70

th
EAGE Conference & Exhibition Rome, Italy, 9 - 12 June 2008

I003
Detaed Geoogca Mode of Carbonate Reservor
Based on Geostatstca AVA-nverson - A Case
Study
O. Rodna* (Fugro-|ason), A. Rabey (Fugro-|ason), L. Makarova (Fugro-
|ason), D. Neudachn (Pechoraneft) & |. Corbao (West Sberan Resources
Ltd.)
SUMMARY
The goal oI reservoir characterization is to draw inIerences about the petrophysical properties oI the
reservoir (porosity, permeability, saturation, etc.) on the bases oI geological assumptions about the
character oI the subsurIace, together with the evidence Irom seismic and well log data. The geostatistical
inversion is a modern and one oI the most eIIective tools Ior such purposes. This study demonstrates how
geostatistical AVA-inversion workIlow was used to obtain reservoir properties and risk assessment oI the
Lekharyaga prospect area. The main target oI this region was Lower Permian siliciclastic-carbonate oil
reservoir. Recent results oI geostatistical inversion oI prestack seismic data now indicate spatial
distributions oI eIIective porosity and permeability within the target interval. Based on our investigation an
adjustment oI the production drilling scheme was perIormed.

70
th
EAGE Conference & Exhibition Rome, Italy, 9 - 12 June 2008
Introduction
The geostatistical inversion algorithm combines traditional geostatistics modeling
techniques and deterministic inversion to produce many of benefits that these techniques
produce individually. Various types of information of all scales from core measurements to
geological frame are used together in this algorithm. Each source of these input information
are represented as a probability density function (prior PDF). The algorithm uses Bayesian
inference fundamentals to combine these individual PDFs and construct a posterior
probability density function that represents the probability of a reservoir model, given the
geostatistics, seismic, well logs and other input data. Then the samples from that general
density function are drawn using customized Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to jointly
produce realizations of lithology and all desired rock and reservoir property volumes. A
realization consists of a 3D image of each continuous elastic and petrophysical reservoir
property, and of lithology, discretized on a high resolution stratigraphic grid. Multiple equally
probable realizations of elastic and discrete reservoir properties provide estimating of
uncertainty for risk assessment.
This technology was applied to the data acquired on the on-shore oil field producing
from the Lower Permian siliciclastic-carbonate formation in the Timan-Pechora basin which
is situated on the north-east corner of the Russian Platform.
The target interval consists of two parts. The Asselian/Sakmarian part is composed of
fine-grained wackestones, coarse-grained packstones, crinoidal grainstones and biohermal
limestones represented by algal, bryozoan-Tubiphytes and bryozoan-Palaeoaplysina types.
While the Artinskian interval is represented by dark-gray marls and argillites, and carbonate-
siliciclastic deposits various in color. The deposition of the Asselian/Sakmarian sequense is
considered to occur in a low-gradient, carbonate-dominated ramp system, while the
Artinskian interval was deposited in a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic ramp system (deeper
water). The total thickness of the target interval is about 120 m.
Subaeral exposure of the field occurred in the Late Sakmarian and Early Artinskian
time. It is suggested that at this time the most of the secondary porosity (vugs, mouldic
porosity) was produced. As a result, Lower Permian carbonates display a great variety in
petrophysical properties and their lateral distribution.
The goal of this project was to receive a highly detailed 3D reservoir model, including
information about spatial distribution of effective porosity and permeability, and adjustment
of the production drilling scheme.

Input Data
After prestack time migration four angle-stacks were obtained in the prospect area.
The sample rate is 2 ms. Seismic bandwidth is 10 - 60 Hz with a central frequency of 25 Hz.
There were six wells at the very beginning of the study. Two more wells were drilled
later. Only six of them (including two deviated wells) were accepted for rockphysics analysis.
A rock property database of compressional velocity (Vp), shear velocity (Vs), bulk density
(Rhob), effective porosity and permeability was derived for target interval using all available
well and core information.
Reflectivity series and synthetic seismograms were generated from these well logs to
produce well-to-seismic ties, estimating wavelets and noise levels for each anglestack.
Lithotypes identification is a major source of uncertainty in modeling of the reservoir
properties. According to well data three lithotypes were discriminated. Figure 1 shows cross-
plots of P-impedance versus Vp/Vs ratio and versus effective porosity. There are three clouds
corresponding to the derived lithotypes: shaly limestone (dark blue) is associated with the
Artinskian deposits, limestone (blue) and reservoir (yellow) are associated with
nonproductive tight limestones and productive highly porous limestones of the Asselian-
Sakmarian interval respectively. For the Artinskian interval, distinguishing of individual
lithotypes for the pay and non-pay parts basing on the elastic properties appeared to be
impossible. Therefore, the reservoir was discriminated basing on the effective porosity
volume at the cut-off of 9 %.


70
th
EAGE Conference & Exhibition Rome, Italy, 9 - 12 June 2008
An initial structural model was build from a set of interpreted time horizons. Based on
the interpreted stratigraphy of that structural model the 3D grid was created. Within each
layer, the microlayer stratigraphy defines which cells are neighbors for the purposes of spatial
continuity.
Another crucial feature for better guide of the inversion algorithm is creating
proportion trends of the lithotypes. Three volumes, one for each of the lithotypes, were
designed based on facial analysis of prospect area and well data. Each sample of these
volumes contains the expected proportion of the corresponding lithotype.
Histograms and spatial variograms are used to get an approximate understanding of
the size and continuities of the features and to control the lateral smoothness of the results
away from well control.

Geostatistical AVA-inversion
Geostatistical AVA-inversions of acoustic impedance, Vp/Vs and density were run at
a vertical sampling interval of 0.5 ms. Figure 2a, b shows the results of a single realization.
The corresponding well logs are plotted on the sections with the same color scheme.
Lithology volumes are also inverted jointly with the elastic properties.
Using multivariate relationships of lithology and elastic and petrophysical properties
as a constraint we produced petrophysical volumes such as an effective porosity (Figure 2c).
This estimation is performed by using Gaussian co-simulation wherein the inverted acoustic
impedance, Vp/Vs ratio and lithotype cubes are used as input data. The final petrophysical
volume is obtained by averaging 20 independent co-simulations of effective porosity. That
distribution of effective porosity then was used to provide an estimation of the spatial
distribution of permeability that honors the available core information. Figure 3 shows the
comparison between well-log effective porosity (red curves) and extracted traces (black
curves) of co-simulation effective porosity. The curves demonstrate close fit which could be
an indirect indicator of the inversion reliability.
Having generated a suite of realizations, the probability volumes for the occurrence of
each lithotype were calculated. Figure 4 shows an example of such uncertainty information.
The obtained results were used as a ground for location of the top and the bottom of
the reservoir in the interwell space, as well as for net pay thickness and net pay mapping.
Figure 5 shows a plan view of net pay thickness of the Asselian-Sakmarian interval. Yellow
dotes (A, B) are the predesigned well locations according to the drilling program. Based on
recent inversion results these locations (A, B) were corrected (red dotes).
Figure 1. a: Cross-plot of acoustic impedance vs. Vp/Vs within the target interval. Lithology
differentiation was performed through the use of all elastic properties and effective porosity.
b: Cross-plot of acoustic impedance vs. effective porosity within target interval. Porosity cut-off is
9% for the Artinskian productive interval; porosity cut-off is 6.6% for the Asselian-Sakmarian
productive interval.
Shaly
limestone
Limestone
Reservoir
a
Pay
Non-pay
Pay
Non-pay
b
Shaly
limestone
Limestone
Reservoir
a
Pay
Non-pay
Pay
Non-pay
b

70
th
EAGE Conference & Exhibition Rome, Italy, 9 - 12 June 2008


Figure 2. Seismic-time cross-section shows stochastically-inverted lithotypes (a), P-Impedance
(b) and co-simulation of effective porosity (c) in the 0.5-ms high-resolution framework. Well
logs (lithotypes, acoustic impedance, effective porosity) are displayed at three well locations
along the cross-section with the same color scheme respectively.
Figure 3. Cross validation of co-simulation of effective porosity. The red curves represent the
resampled effective porosity logs in the wells, whereas the black curves are effective porosity
curves extracted from averaging petrophysical volume.
Figure 4. Frequency volume is computed for the lithotype reservoir (yellow
lithology). This result comes from runs where one well was not included (blind well).
P-Impedance
Effective porosity
Lithotypes
a
b
c
well A well B well 3
P-Impedance
Effective porosity
Lithotypes
a
b
c
well A well B well 3
Frequency of lithotype reservoir
Blind well
well 4 well A well B well C
Frequency of lithotype reservoir
Blind well
well 4 well A well B well C
well logs/extracted curves
Effective porosity
t
a
r
g
e
t

i
n
t
e
r
v
a
l
well A well B
well 1 well 2 well 3 well 4
T
V
D

[
m
]
well logs/extracted curves
Effective porosity
t
a
r
g
e
t

i
n
t
e
r
v
a
l
well A well B
well 1 well 2 well 3 well 4
T
V
D

[
m
]
[%]

70
th
EAGE Conference & Exhibition Rome, Italy, 9 - 12 June 2008

Conclusions
Geostatistical AVA inversion provides a way to increase vertical resolution of the
inverted properties above the seismic bandwidth. Moreover, it establishes a statistical link
between the elastic properties and petrophysical parameters. This case study demonstrates
how these two features of geostatistical inversion were used to obtain highly detailed volumes
of effective porosity and permeability in the Timan-Pechora carbonate reservoir. These results
are going to be used in fluid-flow simulation. In addition, the locations of new wells which
were going to be drilled in parallel to the execution of this project were corrected on-the-fly,
basing on the inversion results.
Therefore, geostatistical AVA inversion is proved to be a powerful tool to receive
highly detailed distributions of petrophysical properties (such as porosity and permeability).

Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Pechoraneft and West Siberian Resources Ltd. companies for the
permission to publish these abstracts.

References
Dubrule, O. [2003] Geostatistics for seismic data integration in earth models. Distinguished
Instructor Series, No. 6.
Francis, A. [2006] Understanding stochastic inversion: part 1. First Break, vol. 24, No. 11,
pp. 69-77.
Haas, A. and Dubrule, O. [1994] Geostatistical inversion - a sequential method of stochastic
reservoir modeling constrained by seismic data. First Break, vol. 12, No. 11, pp. 561-569.
Internal training materials of Fugro-Jason on geostatistical inversion.
Figure 5. Plan view of the net pay thickness (color) overlapped on the structural top of
the Asselian-Sakmarian interval (black lines).
Net pay thickness of Asselian-
Sakmarian interval
A
A
B
B
C
D
Planned well location
Corrected well location
Well drilled before
3D seismic
Net pay
thickness [m]
East-Kolva fault
-1770
Net pay thickness of Asselian-
Sakmarian interval
A
A
B
B
C
D
Planned well location
Corrected well location
Well drilled before
3D seismic
Net pay
thickness [m]
East-Kolva fault
-1770