Impact of time-lapse seismic data for permeability estimation

Abstract

We consider the impact of using time-lapse seismic data in addition to production data for permeability estimation in a porous medium with multiphase fluid flows, such as a petroleum reservoir under water-assisted production. Since modeling seismic wave propagation in addition to modeling fluid flows in the reservoir is quite involved, it is assumed that the time-lapse seismic data have already been inverted into fluid saturation differences (pseudoseismic data). Because an inversion process often leads to considerable error growth, we will consider pseudoseismic data with large uncertainties. The impact of pseudoseismic data is assessed through permeability estimation with and without such data and through application of some uncertainty measures for the estimated parameters. A multiscale algorithm is used for the parameter estimations, so that potential differences in attainable permeability resolution will be easily revealed. The numerical examples clearly indicate that the permeability estimation problem is stabilized at a higher level of resolution when pseudoseismic data are applied in addition to production data, even if the pseudoseismic data have large associated uncertainties. Use of the parameter uncertainty measures confirm these results.

Reservoir characterization based upon the onset of time-lapse amplitude changes

“…Estimating reservoir properties such as permeability, based on onset times, contrasts with previous efforts that relied upon timelapse amplitude, traveltime, and waveform changes (Huang et al, 1998;Vasco et al, 2004;Vasco, 2004a;Dong and Oliver, 2005;MacBeth and Al-Maskeri, 2006;Dadashpour et al, 2008Dadashpour et al, , 2009Feng and Mannseth, 2010;Rey et al, 2012). Here, we demonstrate that onset times, extracted from seismic time-lapse reflection data recorded in a few surveys, can provide a reliable basis for reservoir characterization.…”

Efficient Assimilation of Crosswell Electromagnetic Data Using an Ensemble-Based History-Matching Framework

“…In contrast, time-lapse seismic data possess much higher spatial (lateral) resolution and can potentially provide rich information about dynamic changes in the reservoir far from wells locations. Although the quantitative use of timelapse seismic data for history matching still remains a challenging task, significant work has been conducted to overcome this difficulty (Skjervheim et al, 2007;Feng and Mannseth, 2010;Trani et al, 2013;Luo et al, 2017;Zhang and Leeuwenburgh, 2017;. Meanwhile, a growing number of real-field history matching applications using ensemble-based assimilation methods have been presented showing satisfactory results in the literature (Haugen et al, 2008;Zhang and Oliver, 2011;Chen and Oliver, 2014;Abadpour et al, 2018).…”

Efficient Assimilation of Crosswell Electromagnetic Data Using Ensemble-Based History-Matching Framework

“…In contrast, time-lapse seismic data possess much higher spatial (lateral) resolution and can potentially provide rich information about dynamic changes in the reservoir far from wells locations. Although the quantitative use of timelapse seismic data for history matching still remains a challenging task, significant work has been conducted to overcome this difficulty (Skjervheim et al, 2007;Feng and Mannseth, 2010;Trani et al, 2013;Luo et al, 2017;Zhang and Leeuwenburgh, 2017;. Meanwhile, a growing number of real-field history matching applications using ensemble-based assimilation methods have been presented showing satisfactory results in the literature (Haugen et al, 2008;Zhang and Oliver, 2011;Chen and Oliver, 2014;Abadpour et al, 2018).…”