DE-FC26-00BC15305

Program
This project was selected in response to DOE's Oil Exploration and Production solicitation DE-PS26-01NT41048, focus area Critical Upstream Advanced Diagnostics and Imaging Technology. The goal of the solicitation was to continue critical upstream cross-cutting, interdisciplinary research for the development of advanced and innovative technologies for imaging and quantifying reservoir rock and fluid properties for improved oil recovery.

Project Goal
The objective of this project is to develop novel algorithms for the efficient quantitative integration of 3-D pre-stack seismic amplitude data, well logs, rock-core data, geological information, and reservoir production measurements into accurate and reliable space-time descriptions of hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Performer
University of Texas
Austin, TX

Project Results
This project developed:

• Reliable and efficient stochastic and deterministic algorithms to invert pre-stack seismic amplitude measurements into one-dimensional spatial distributions of P-wave impedance, S-wave impedance, and bulk density.
• Novel algorithms for the joint inversion of pre-stack seismic amplitude data, well logs, and time records of fluid production measurements into 3-D distributions of lithology, porosity, permeability, and fluid saturation.

Benefits
The joint inversion algorithms developed in this project provide a reliable quantitative methodology to describe hydrocarbon reservoirs and to predict their behavior after the onset of production. Such a methodology allows active control of reservoirs in order to optimize the recovery of existing hydrocarbon assets.

Background
This is the first research undertaken to address the problem of measurement integration in hydrocarbon reservoirs with a rigorous inversion methodology that jointly honors pre-stack seismic amplitude measurements, well logs, and fluid production measurements.

Project Summary
Researchers have:

• Successfully demonstrated the joint inversion methodology on challenging synthetic and field data sets.
• Developed original and novel algorithms to construct spatial distributions of lithology, porosity, permeability, and fluid saturation based on the statistical integration of pre-stack seismic amplitude measurements, rock-core data, and time records of fluid production.

Current Status (November 2005)
This project was successfully completed in September 2003. The final report was submitted to DOE shortly thereafter.

Publications
Three annual reports and one final report were submitted to DOE. The publication list stemming from this project also includes four journal articles published, four journal articles currently under review, and eight refereed conference papers.

Project Start: September 28, 2000
Project End: February 29, 2004

Anticipated DOE Contribution: $1,200,000
Performer Contribution: $240,000 (16% of total)

Contact Information:
NETL - Purna Halder (purna.halder@netl.doe.gov or 918-699-2083)
U. of Texas - Carlos Torres-Verdin (cverdub@uts.cc.utexas.edu or 512-471-4216)