Surface Passive Seismic in Kuwait

Abstract

Surface passive seismic is a direct hydrocarbon saturation indicator technique. It detects the presence of subsurface hydrocarbons by recording and spectroscopically analyzing the lowfrequency acoustic/seismic background noise (between 0.5 10 Hz) which is actively emitted by the earth. The measurements after filtering and analysis can be calibrated with well data and integrated with other geophysical data to provide information which can lower the uncertainty level for drilling and field development decisions. Measurements were carried out in Kuwait to evaluate their suitability to map the extent of hydrocarbon occurrences. The main concern being the suitability of the technology to differentiate between various reservoirs in stackedreservoir environment. The level of certainty in the resulting map could not be accessed as there is a possibility that some deep reservoirs have not penetrated by the wells in the area of the experiment. It was concluded that the technology (at this point) cannot indicate the distribution of the occurrence among the stacked reservoirs since the measured indicators are the summation of the response of all the underlying reservoir layers. Nevertheless, the areas with highest hydrocarbon potential indication will normally be the most interesting ones.

Low‐frequency passive seismic experiments in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: implications for hydrocarbon detection

“…In more recent times it has been suggested that microtremor measurements can be used to determine the location, depth and thickness of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Anomalously high spectral amplitudes of microtremor signals in the 1–6 Hz frequency range, with a peak around 3 Hz, have been observed and reported over a number of hydrocarbon reservoirs, primarily in a gas field in Austria and several sites in the Middle East, including some oilfields in Abu Dhabi (Singer et al 2002; Dangel et al 2003; Holzner et al 2005a,b, 2006a,b,c, 2007a,b; Frehner et al 2006, 2007; Rached 2006, 2009; Lambert et al 2007, 2009a,b; Steiner, Saenger and Schmalholz 2007; 2008a; Saenger et al 2007b, 2009a; van Mastrigt and Al‐Dulaijan 2008; Nguyen et al 2008, 2009; Goertz et al 2009; Saenger, Torres and Artman 2009c). These studies have claimed that a strong correlation exists between microtremor spectral anomalies and the presence of hydrocarbons over several established oilfields.…”

Low‐frequency microtremor anomalies at an oil and gas field in Voitsdorf, Austria

“…Low‐frequency (<10 Hz) spectral anomalies in surface microtremor signals have recently been used as hydrocarbon indicators (Dangel et al 2003; Holzner et al 2005; Akrawi and Bloch 2006; Birialtsev et al 2006; Rached 2006; Suntsov et al 2006). Dangel et al (2003) investigated microtremor data to locate hydrocarbon bearing structures in the subsurface and found an empirical relationship between low‐frequency spectral anomalies in microtremor wavefields and the presence of hydrocarbon reservoirs, mainly for sites in the Middle East.…”

Accelerometer Sensor Specifications to Predict Hydrocarbon Using Passive Seismic Technique

“…A study analysis of the growing number of stratigraphy surveys over variant oil and gas fields signifies the existence of spectral anomalies in the passive seismic wavefield, that is, microtremors, having a high degree of relationship with the localization of hydrocarbon reservoirs [22,[144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151]. Such microtremors work as a reservoir indicator to optimize the well placement during exploration, appraisal, and development.…”