Development of Time Lapse VSP Integration Workflow: A Case Study at Farnsworth CO2-EOR Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia McMillan ◽  
Robert Will ◽  
Tom Bratton ◽  
William Ampomah ◽  
Hassan Khaniani
Keyword(s):  
Effective Stress ◽  
Penalty Function ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Rock Physics ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Fluid Substitution ◽  
3D Seismic ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Seismic Velocity Changes ◽  
Velocity Changes

Abstract This study aims to develop a 4D Vertical Seismic Profile (VSP) integration workflow to improve the prediction of subsurface stress changes. The selected study site is a 5-spot pattern within the ongoing CO2-EOR operations at the Farnsworth Field Unit FWU in Ochiltree County, Texas. The specific pattern has undergone extensive geological and geomechanical characterization through the acquisition of 3D seismic data, geophysical well logs, and core. This workflow constrains a numerical hydromechanical model by applying a penalty function formed between "modeled" versus "observed" time-lapse compressional and shear seismic velocity changes. Analyses of geophysical logs and ultra-sonic measurements on core exhibit measurable sensitivities to changes in both fluid saturation and mean effective stress. These data are used to develop a site-specific rock physics model and stress-velocity relationship, which inform the numerical models used to generate the "modeled" portion of the penalty function. The "observed" portion of the penalty function is provided by a novel elastic full-waveform inversion of the available 3D baseline and three monitor surveys to produce high-quality estimates of time-lapse compressional and shear seismic velocity changes. The modeling workflow accounts sequentially for fluid substitution and stress impacts. Hydrodynamic and geomechanical properties of the 3D coupled numerical model are estimated through geostatistical integration of well log and core data with 3D seismic inversion products. Changes in seismic velocities due to fluid substitution are computed using the Biot-Gassmann workflow and site-specific rock physics. Stress impacts on time-lapse seismic velocity changes are modeled from the effective stress output of the hydromechanical model and are initially based on the velocity versus effective stress relationship extracted from core mechanical testing. Based on the principle of superposition of seismic wavefields, seismic velocity changes attributed to fluid substitution and that due to changes in mean effective stress are treated as linearly additive. The modeled results are upscaled using Backus averaging to reconcile scale discrepancies between the modeled and measured datasets to formulate the penalty function. This manuscript presents the forward modeling process and concludes that for the base case, the seismic velocity changes due to mean effective stress dominates over the seismic velocity changes attributed to fluid substitution because of the extensive range of the pressure perturbations. Successful minimization of this penalty function calibrates the coupled hydrodynamic geomechanical numerical model and affirms the suitability of acoustic time-lapse measurements such as 4D-VSP for geomechanical calibration.

scholarly journals TIME-LAPSE POROSITY AND VELOCITY ANALYSIS USING ROCK PHYSICS MODELS IN NIGER DELTA, NIGERIA

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-52
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Aniwetalu ◽  
Akudo Ernest ◽  
Juliet Ilechukwu ◽  
Okechukwu Ikegwuonu ◽  
Uzochukwu Omoja
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Water Saturation ◽  
Rock Physics ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Fluid Substitution ◽  
Average Value ◽  
Velocity Models ◽  
Fluid Properties ◽  
Average Water

The analysis of 3-D and time-lapse seismic data in Isomu Field has offered the dynamic characterization of the reservoir changes. The changes were analyzed using fluid substitution and seismic velocity models. The results of the initial porosity of the reservoirs was 29.50% with water saturation value of12%.The oil and gas maintained saturation values of 40% and 48% with average compressional and shear wave velocities of 2905m/s and 1634m/s respectfully. However, in fluid substitution modelling, the results reflect a change in fluid properties where average gas and oil saturation assume a new status of 34% and 24% which indicates a decrease by 14% and 16% respectively. The average water saturation increases by 30% with an average value of 42%. The decrease in hydrocarbon saturation and increase in formation water influence the porosity. Thus, porosity decreased by 4.16% which probably arose from the closure of the aspect ratio crack due to pressure increase.

Spatial Evaluation of Pore Pressure Variations Related to Rainfall from Seismic Velocity Changes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rezkia Dewi Andajani ◽  
Takeshi Tsuji ◽  
Roel Snieder ◽  
Tatsunori Ikeda
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Ambient Noise ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Diffusion Mechanism ◽  
Velocity Change ◽  
Diffusion Parameters ◽  
The Status ◽  
Seismic Velocity Changes ◽  
Velocity Changes

<p>Crustal pore pressure, which could trigger seismicity and volcanic activity, varies with fluid invasion. Various studies have discussed the potential of using seismic velocity changes from ambient noise to evaluate pore pressure conditions, especially due to rainfall perturbations. Although the influence of rainfall on seismic velocity changes has been reported, consideration of the spatial influence on rainfall towards seismic velocity and its mechanism have not been well understood. We investigated the mechanism of rainfall-induced pore pressure diffusion in southwestern Japan, using seismic velocity change (Vs) inferred from ambient noise. We modeled pore pressure changes from rainfall data based on a diffusion mechanism at the locations where infiltration is indicated. By calculating the correlation between Vs changes and the modeled pore pressure with various hydraulic diffusion parameters, the optimum hydraulic diffusion parameter was obtained. We estimated the diffusion parameters with the highest negative correlation between pore pressure and Vs change because a negative correlation indicates pore pressure increase due to diffusion induced by groundwater load. Furthermore, the spatial variation of the hydraulic diffusivity infers the heterogeneity of the rocks in different locations. This finding suggests that the response of pore pressure induced by rainfall percolation depends on location.  We show that seismic velocity monitoring can be used to evaluate the status of pore pressure at different locations, which is useful for fluid injection, CO<sub>2</sub> wellbore storage, and geothermal development.</p>

Can land subsidence be monitored with ambient seismic auto-correlations?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Ermert ◽  
Marine Denolle ◽  
Enrique Cabral Cano ◽  
Estelle Chaussard ◽  
Dario Solano Rojas
Keyword(s):  
Ambient Noise ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Temporal Correlations ◽  
Long Term Effect ◽  
Seismic Velocity Changes ◽  
Subsurface Layers ◽  
Velocity Changes ◽  
Seasonal Oscillations

<p>Mexico City has been undergoing rapid subsidence for more than 100 years due to groundwater extraction. During the 2010s, rates surpassing 30 centimeters/year were observed by satellite geodetic measurements. Not only does this subsidence pose grave challenges for buildings, urban infrastructure, and water management, but it also changes the seismic response of the affected subsurface layers and thereby alters the seismic hazard in the metropolis that has seen devastating site effects both in the 1985 Michoacan and 2017 Puebla earthquake. We use data and numerical modeling of ambient noise auto-correlations to gain a better insight into the subsidence process through ambient noise techniques.</p><p>We establish a baseline for the long-term and seasonal variations of seismic velocity near the basin from long-term recordings of the Geoscope station UNM, located at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in the geotechnical hill zone. We further study temporary recordings from the MASE array (MASE (2007): Meso America Subduction Experiment. Caltech. Dataset. doi:10.7909/C3RN35SP) to see how subsidence and other factors may influence seismic velocity in the geotechnical hill, transition, and lake zones.</p><p>We find that seasonal oscillations and a strong, rapid velocity drop coincident with the 2017 Puebla earthquake overlay a multi-year increasing trend in seismic velocity. We cautiously interpret the multi-year increase as a long-term effect of subsidence. We further study the temporal correlations of seismic velocity changes with other environmental time series like precipitation, and model auto-correlations in order to improve our understanding of their composition and sensitivity.</p>

Effect of snowfalls on relative seismic velocity changes measured by ambient noise correlation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Guillemot ◽  
Alec Van Herwijnen ◽  
Laurent Baillet ◽  
Eric Larose
Keyword(s):  
Snow Cover ◽  
Solid Earth ◽  
Ambient Noise ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Coda Wave ◽  
Noise Correlation ◽  
Geophysical Research ◽  
Seismic Velocity Changes ◽  
Velocity Changes ◽  
Seismic Measurements

<p>Seismic noise correlation is a broadly used method to monitor the subsurface, in order to detect physical processes into the surveyed medium such changes in rigidity, fluid injection or cracking <sup>(1)</sup>. The influence of several environmental variables on measured seismic observables were studied, such as temperature, groundwater level fluctuations, and freeze-thawing cycles <sup>(2)</sup>. In mountainous, cold temperate and polar sites, the presence of a snowcover can also affect relative seismic velocity changes (dV/V), but this relation is relatively poorly documented and ambiguous <sup>(3)(4)</sup>. In this study, we analyzed raw seismic recordings from a snowy flat field site located above Davos (Switzerland), during one entire winter season (from December 2018 to June 2019). Our goal was to better understand the effect of snowfall and snowmelt events on dV/V measurements through both seismic and meteorological instrumentation.</p><p>We identified three snowfall events with a substantial response of dV/V measurements (drops of several percent between 15 and 25 Hz), suggesting a detectable change in elastic properties of the medium due to the additional fresh snow.</p><p>To better interpret the measurements, we used a physical model to compute frequency dependent changes in the Rayleigh wave velocity computed before and after the events. Elastic parameters of the ground subsurface were obtained from a seismic refraction survey, whereas snow cover properties were obtained from the snow cover model SNOWPACK. The decrease in dV/V due to a snowfall were well reproduced, with the same order of magnitude than observed values, confirming the importance of the effect of fresh and dry snow on seismic measurements.</p><p>We also observed a decrease in dV/V with snowmelt periods, but we were not able to reproduce those changes with our model. Overall, our results highlight the effect of the snowcover on seismic measurements, but more work is needed to accurately model this response, in particular for the presence of liquid water in the snowcover.</p><p> </p><p><strong>References</strong></p><ul><li>(1) Larose, E., Carrière, S., Voisin, C., Bottelin, P., Baillet, L., Guéguen, P., Walter, F., et al. (2015) Environmental seismology: What can we learn on earth surface processes with ambient noise? Journal of Applied Geophysics, <strong>116</strong>, 62–74. doi:10.1016/j.jappgeo.2015.02.001</li> <li>(2) Le Breton, M., Larose, É., Baillet, L., Bontemps, N. & Guillemot, A. (2020) Landslide Monitoring Using Seismic Ambient Noise Interferometry: Challenges and Applications. Earth-Science Reviews</li> <li>(3) Hotovec‐Ellis, A.J., Gomberg, J., Vidale, J.E. & Creager, K.C. (2014) A continuous record of intereruption velocity change at Mount St. Helens from coda wave interferometry. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, <strong>119</strong>, 2199–2214. doi:10.1002/2013JB010742</li> <li>(4) Wang, Q.-Y., Brenguier, F., Campillo, M., Lecointre, A., Takeda, T. & Aoki, Y. (2017) Seasonal Crustal Seismic Velocity Changes Throughout Japan. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, <strong>122</strong>, 7987–8002. doi:10.1002/2017JB014307</li> </ul>

scholarly journals Seismic velocity changes associated with aseismic deformations of a fault stimulated by fluid injection

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (18) ◽  
pp. 9563-9572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Rivet ◽  
Louis De Barros ◽  
Yves Guglielmi ◽  
Frédéric Cappa ◽  
Raymi Castilla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Fluid Injection ◽  
Seismic Velocity Changes ◽  
Velocity Changes

scholarly journals 4D Travel-Time Tomography as a Tool for Tracking Fluid-Driven Medium Changes in Offshore Oil–Gas Exploitation Areas

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 5878
Author(s):  
Grazia De Landro ◽  
Ortensia Amoroso ◽  
Guido Russo ◽  
Aldo Zollo
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Velocity Model ◽  
Target Volume ◽  
Fluid Injection ◽  
Pressure Perturbation ◽  
Operational Conditions ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Velocity Changes

The monitoring of rock volume where offshore exploitation activities take place is crucial to assess the corresponding seismic hazard. Fluid injection/extraction operations generate a pore fluid pressure perturbation into the volume hosting the reservoir which, in turn, may trigger new failures and induce changes in the elastic properties of rocks. Our purpose is to evaluate the feasibility of reconstructing pore pressure perturbation diffusion in the host medium by imaging the 4D velocity changes using active seismic. We simulated repeated active offshore surveys and imaged the target volume. We constructed the velocity model perturbed by the fluid injection using physical modeling and evaluated under which conditions the repeated surveys could image the velocity changes. We found that the induced pressure perturbation causes seismic velocity variations ranging between 2–5% and 15–20%, depending on the different injection conditions and medium properties. So, in most cases, time-lapse tomography is very efficient in tracking the perturbation. The noise level characterizing the recording station sites is a crucial parameter. Since we evaluated the feasibility of the proposed 4D imaging strategy under different realistic environmental and operational conditions, our results can be directly applied to set up and configure the acquisition layout of surveys aimed at retrieving fluid-induced medium changes in the hosting medium. Moreover, our results can be considered as a useful starting point to design the guidelines to monitor exploitation areas.

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