Reservoir monitoring and Characterization

Reservoir characterization
Reservoir characterization refers to reservoir modeling activities right up to the point when a
simulation model is ready to simulate the flow of fluids. In many Commercial industries,
Softwares are available which are used in the construction, simulation and analysis of
the reservoir models (Reservoir modeling - Wikipedia). In this piece of work, I will discuss the
different methods used in seismic reservoir characterization. These methods include but not
limited to the following;

1. Characterization using spectral pattern variation (case study, CBM in china coal
seam)
The information for reservoir characterization can be provided by many sources such as
the seismic frequency spectrum (Yanghua Wang). In this method, I present a case study
for the exploitation of seismic frequency spectra pattern variation for the characterization
of potential reservoirs in the CBM fields of Qinshui basin of china.

Facts about the Qinshui basin:

This basin has two formations which are the T (Taiyuan) formation and the S (Shanxi)
formation. The T formation has several coal seams in sedimentary rocks in the Upper
Carboniferous and the S formation in the premium. The T formation thickness is between
100.9-150.8 meters while the S formation thickness is ranging between 31.5-78.2 meters.
These two formations have a total thickness of 132.4-299.0 meters with an average
thickness of 175.3 meters. Both formations have a total of 17 coal seams in which 1-6 are
in the S formation and the rest in the bottom T formation. Among the 17 coal seams, 5-7
are industrially producible while 2 are Coalbed Methane (CBM) layers.
Coalbed Methane (CBM) in coal seams:
 A coal seam is a bed of coal usually thick enough to be profitably mined. When the
pressure in a coal seam reduces, gas begins to desorb and migrate through the coal
matrix and through natural fractures such as cleats. The presence of such gases as
methane (in the Qinshui basin of china) can make coal mining nearly impossible as a
result of the dangers. As it is known, methane is non-poisonous but highly flammable
which can lead to dangerous coal mine fires in the subsurface. The figure below shows a
coal mine fire in the sub surface.

Figure 1: A coal seam fire or mine fire is the underground

Smouldering of a coal deposit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire)

For the above reason, its quite important to clearly characterize the reservoir by understanding
the spatial extent of the CBM in the coal seam in order to optimize production and reduce the
risk of accidents and loss of lives.

In this method, it is really important to know that there is no straight forward relationship
between CBM content and the strength of seismic profiles. This means that we can use the
quantitative characterization of the CBM spatial variation based on the various types of
amplitude either in the frequency or in the time domain. This method involves the use of three
stages which are;
a) To raise an extra dimension from say a 2D seismic profile in the time-space domain.
From this 2D data, we generate a 3D data in which the third dimension is frequency. This
is now a time-space-frequency domain data and is referred to as a time-frequency
 spectrum. This process is normally achieved through the use of matching pursuit
technique instead of the famous Fourier and wavelet transform.
b) Clustering analysis. This involves reduction of dimension from 3 to 2. Meaning that we
are moving from the obtained 3D to 2D data. The resultant image is presented again in
the time-space domain. Remember that this image now has a frequency component.
c) The third and last step is thus characterization which calibrates the indexes of spectrum
pattern with known CBM production and predicts the CBM spatial distribution, the latter
being our main purpose.

The above stages in this method are categorically discussed below;

A. The Time-Frequency spectrum:

This stage employs an existing well-logging data from well top and seismic traces around the
well. The technique used here is the matching pursuit method for calculating a time-frequency
spectrum from a time-space data (Wang, 2010). The use of -space is the meaning distance.
Matching pursuit is a wavelet decomposition technique that can extract wavelets from a seismic
trace and presents them in the time-frequency domain. This method is preferred as compared to
the Fourier and wavelet transforms as it overcomes their limits; in the Fourier transform, there is
use of fixed window size which makes the length of the extracted wavelet to be constant and
proportional only to the window size. Thus it cannot accurately show the actual scale variation in
the signal. On the other hand, the length of the wavelet in the wavelet transform is however
variable but is strictly inversely proportional to the dominant frequency (Mallat, 2009). For these
reasons, we cant use these two methods in the presence, availability and applicability of the
matching pursuit technique.

The matching pursuit technique

As already sited earlier, this is an adaptive decomposition method in which the extracted wavelet
matches the time and frequency structure of the field seismic signal (Mallat and Zhang, 1993)
and it uses a symmetric, non-causal wavelet such as the Ricker wavelet as the basic wavelet
(atom) as do most other wavelet decomposition methods. The driving idea behind our analysis is
to find out anomalies related to CBM enrichment based on analysis of the frequency spectrum at
each time-space position.
We shall do this by considering the following figure as adapted from the SEG, Geophysics VOL.
77, No.6, pages M90-M95.

Figure 2: (a and b) two seismic profiles W-E 500 and S-N 500 from

the T formation across well H2 (SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77,No.6, page M90).

From the figure 2 (a) which has a CBM layer represented by R15c indicated by a yellow arrow,
upon performing a matching pursuit technique at different frequencies like 20, 30, 40 and 50 Hz,
we come up with time-frequency spectra at each time-space position as bellow;
Figure 3: The time-frequency spectra at frequencies 20, 30, 40 and 50Hz (SEG, Geophysics
VOL. 77, No.6, page M91).
It can easily be observed that from reflection R4-R5 in red, the amplitudes of different
frequencies have good lateral continuity. However the strength of the coal seam reflection R15c
immediately above R4-R5 is much weaker. This makes it very difficult for us to base on the
amplitudes of the frequency domain data for direct analysis of the lateral heterogeneity of the
coal bed. In other words, the amplitudes from the R15c are hidden from these frequency domain
data. Since we cannot rely of amplitude, we then proceed to the next step which is clustering
analysis as discussed below.

B. The clustering analysis:

The clustering analysis employs three methods which are unsupervised neural network self-
organizing map (SOM), hierarchical clustering and partitioning in sequence.

a) The unsupervised neural networking method.

This algorithm attempts to search for representative models that can better describe the
property of the data as in the figure below;
Figure 4: Representative models, SOM
(SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77, No.6, page M92)

These representative models are weight vectors that are listed in order in 2D space. The
purpose of doing this is to compress the field data in a computer working space,
something I would basically refer to as structuring of data in a software system. This
algorithm works on the principle that similar models are close to each other while non
similar models sit apart.

Figure: (b) distance matrix of weight vectors(neurons) in a model space, (c)classifying

weight vectors (neurons) of the model space in to five cluster (SEG, Geophysics VOL.
77, No.6, page M92)
 .
The SOM is simple and consist only of the input and output layers as shown above. The
basis of operation of this algorithm can be obtained in detail from SEG, Geophysics
VOL. 77, No.6, page M92 under the section of the unsupervised neural networking
method. The whole idea in SOM in reservoir characterization is that similar data vectors
are projected very closely in the model while non similar data vectors will be projected
far apart, this is called the similarity principle.

b) Hierarchical clustering and partitioning:

This is where seismic frequency vectors in the time-space domain are linked to the
weight vectors (neurons) in the model space. Conducting a clustering analysis on these
neurons, then help in identifying the anomalies in the time-space domain. The two
methods use different algorithms, in this case, for the hierarchical they used
agglomerative algorithm and for the partitioning method, they used K-means algorithm to
come up with proper clusters.

When running the hierarchical clustering algorithm, (Yanghua Wang, SEG, Geophysics
VOL. 77, No.6, page M93) for m neurons vectors, it constructs a m x m distance matrix
and then clusters these vectors based on distances: defining each vector as an individual
cluster, finding pair of vectors close to each other and putting them into a single cluster,
calculating the distance between this new cluster and all other cluster, repeating this
procedure and updating iteratively. Its important to note that this process is irreversible
in that once a vector is classified in to a cluster; it cannot be reclassified in to another.

Meanwhile in running the K-means algorithm, it divides m neural vectors in to K

clusters, each with its own centre point. The implementation consists of the following
steps (Yanghua Wang, SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77,No.6, page M93): selecting K points
in the space as the initial points of K clusters, clustering all vectors into these K clusters
based on the distance, recalculating the central positions of each cluster, repeating the
procedures until all the central positions have no further drift.
C. Reservoir Characterization
The process of reservoir characterization (predicting CBM distribution) as per this
method can then be achieved through the following procedures;

Picking reflection times of a reference event (underneath the target coalbed) and
flattening the reference event, in this case the reference event time is picked from
those of R4-R5 as indicated in the figure below;

Figure 6: (left), reference event for coalbed 15 and (right), reference event for coalbed 15
with a CBM at R15c before flattening (SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77, No.6, page M94).

Figure 7: (left), reference event for coalbed 15 and( right), reference event for coalbed 15
with a CBM at R15c after flattening (SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77, No.6, page M94).

Calculating the time-frequency spectrum of each sampling point over the entire
time-space window.
 Clustering analysis, as earlier discussed in the previous part of this work

Figure 8: (left), a cluster analysis for coalbed 15 and( right), cluster analysis for coalbed
15 with a CBM at R15c after flattening (SEG, Geophysics VOL. 77, No.6, page M94).
Scaling all available CBM information in the study are in to eight levels,
Finding an integer value for each clustered spectral variation pattern, so as that the
resultant potential index matches these five level indexes in an optimal sense. The
potential index is the sum of pattern values over a time interval for each trace.
Finally, assigning determined integer values to all patterns calculating potential
indices over all samples within the time-space window.

Figure 9: a quantitative indication of lateral variation along coalbed 15 (SEG, Geophysics

VOL. 77, No.6, page M94).

For a matter of comparison, the same analysis is carried out for coalbed 3 which does not
have methane. Finally, we obtain CBM distribution along coal seam 15 and 3, as shown
in figure 10 below;
Figure 10: Spatial distribution of CBM reservoir along coal seam 15 and 3 (SEG,
Geophysics VOL. 77, No.6, page M94).
Conclusion: