Field Projects old

  Fasken Oil and Ranch, Permian Basin, Texas

The Fasken Oil and Ranch dataset ranges from the Central Basin Platform into the Midland Basin with 278 square miles of 3D seismic, an inset area of 9C3D seismic, 3 9C3D VSPs, well log data, core data, production data, and the opportunity to acquire DAS for fracture and/or production evaluation. Initially, the RCP integrated team will research regional CBM to basin depositional reconstruction, PP-PS inversion attribute potential and mapping of fluid distribution, AVO and AVA learnings, and VSP facies identification/machine learning. Additional project foci will be added as new students join the team.

  Bakken Mariner, North Dakota

The Mariner project investigates the dynamics of hydraulic fracture closure and the variation in drainage volume during unconventional well production — key factors for optimizing unconventional reservoir development. Featuring two dedicated monitor wells equipped with strain-sensing cables and borehole pressure gauge arrays, this study offers insights into the shrinkage of conductive fracture length throughout production. The high-resolution distributed strain sensing (DSS) measurements captured conductive fractures during both stimulation and production phases, allowing an in-depth evaluation of time-lapse fracture connectivity on individual levels. This research aims to provide a detailed understanding of the fracture closure process using a real field dataset.

Liang, Yueming, Holger Meier, Karthik Srinivasan, Hussain Tahir, Alberto Ortega, Kelvin Amalokwu, James Friedrich, et al. 2022. “Accelerating Development Optimization in the Bakken Using an Integrated Fracture Diagnostic Pilot.” In Proceedings of the 10th Unconventional Resources Technology Conference. Tulsa, OK, USA: American Association of Petroleum Geologists. https://doi.org/10.15530/urtec-2022-3719696.

  PP/PS Inversion 4D time-lapse, North Sea

RCP initiated a new research project in the spring of 2019 with a dataset provided by oil field operator Aker BP (formely Lundin Norway). The Edvard Grieg oil field was discovered in 2007 in the Norwegian North Sea and is operated as a conventional oil field since 2015. The reservoir lies in a half graben in Haugaland High, composed of multi-source sediment accumulation bounded by unconformities. The late Triassic to early Cretaceous reservoir is composed of aeolian sands, alluvial sands, conglomerate, and shallow marine sands. Imaging challenges arise from the depositional complexity of the field and detailed analysis must be done to plan for future development. 

RCP recently performed joint PP-PS pre-stack inversion of the Baseline (2016) and Monitor 1 (2018) (Daneshvar, 2020) and Monitor 2 (2020) (Held, 2023) OBC surveys to separate saturation and pressure changes. The inversion result shows the correlation between the production and injection data allowing pressure and saturation maps to be generated. These maps are valuable for separating the effects of pressure and saturation from development in the field. Having three 4-D datasets provides the opportunity to further monitor 4-D pressure and saturation changes, as well as compare time-lapse processing products from two seismic processing vendors. The project continues with incorporation of Monitor 3 acquired during 2022. The eFWI technology applied recently to update velocity model of the oil field gives opportunity to achieve even better results in reservoir characterization. 

  Ultra-wide offset 3D OBN, GOM

Ultra-wide offset 3D OBN data (maximum offsets in the inline and crossline directions are 65 km and 40 km, respectively) have been acquired in the GOM (that covers the prior 4D DAS VSP project area). To date, these data have been used by commercial vendors for Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) and imaging (hydrophone component only). RCP will examine the 3C geophone components as well. Given the structural complexity of this region of the GOM at these large offsets, the vertical component will also measure S-waves and the horizontal component will also measure P-waves. RCP will analyze the data to understand mode mixing and how to efficiently use this new data type. We will also examine the potential utility of converted waves for reservoir characterization in mini-basins using joint PP-PS prestack inversion. This field research project utilizing extracted data modes will improve FWI application. Further, larger offsets can be used for better S-impedance and density inversion to improve reservoir characterization.

  Multiple DAS VSP datasets, GOM

Multiple high-repeat time-lapse DAS VSP surveys will be used to improve data quality, test processing flows, and to extract converted waves. The use of offshore DAS VSP is becoming more common place to understand reservoir behavior near wells in between expensive OBC/OBN surveys. Joint inversion using PP and PS (converted) waves is a research area for such data. If shown to be successful, we can improve S-impedance and thereby measure changes in reservoir pressure and saturation discrimination.

GOM DAS VSP data acquisition (from Kiyashchenko et al., 2020.

  GORGON PROJECT, Offshore Australia

A 3D OBN data have been acquired in NW off-shore Australia over the Gorgon Field. Similar to other OBN surveys, these data have been used by commercial vendors for Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) and imaging (hydrophone component only). RCP will analyze all 3 components of the full azimuth data toward improving imaging and interpretation of the structurally complex subsurface. Research will encompass FWI approaches (acoustic and elastic) with an emphasis on using the multi-component (vertical and horizontal) and multi-mode (PP and PS) datasets.

  MIDDLE EAST PROJECT, Kuwait

Imaging the deep Jurassic shale and carbonate reservoirs below salt and anhydrite layers is a well-known imaging challenge addressed in this research. This fractured reservoir characterization study is a collaboration with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to enhance sub-surface understanding for improved reservoir development and management of deep Jurassic age fractured carbonate play. Available data includes well logs, VSP and seismic data. Initial work concentrated on improving the characterization of the resource play of the Najmah formation.

The primary focus of this research phase is reservoir characterization of the Marrat formation. Research will incorporate advanced synthetic modeling and field data application. The goals include the development of an optimized workflow to attenuate multiples, and a calibrated and quantitative anisotropic mapping technique for reservoir development and sweet spot identification.

Project results will aid in the development of new technologies for similar resource areas throughout the Middle East.