Presalt reservoirs of the Santos Basin accounted for more than 50% of Brazilian hydrocarbon production in the first two months of 2019. Its most important reservoirs are found in the Barra Velha Formation; thus understanding its genesis and geologic history is essential. This formation is composed of carbonates deposited in an alkaline lacustrine environment with a multiplicity of facies from boundstones and grainstones to mudstones. We have performed a sedimentary analysis based on the integration of sidewall core (SWC) samples and well logs from two wells coupled with seismic patterns discrimination to characterize the tectonic and depositional evolution of the Barra Velha Formation in a sector of the Outer High of the Santos Basin in this study. Our method initially consisted of the evaluation of well logs, aiming to identify shallowing and flooding upward cycles of the second and third orders for the paleoenvironmental conceptualization upper rift and sag phases. Then, we defined electrofacies through the integration of SWCs, gamma ray, and acoustic impedance logs using the crossplot approach. Finally, we described seismic patterns throughout the study area and correlated with results from well data analysis. Therefore, the Barra Velha Formation was subdivided into three zones: the lower, intermediate, and upper zones. Well 1 has a facies association characteristic of a proximal and stable environment during deposition, whereas well 2 initially presents in a distal environment sedimentation that evolves to a more proximal setting. This fact evidenced differences with respect to base-level variations indicating compartmentalization within the lacustrine environment of the upper rift and sag phase that corroborated with the detailed seismic pattern interpretation of the study area.
Carbonate mounds, as described herein, often present seismic characteristics such as low amplitude and a high density of faults and fractures, which can easily be oversampled and blur other rock features in simple geobody extraction processes. We have developed a workflow for combining geometric attributes and hybrid spectral decomposition (HSD) to efficiently identify good-quality reservoirs in carbonate mounds within the complex environment of the Brazilian presalt zone. To better identify these reservoirs within the seismic volume of carbonate mounds, we divide our methodology into four stages: seismic data acquisition and processing overview, preconditioning of seismic data using structural-oriented filtering and imaging enhancement, calculation of seismic attributes, and classification of seismic facies. Although coherence and curvature attributes are often used to identify high-density fault and fracture zones, representing one of the most important features of carbonate mounds, HSD is necessary to discriminate low-amplitude carbonate mounds (good reservoir quality) from low-amplitude clay zones (nonreservoir). Finally, we use a multiattribute facies classification to generate a geologically significant outcome and to guide a final geobody extraction that is calibrated by well data and that can be used as a spatial indicator of the distribution of good reservoir quality for static modeling.
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