Multiple approaches to Time-lapse Monitoring for Carbonate Reservoirs

Time-lapse seismic is a proven technology for reservoir monitoring that has been widely implemented for clastic reservoirs around the world. The main benefit is to measure changes associated with production away from the wells, which helps optimize infill drilling. However, apart from a few exceptions (e.g., chalk in the North Sea and pre-salt offshore Brazil), carbonate reservoirs haven’t responded well to 4D seismic. This is disappointing given that the largest reservoirs in the world — especially in the Middle-East — are within hard carbonate rocks. Any technological advances that could make reservoir monitoring away from the wells possible in a carbonate environment would have a dramatic impact on the entire oil industry.

Topics: The purpose of this workshop is to: (1) analyze the reasons why 4D seismic has mostly failed so far for carbonate reservoirs, (2) consider if new advances in seismic acquisition (e.g., high fold, DAS, permanent installations, multicomponent) and processing (e.g., FWI, imaging with multiples, interferometry) can provide a solution, (3) investigate alternatives to seismic or integration with other methods (e.g., gravity, EM, INSAR). Case studies presenting successes and challenges are greatly encouraged.