Patent ID: 7768870

Claim:
A method for developing a reservoir wherein a first seismic depth image representative of structure of the reservoir is obtained from seismic data and of a representation of the propagation velocities of seismic waves in the reservoir and a set of log data obtained from measurements taken in wells traversing the reservoir is acquired, comprising: measuring differences between depths of seismic reflectors observed in the first seismic depth image and depths of reflectors identified in wells for which log data are available; modifying the representation of propagation velocities to minimize the differences using a prestack kinematic inversion; constructing a second seismic depth image representation of structure of the reservoir using the modified velocity representation; and using the second seismic depth image representative of the structure of the reservoir to determine development conditions for the reservoir, evaluation of the reservoir or production modeling; and wherein the representation of the propagation velocities is modified by: a) performing, from the first seismic image, a picking of seismic reflectors for which differences are above a selected threshold; b) determining prestack traveltimes for the picked reflectors by prestack ray tracing; c) modifying the representation of the propagation velocities using traveltime tomography with constraints wherein the prestack traveltimes and the log data are simultaneously used with the log data to define constraints on depths of the picked reflectors; and d) repeating c) until the representation of the propagation velocities which are modified minimizes differences between depths of the seismic reflectors.