly into three data integration levels: (1) reservoir-simulation- based integration between the pressure and saturation estimates inverted from seismic observation data and the direct simulated saturation and pressure responses, (2) petroelastic-based integration between the seismic inverted rock elastic properties derived from a geophysical inversion and the simulated rock elastic responses from the simulated saturation and pressure responses by means of petroelastic models, and (3) seismic-forward-model-based integration between the direct seismic traces attributes and the simulated seismic responses by means of seismic wave propagation modeling.

The seismic-forward-model-based seismic data integration approach uses direct seismic trace data and circumvents the uncertainties associated with the seismic-inversion process. The general workflow for generating synthetic seismic data from a reservoir simulation model generally involves (1) static reservoir properties on the simulation grid, (2) simulation of dynamic pressure and fluid saturations at each cell, (3) computation of seismic elastic properties, and (4) simulation of the seismic attribute by applying a seismic wave propagation model over the reservoir interval and the overburden rock.

This study examines both reservoir-simulation- based calibration and rock-physics- based calibration. In the first instance, the authors calibrate against time-lapse changes in both pressure and saturation. In the second instance, they calibrate against the time-lapse change in acoustic impedance. In both cases, the inversion will provide local updates to the reservoir model using analytic streamline- based sensitivity calculations.