Prestack Inversion Identification of Dolomite Reservoirs in the Fourth Member of the Sinian Dengying Formation in Moxi Area, Sichuan Basin, SW China

The dolomite reservoir of the fourth member of Dengying Formation in Moxi area of Sichuan Basin is thin, is fast in lateral variation, and has P-impedance difference from the surrounding rock; it is difficult to identify and predict the dolomite reservoir and fluid properties by conventional poststack seismic inversion. Through the correlation analysis of core test data and logging P-S-wave velocity, this work proposed a formula to calculate the shear wave velocity in different porosity ranges and solved the issue that some wells in the study area have no S-wave logging data. AVO forward analysis reveals that whether the gas reservoir of dolomite reservoir is located at the top of the fourth member of Dengying Formation is the main factor affecting the variation of AVO type. Through cross-plotting analysis of elastic parameters, it is found that P-S-wave velocity ratio and fluid factor are sensitive parameters to gas-bearing property of dolomite reservoir in the study area. By comparing the inversion results of prestack parameters such as density, P-wave impedance, S-wave impedance, P-S-wave velocity ratio, and fluid factor, it is found that the gas-bearing prediction of dolomite reservoir by using P-S-wave velocity ratio and fluid factor obtained from simultaneous prestack inversion had the highest coincidence rate with actual drilling data. At last, according to the distribution characteristics of fluid factor and P-S-wave velocity ratio, the favorable gas-bearing areas of dolomite reservoir in the fourth member of Dengying Formation in the study area are finely predicted, and the next favorable exploration areas were pointed out.

Viscoelastic Fluid Factor Inversion and Application in Luojia Oilfield Based on Broadband Impedance

Based on the physical quantity of log data, the accurate identification of oil- and gas-bearing properties may be caused by the prestack inversion of fluid prediction, which will affect the success rate of exploration and development. Prestack data contain more information of amplitude and frequency. Using the frequency-dependent viscoelastic impedance equation and Bayesian inversion framework, the objective function of frequency-dependent elastic impedance inversion can be established to realize the frequency-dependent impedance inversion at different angles. According to the elastic impedance equation of the frequency-varying viscoelastic fluid factor, the relationship between elastic impedance and the frequency-dependent viscoelastic fluid factor is established, and the prestack seismic inversion method of the frequency-dependent viscoelastic fluid factor is studied. However, one of the important factors easily neglected is that we have been using logging data to establish fluid-sensitive parameters and the lithophysical version for fluid identification, so there are differences between logging and seismic frequency bands for fluid identification. The indicator factors with higher sensitivity to fluid can be selected by laboratory measurements. This article applies this method on Luojia oilfield data and verifies this method with log interpretation results, based on the sample of rock physics obtained in a low-frequency rock physics experiment; the technique of dispersion and fluid-sensitive parameters is studied, and the fluid prediction technology of a multifrequency band rock physics template is adopted, which can build the relationship between rock physical elastic parameters and fluid properties by the multifrequency broadband impedance method.

Robust AVO inversion for the fluid factor and shear modulus

Seismic estimation of the fluid factor and shear modulus plays an important role in reservoir fluid identification and characterization. Various amplitude variation with offset inversion methods have been used to estimate these two parameters, which generally based on approximate formulations of the Zoeppritz equations. However, the accuracy of these methods is limited because the forward modeling ability of approximate equations is incorrect under the conditions of strong impedance contrast and large incidence angles. Therefore, to improve the estimation accuracy, we use the Zoeppritz equations to directly invert for the fluid factor and shear modulus. Based on poroelasticity theory, we derive the Zoeppritz equations in a new form containing the fluid factor, shear modulus, density and dry-rock velocity ratio squared. The objective function is then constructed using these equations in a Bayesian framework with the addition of a differentiable Laplace distribution blockiness constraint term to the prior model to enhance fluid boundaries. Finally, the nonlinear objective function is solved by combining the Taylor expansion and the iterative reweighed least-squares algorithm. Numerical experiments indicate that the inversion accuracy of the proposed method may heavily depends on the parameter of the dry-rock velocity ratio square that is assumed static. However, tests on synthetic and field data show that the proposed method can estimate the fluid factor and shear modulus with satisfactory accuracy in the case of choosing a reasonable static value of this parameter. In addition, we demonstrate that the accuracy of this method is higher than that of the linearized formulation.

Nonlinear AVA Inversion Based on a Novel Quadratic Approximation for Fluid Discrimination

Fluid discrimination plays an important role in reservoir exploration and development. At present, the fluid factors used for fluid discrimination are estimated by linear AVA inversion methods based on the linear approximations of the Zoeppritz equations. However, the Zoeppritz equations show that the relationship between prestack AVA reflection coefficients and reservoir parameters is highly nonlinear. Therefore, inversion methods based on linear approximations will seriously influence the nonuniqueness and uncertainty of inversion results. In this paper, a nonlinear inversion based on the quadratic approximation is carried out to reduce the nonuniqueness and uncertainty of fluid factor. Firstly, in order to directly invert the fluid factor, a novel quadratic approximation in terms of the fluid factor ( ρ f ), shear modulus, and density on both sides of the reflection interface is derived based on poroelasticity theory. Then, a nonlinear inversion objective function is constructed using the novel quadratic approximation in a Bayesian framework, and the Gauss-Newton method is adopted to minimize this objective function. The synthetic data example shows that the new method can obtain reasonable fluid factor inversion results even in low SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) case. Finally, the proposed method is also applied to field data which shows that it can effectively discriminate reservoir fluids.

Fluid Discrimination Based on Frequency-Dependent AVO Inversion with the Elastic Parameter Sensitivity Analysis

Fluid discrimination is an extremely important part of seismic data interpretation. It plays an important role in the refined description of hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs. The conventional AVO inversion based on Zoeppritz’s equation shows potential in lithology prediction and fluid discrimination; however, the dispersion and attenuation induced by pore fluid are not fully considered. The relationship between dispersion terms in different frequency-dependent AVO equations has not yet been discussed. Following the arguments of Chapman, the influence of pore fluid on elastic parameters is analyzed in detail. We find that the dispersion and attenuation of Russell fluid factor, Lamé parameter, and bulk modulus are more pronounced than those of P-wave modulus. The Russell fluid factor is most prominent among them. Based on frequency-dependent AVO inversion, the uniform expression of different dispersion terms of these parameters is derived. Then, incorporating the P-wave difference with the dispersion terms, we obtain new P-wave difference dispersion factors which can identify the gas-bearing reservoir location better compared with the dispersion terms. Field data application also shows that the dispersion term of Russell fluid factor is optimal in identifying fluid. However, the dispersion term of Russell fluid factor could be unsatisfactory, if the value of the weighting parameter associated with dry rock is improper. Then, this parameter is studied to propose a reasonable setting range. The results given by this paper are helpful for the fluid discrimination in hydrocarbon-bearing rocks.