Predicting the economic impact of acquisition artifacts and noise

Houck, Richard T.

doi:10.1190/1.1813352

“…This greatly simplifies our analysis as we only need to determine the mean of the posterior distribution of this product given seismic information. If v is not linear in φ h (1-S w ), as in Houck,12 or if the company is not risk neutral, then the shape of this distribution is important and the VOI calculation described in this paper is considerably more complex, most likely requiring numerical methods such as MCMC. Therefore, we assume that…”

Section: Value Model Specificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying 3D Land Seismic Reliability and Value

Bickel

¹

,

Gibson

²

,

McVay

³

et al. 2006

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

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TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractSeismic data provide important information for guiding reservoir development. Improvements in data quality hold the promise of improving performance even further. Yet, the value of these data, and decision making capability, must exceed its cost. Previous work has demonstrated value of information (VOI) methods to quantify the value of seismic data. In these examples, seismic accuracy is obtained via expert assessment instead of being based on geophysical quantities. In addition, the modeled seismic information is not representative of a quantity that would be observed in a true processed seismic image. Here we apply a more general VOI model that includes multiple targets, budgetary constraints, and, importantly, quantitative models relating post-stack seismic amplitudes and AVO parameters to the quantities of interest for reservoir characterization, such as porosity and reservoir thickness. In addition, by including estimated changes in data accuracy related to signal-to-noise ratio, the decision model can provide objective estimates of the ability of the seismic data to provide reliable measurements and its value. We demonstrate this methodology within the context of a west Texas 3D land survey. This example demonstrates that seismic information can be quite valuable and improvements in seismic technology can create significant value for E&P companies.

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“…In many cases, these assessments are not tied directly to observable seismic signals. Houck (2004) addressed some of these concerns by valuing seismic's ability to inform estimates of porosity in the context of a multiwell drilling program and tying the accuracy of seismic data to directly observable seismic signals. This gap between what seismic surveys actually report and what is needed in decision making makes the implementation of VOI techniques problematic (Bratvold et al 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Reliability and Value of 3D Land Seismic

Bickel

¹

,

Gibson

²

,

McVay

³

et al. 2008

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

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Seismic data provide essential information for guiding reservoir development. Improvements in data quality hold the promise of improving performance even further, provided that the value of these data exceeds their cost. Previous work has demonstrated value-of-information (VOI) methods to quantify the value of seismic data. In these examples, seismic accuracy was obtained by means of expert assessment instead of being based on geophysical quantities. In addition, the modeled seismic information was not representative of any quantity that would be observed in a seismic image.Here we apply a more general VOI model that includes multiple targets, budgetary constraints, and quantitative models relating poststack seismic amplitudes and amplitude-variation-withoffset (AVO) parameters to the quantities of interest for reservoir characterization, such as porosity and reservoir thickness. Also, by including estimated changes in data accuracy based on signal-tonoise ratio, the decision model can provide objective estimates of the reliability of measurements derived from the seismic data. We demonstrate this methodology within the context of a west Texas 3D land survey. This example demonstrates that seismic information can improve reservoir economics and that improvements in seismic technology can create additional value. Value of Seismic (VOS) Information.Consider an exploration and production (E&P) company that is designing a land-based infill-drilling program. The company has identified m infill targets but faces a budget constraint such that it can drill only b wells. Such a constraint could be the result of a limited capital budget or of rig availability. Let d=(d 1 , . . . , d m ) be an m-vector of drilling decisions, or a drilling program where d i ‫1ס‬ if target i is to be drilled and 0 otherwise. Each drilled well will produce a value for the company, which is a function of the underlying reservoir properties (e.g., porosity, thickness, water saturation). Let v i represent the expected net present value (ENPV) (Brealey and Myers 1991) of Well i. We represent the reservoir properties at location i with the n-vector i , where n is the number of properties. Then ⍀‫(ס‬ 1 , . . . , m ) is a matrix that describes the reservoir properties at each of the m locations. If we consider only porosity, thickness, and water saturation, then each reservoir-property vector contains three elements. At the time of the drilling decision, these properties are unknown and, hence, i is a random vector with prior probability distribution f i ( i ). The joint distribution over the reservoir properties at all locations is f(⍀).* This name is based on an analogy to a hiker that wants to fill his/her knapsack with the most-valuable items but is restricted as to how much can be carried. In our setting, we want to the most-valuable wells but can select only b of them.

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“…Houck 12 attempted to remedy some of these concerns by valuing seismic's ability to inform estimates of porosity in the context of a multi-well drilling program and tying the accuracy of seismic data to directly observable seismic signals. In this paper, like Houck, we extend the previous VOI studies by considering multiple targets and budgetary…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying 3D Land Seismic Reliability and Value

Bickel

¹

,

Gibson

²

,

McVay

³

et al. 2006

Proceedings of SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

3

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractSeismic data provide important information for guiding reservoir development. Improvements in data quality hold the promise of improving performance even further. Yet, the value of these data, and decision making capability, must exceed its cost. Previous work has demonstrated value of information (VOI) methods to quantify the value of seismic data. In these examples, seismic accuracy is obtained via expert assessment instead of being based on geophysical quantities. In addition, the modeled seismic information is not representative of a quantity that would be observed in a true processed seismic image. Here we apply a more general VOI model that includes multiple targets, budgetary constraints, and, importantly, quantitative models relating post-stack seismic amplitudes and AVO parameters to the quantities of interest for reservoir characterization, such as porosity and reservoir thickness. In addition, by including estimated changes in data accuracy related to signal-to-noise ratio, the decision model can provide objective estimates of the ability of the seismic data to provide reliable measurements and its value. We demonstrate this methodology within the context of a west Texas 3D land survey. This example demonstrates that seismic information can be quite valuable and improvements in seismic technology can create significant value for E&P companies.

show abstract

Predicting the economic impact of acquisition artifacts and noise

Cited by 15 publications

References 1 publication

Quantifying 3D Land Seismic Reliability and Value

Quantifying 3D Land Seismic Reliability and Value

Quantifying the Reliability and Value of 3D Land Seismic

Quantifying 3D Land Seismic Reliability and Value

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