GEO 2010

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Carbonate reservoirs are difficult to characterise, and therefore produce. Nevertheless,

the complexities of carbonate reservoirs need to be overcome not least because
they house much of the worlds remaining conventional oil.
By Iain Bush, Schlumberger

An integrated approach to

fracture characterisation

Fracture corridors vary in length and size; a large

fracture corridor might be 10 m wide, 100 m high
and a kilometre long. Fracture corridors are not
restricted to carbonate environments. This fracture
corridor located in a clastic rock outcrop in Algeria,
measured at up to 10 metres (33 ft) wide with no
vertical displacement but with many small fractures

S MORE THAN 60 per cent of the

worlds remaining conventional oil is
estimated to lie in carbonate reservoirs,
the need to better understand
carbonate production capabilities particularly the
giant fields found in the Middle East becomes
increasingly important. But heterogeneous porosity
distributions, intricate flow paths caused by
fracturing, flow barriers and baffles are among the
key challenges that make carbonate reservoirs
notoriously difficult to characterise, and therefore
produce.

88 Oil Review Middle East Issue Two 2010

Networks of natural fractures

play a crucial role in many oil
and gas reservoirs they help
to drain hydrocarbons and
other fluids

Unlike sandstone, which in general is formed

over time from deposits left behind by tides, rivers
and winds and is relatively homogeneous,
carbonates are the result of diagenesis rather than
mechanical action, and are formed in place rather
than transported and deposited in a sedimentary
basin. Calcium carbonate is also more chemically
active than the silica in sandstone and its
mechanical properties make it prone to fractures,
subsidence and compaction. Relative to sandstone
reservoirs, carbonates show a poor correlation
between porosity and permeability, and no two

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GEO 2010

Seismic to simulation variations

carbonate reservoirs are alike. Some carbonate

rocks are also susceptible to subsidence and
compaction during production.

Flow networks
Most carbonate reservoirs are naturally fractured
from microscopic fissures to kilometre-sized
structures called fracture swarms or corridors.
Fractures exist over a very wide range of scales and
may form complex flow networks. Understanding

The Coil Shooting

technique is expected to be
particularly effective in
defining fracture corridors

these flow networks is fundamental to achieving

better prediction and production performance.
These networks can be characterised using highfidelity measurements from multiple scales and
disciplines, and incorporated into a unified
geological model. Such geological models may
incorporate all fracture scales and should accurately
predict fluid flow.
Networks of natural fractures play a crucial role
in many oil and gas reservoirs they help to drain

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hydrocarbons and other fluids. Conductive fracture

corridors are major conduits for fluid flow in the
reservoir. To obtain realistic dynamic reservoir
simulations, their positions must be mapped
accurately in the reservoir model furnishing
essential information for locating injector and
producer wells to maximise reservoir sweep
efficiency.
As for what constitutes a fracture corridor, a
typical fracture corridor can consist of a huge
number of parallel fractures densely packed
together to form a volume that is typically a few
metres wide, a few tens of metres high, several
hundred metres long and with a permeability well
above 10 Darcy. These corridors act as major
conduits for fluid flow in the reservoir and can be
responsible for early water breakthrough. To
maximise field production and total recovery, the
location of fracture corridors within the reservoir
must be known.

sampling of the reservoir volume, such

measurements provide detailed information such as
orientation, depth and aperture of the fractures. In
non-conductive invert-emulsion mud systems, a
clearer image of the fractures can be obtained using
the OBMI* Oil-Base MicroImager tool. Data from well
tests and production logging tests are also essential
to characterise the fluid flow around the wells.
Further measurements that examine the inter-well
space are required to understand how the fractures
observed in the wells extend across the reservoir.

Seismic anisotropy
The power of seismic in this context has, inarguably,
grown. Historically, the properties of diffuse fractures
have been characterised from seismic data through
the indirect interpretation of seismic anisotropy
observations. Since the mid-1980s there has been a
gradual evolution in seismic acquisition and
processing technology enabling not only more

The UniQ* point-receiver acquisition and

processing system can record up to 150,000 live
channels at a 2-millisecond sample interval. The
extremely high channel count of the system means
that the right number of point receivers can be
deployed to optimise the imaging objectives and
allow a full-azimuth (FAZ), broad-bandwidth
approach to seismic acquisition.
Offshore, the recently introduced Coil Shooting*
single vessel FAZ acquisition technique records a
full range of azimuths using only one vessel. The
technique acquires marine seismic data while
following a circular path. The high fold and full
range of azimuths achieved by the method provides
further improvements to noise reduction and
multiple-attenuation over those already provided by
parallel wide-azimuth geometries. The Coil
Shooting technique is expected to be particularly
effective in defining fracture corridors thanks to the
FAZdata it supplies.

Geological information

Using Q-Technology* as part of a multi-disciplinary seismic-to-simulation workflows, engineers and geologists are able
to develop a greater understanding of the complex flow-networks in carbonate reservoirs and better predict
production behaviour

Fracture corridors are particularly important for

reservoirs with a tight matrix. In carbonate
formations, for instance, permeability ratios of 1000
or more between the rock matrix and surrounding
fractures are common. Natural fractures tend to be
organised in families and oriented in particular
directions. Fracture corridors are easily distinguished
from other types of joint sets, have little or no
vertical displacement and are well marked by their
effect on morphology.
Next we turn to the detection of fractures in the
reservoir. It is impossible to create a complete
picture of all the fractures in a reservoir, but a
detailed understanding of the fracture networks can
be built from a range of measurements. Using
downhole instruments, the fractures intersecting
boreholes can be detected and characterised. The
FMI* Fullbore Formation MicroImager provides a
borehole image generated from up to 192 microresistivity measurements. Though limited in their

90 Oil Review Middle East Issue Two 2010

It is impossible to create a
complete picture of all the
fractures in a reservoir, but an
understanding of the fracture
networks can be built from a
range of measurements
accurate measurements of anisotropic velocities,
amplitudes and attenuation, but also being able to
detect fracture corridors.
The challenge of imaging through complex
geology (such as the folding and faulting in
overthrust geology) or analyzing the azimuthal
variations in seismic response to accurately
determine reservoir subtleties requires high-fidelity
seismic data. This is combined with a requirement for
fine sampling to characterise and remove noise from
the data.

The interpretation of high-quality, high-resolution

FAZ seismic data will enhance information
available on many levels, including anisotropy
analysis and inversion, and observations of subtle
discontinuities and scattering associated with subseismic faults and fracture corridors. Integrating the
different measurements and building a
representative earth model helps provide a better
understanding of fracture networks. Understanding
the physics of these diverse measurements is
important to extracting reliable geological
information, particularly for seismic data processing
where the detection of fractures requires an
optimised processing sequence.
Seismic anisotropy can be characterised by
detecting different wave properties (e.g. velocities
and/or amplitudes) measured along different
directions. While an alignment of fractures may
give rise to seismic anisotropy, interpreting fracture
distribution is not trivial. In general such
assumptions may not be appropriate. For example,
two orthogonal sets of vertical fractures may be
anisotropic but assuming a single fracture set
would lead to an incorrect interpretation.
The Fracture Cluster Mapping (FCM*) workflow,
integrates seismic data, 3D seismic, borehole
measurements and Petrel* seismic-to-simulation
software for characterising fractured reservoirs.
Historically, only the properties of diffuse fractures
were characterised from seismic data. However,
with FCM, the location of individual fracture
corridors can be detected and embedded into a
multi-scale 3D reservoir model containing faults
and diffuse fractures.
The workflow begins with objective-driven
processing of the best available seismic data
focused on maintaining the highest possible signal
bandwidth. Discontinuity Extraction Software (DES)
can successfully identify coherent structural
discontinuities in a 3D dataset, but unconstrained,
is likely to skip the subtle indicators of medium and
small fractures. The FCM workflow constrains the
process based on knowledge including regional and
local structural geology, reservoir geomechanics,
well logs, well tests and production data, to focus

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(to avoid or intersect a certain type of fracture

network), and production predictions and, more
importantly, to make comprehensive DFN models.
In conclusion then, characterising fractured
reservoirs requires the ability to integrate highfidelity measurements from multiple scales and
disciplines.
It is also necessary to detect and locate fracture
corridors, and to build unified geological models
that incorporate all fracture scales. Geomechanical
calibration and flow simulation are essential to
accurately predicting fluid flow. This provides
essential information for locating injector and

producer wells that maximise reservoir sweep

efficiency and avoid water breakthrough surprises.
An integrated approach to fracture
characterisation will ultimately enable better
prediction and production performance for operators
and service companies alike throughout the Middle
East region.

Iain Bush, is Business Development Manager,

Naturally Fractured Reservoirs at Schlumberger,
a leading oilfield services provider
http://www.slb.com
*Mark of Schlumberger

Discrete Fracture Network

Petrel seismic-to-simulation software combines the
information from multiple domains into a unified
representation of the reservoir. The result is a
Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) model that makes
a clear distinction between the diffuse fractures
that can be modelled using geostatistical
techniques, and the discrete fracture corridor
highways that must be identified and placed in the
reservoir model at their exact field locations.
Geomechanical modelling with the VISAGE*
reservoir geomechanics system, provides a key
calibration of the fracture model by modelling the
stresses and strains in the reservoir. From an
understanding of the different rock types in the
reservoir, the geomechanical modelling can be
used to derive the locations and orientations of
open fractures. In this way the properties of the
fractures in the geological model can be refined
and calibrated.
ECLIPSE* FrontSim software uses streamline
technology, allowing engineers and geologists to
model fluid flow in fine-scale models containing
fracture corridors, to screen multiple models, and to
validate upscaling to coarser-scale simulation
models. The 3D simulation grid contains the
fracture porosity, permeability, and sigma factor
required for a dual porosity or dual permeability
solution. The upscaled models can be fed into
ECLIPSE finite difference modelling software to
provide a rigorous full-reservoir simulation. With
dynamic simulation, the fluid flow through the
fractured models can be calibrated with production
data to confirm the major flow paths.
The FCM workflow was applied over a field
where the enormous size of the study area (large
thickness of carbonates of around 3,000-ft) of low
porosity and low permeability, and where just a few
data points (12 wells) across the area warranted a
new approach for fracture characterisation to
determine how realistically fractures could be
extrapolated beyond the well controls and how
they could be interpolated between the wells. A
further study suggested a good correlation between
well productivity and the proximity of fracture
clusters as predicted by the FCM workflow.The
FCM approach consequently had value in deciding
locations for new wells, planning well trajectories

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GEO 2010

on possible fracture clusters. Various scenarios can

be tested, adjusting variables such as the
orientation and the size of clusters, or associating
fracture patterns with known faults and/or folds.
Results are strongly dependent on the seismic
acquisition geometry and data quality. To this end,
there are stringent quality requirements on the 3D
seismic data to provide a meaningful input for
detecting fracture clusters. Bespoke design of data
acquisition and processing using point-receiver data
may be needed.
As for modelling the reservoir, fracture models
must accurately predict fluid flow channels to
optimise production. The geometry of the fractures
and the ways in which they form, however, makes
modelling them a challenge. Without accurate field
models, operators can experience early and steep
production declines.