The Nexen Time-lapse Project: An Industry Leading Approach to Reservoir Monitoring and Recovery

Time-lapse rock-physics inversion of thermal heavy oil production

“…The relative sizes and geographic locations of these deposits in Alberta are shown in Figure 1 , 2004). This assemblage unconformably overlies the Beaverhill Lake (BHL) group; a Devonian-aged interbedded carbonate and shale that is easily mapped seismically by a large impedance contrast (Kelly et al, 2015) between the hard, rigid Devonian rock and the overlying soft, unconsolidated sands of the They were able to use the relatively dense temporal sampling of their study to observe subsurface velocity increases and decreases, which were then used in conjunction with 3D reservoir modeling to differentiate between increases and decreases in gas saturation and heated and cold liquid pore fluids. The authors' seismic observations correlated strongly with their reservoir modeling and demonstrated the utility of using time-shift data to remotely monitor steam-flooding operations.…”