Azimuthal P-P prestack amplitudes in the presence of oil-filled aligned porosity (fracture porosity)

Abstract

A 3D P-P high-fold full-azimuth full-offset reflection survey was acquired and processed to characterize a naturally fractured carbonate reservoir. The reservoir is a thick carbonate, which will flow commercial oil with a sufficient fracture network. Extensive calibration data include (1) a horizontal borehole’s resistivity image log, (2) the first 24 months cum oil produced, by stage, as known from chemical frac tracer data, (3) pre- and postfrac job instantaneous shut-in pressures, (4) microseismic, and (5) wireline log data. We used the cum oil production to document the spatially varying amount of aligned vertical porosity (aligned compliance or fracture porosity) connected to the stage borehole location. The stages of high oil production exhibited, for the fracture-perpendicular azimuth, the more positive amplitude variation with angle (AVA) gradients, and dimmer near-angle (6°–15° angles of incidence) amplitudes, compared to the fracture-parallel azimuth. The azimuthal variation of the AVA gradient fit the cos 2θ curve well, indicating the presence of one set of vertical aligned fractures dominating the azimuthal amplitude signature. In a similar fashion, the azimuthal variation of the mathematical intercept, physically the near-angle amplitudes, also fit the cos 2θ curve well. We have constructed crossplots of the azimuthal near-angle amplitude versus the AVA gradient on a bin-by-bin basis: We observed a straight line at bins with elevated oil production (elevated fracture density). A straight line crossplot of the (AVA gradient, mathematical intercept) is the signature of change of the (sensed) porosity, as long as the lithology and pore fluid are held constant. In accord with industry knowledge, we found that porosity affects the P impedance and thus the near-angle amplitudes: The aligned porosity yields azimuthal P impedance (measured at the 6°–15° angles of incidence). Legacy high-fold 3D P-P surveys rich in the 6°–20° angles of incidence should be considered for reprocessing and reinterpretation using these techniques.

Wide-Azimuth Seismic Processing Method for Shale Oil Exploration

“…OVT domain processing is a five dimensional processing, mainly including OVT domain noise reduction, regularization, migration and anisotropy analysis (Wang 2003;Cyz and Malinowski 2018 ), the data after OVT domain processing retains azimuth information, providing more favorable information for subsequent AVA analysis and fracture prediction Decker 2020;Lynn 2020;Liu 2020). As the processing task in this research area is to improve the resolution of shale oil reservoir, the wide-azimuth anisotropy analysis and correction technology is mainly used in this study to improve the imaging accuracy and resolution of the reservoir.…”