We E103 13

Unconventional Reservoir Characterization with

Geomechanical Attributs of Multi-az. Inversion -
Barnett Shale Application
M. Adelinet (IFP Energies nouvelles), A. Barnoud (ISTerre, Université
Joseph Fourier), V. Clochard (IFP Energies nouvelles), N. Delepine* (IFP
Energies Nouvelles) & P. Ricarte (CGG)

SUMMARY
The development of the exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons requires innovative
techniques to allow a better characterisation of natural fracture networks and fracability of the rocks at
depth. Within this context, a workflow of stratigraphic multi-azimuth prestack inversion is presented in
this study. It was applied to a dataset imaging the Barnett Shale formation in a transition zone between the
oil and gas windows. Four kinds of inversions were performed: poststack all azimuth, poststack multi-
azimuth, prestack all azimuth and prestack multi-azimuth.
Based on a geological a priori model, the multi-azimuth stratigraphic inversion consists in inverting
azimuthal partial stacks. Anisotropy is then quantified through an ellipse fitting algorithm. The Poisson's
ratio and a brittleness coefficient are derived from the prestack inversion results. Some areas within the
Barnett Shales present low Poisson's ratio and high brittleness, corresponding to potentially high
fracability zones. The results also show azimuthal variations in the geomechanical attributes explained by
the nature of fluid contents and by the presence of fractures.

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
Introduction

The Barnett Shale belongs to the Bend arch – Fort Worth Basin area which is a major mature
petroleum province located in north-central Texas. This basin was exploited for its conventional
resources throughout the twentieth century. Since 2000, the Mississippian Barnett Shale is recognized
as a giant continuous gas reservoir. More information about the reservoir properties is essential to
optimize hydrocarbon recovery and predict reservoir behaviour during production.

As gas or oil shale formations act both as the source and the reservoir, fluid is generally diffuse within
the rock and does not allow to be visible by conventional seismic studies. That is why we need new
geophysical approaches to better characterize this kind of reservoir. One challenging issue to better
produce an unconventional reservoir is to generate drainage pathways and create connected fracture
networks by hydraulic stimulations, injecting large volumes of water within the reservoir. Induced
fracture networks develop in accordance with the stress orientations at macroscale, however, at
microscale, it is not so obvious due to the mineralogy. Refunjol et al. [2012] show that microseismic
event locations are correlated to areas of low seismic impedance values. Such a correlation between
active seismic attributes and microstructure leads us to go further with model-based stratigraphic
inversions.

In this study, a complete workflow of multi-azimuth stratigraphic prestack inversion is applied to a

dataset from the Fort Worth Basin to image the Barnett Shale formation. Some features on the
fracability of the shales are studied at the seismic scale through Poisson's ratio and brittleness.

Data and method

Two 3D surveys were acquired in 2005 and 2006 in the Fort Worth Basin. The combined dataset is
approximately 100 square miles (black rectangle on Figure 1-a) but we limited the study area to a
smaller part (red rectangle on Figure 1-a). The Barnett Shales are intercalated between two carbonate
formations: the Marble Falls above and the Ellenburger beneath. Consequently two main reflectors
are visible on the seismic traces: the top of the Marble Falls (R1 on Figure 1-b) and the bottom of the
Barnett Shales (R2 on Figure 1-b) . The Barnett formation is lying at depth around 1200 m in our
study area, with a thickness of about 35 m around wells located in the vicinity of the seismic area.

Figure 1 Seismic survey design and log data. R1 and R2 are the main reflectors identified on the
seismic data.

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
The seismic data have been sorted and partially stacked according to three incidence angles (1-15°,
16-26° and 27-41°) and six azimuthal sectors (0-30°, 30-60°, 60-90°, 90-120°, 120-150° and 150-180°
measured anticlockwise from the East). The inversion workflow is divided into three main steps. The
first one consists in the well-to-seismic calibration at the reservoir level, considering each partial
seismic stack (substack) to determine an optimal wavelet. The main challenge of our study is to repeat
the procedure for all the 18 substacks (3 incidence angles by 6 azimuthal sectors). For each well, we
use acoustic, shear sonics and density logs (Figure 2, left part), in order to compute elastic reflectivity
via the Aki-Richards formula giving incident angle limits. Reflectivity is then convolved by an
estimated wavelet (characterized by its time-shift, angle phase and normalization coefficient) giving a
synthetic trace. The wavelet is considered optimal when we have a satisfying correlation between the
extracted trace from observed surface seismic and the computed synthetic trace. The second step
corresponds to an elastic a priori model building for the three elastic parameters chosen to
parameterize the problem: P-wave impedance, S-wave impedance and density. This step requires
interpreted horizons derived from the full stack of seismic data and associated with the major
geological units. In the target area we have identified two main horizons: the top of the Marble Falls
and the bottom of Barnett Shales. Sedimentary modes of deposition are defined inside the main
geological units. The third step consists in performing independent model-based isotropic prestack
inversions [Tonellot et al., 2001] for each azimuth, using the same a priori model previously
described. The three steps are part of a workflow we call multi-azimuthal prestack inversion in the
following. This workflow provides us as many elastic impedance cubes as azimuthal sectors, i.e. six
in our case study. For QCs purposes, we have displayed elastic inverted P- and S-wave impedances
from classical post-stack and pre-stack inversion at well 1 (Figure 2, right part).

Figure 2 TWT Gamma ray, densities, and velocities (filtered logs in the seismic band path: 21-74 Hz)
and QCs of P- and S-wave impedances from full azimuth inversions (well 1). The Barnett Shale layer
stays between 695 and 722 ms. Note small time-shift of inverted impedances is due to the well-to-
seismic calibration in the inversion workflow.

Results and Interpretations

The prestack inversion workflow provides us with P- and S-wave impedance cubes for each azimuth
sector (Figure 3). Although the Barnett Shales were not easily visible on the raw seismic data, they
clearly appear on the inversion results. Indeed, they have low impedances (P-wave impedance
between 10000 and 11000 g/cm3.m/s and S-wave impedance between 6000 and 6500 g/cm3.m/s)
compared with the values obtained into the surrounding carbonates (Marble Falls and Ellenburger).
Some little differences in impedances are revealed between azimuthal sectors. To quantify this
anisotropy we use an explicit ellipse fitting algorithm. For a given bin of the inverted target area the
algorithm uses 12 values in a spherical coordinate system (6 azimuthal values between 0° and 180°
and their projections between 180° and 360°) to compute the best fitting ellipse. The ratio between the

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
larger and the smaller semi-axes corresponds to the deviation from the isotropic case in which the
ellipse would be a circle (ratio equal to 1). This ratio is called anisotropy ratio. Fitting results are
different on P- and S-wave impedances (Figure 4) and the Barnett Shales appear to be more
anisotropic from S-wave impedances, with a ratio around 2-4 %.

Figure 3 Elastic impedances derived from multi-azimuth prestack inversion, for azimuthal sectors
around 15° (top) and 135° (bottom). The vertical axis is the time and the horizontal one the inlines.
The presented crossline intercepts the location of well 1. MF: Marble Falls, BS: Barnett Shales.

Figure 4 Anisotropy ratio of elastic impedances based on an ellipse fitting algorithm. The sections
are horizon maps extracted through the Barnett Shales.

Finally, from prestack inversion results we derive Poisson's ratio and brittleness cubes (Figure 5, left
and middle). Brittleness is calculated from Rickman et al. [2008]. The authors propose a
quantification of the brittleness B, for shales only, from Poisson's ratio ν and Young modulus E
expressed as:

1   ν − 0 .4   E − 10 
B= 100  + 100 
2   0.15 − 0.4   80 − 10 

Poisson's ratio calculated into the Barnett Shale formation is lower than into the Ellenburger
formation suggesting a tougher behaviour. Carbonates from the Ellenburger are highly fractured,
probably involving an increase in the Poisson's ratio at the seismic scale. A brittleness around 65 % is
calculated within the Barnett Shales, which is relevant to rock physic studies published in the
literature [Varga et al., 2012]. Poisson's ratio anisotropy is then computed with the ellipse fitting
algorithm from the multi-azimuth prestack inversion results (Figure 5, right). The observed azimuthal

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014
variations in the Poisson's ratio could be explained by the nature of the fluid content (oil and/or gas)
as well as by the presence of open fractures [Adelinet et al., 2013].

Figure 5 Horizon maps extracted through the Barnett Shales. Poisson's ratio (left) and brittleness
(middle) from the full-azimuth prestack inversion. Anisotropy of the Poisson's ratio (right) from the
multi-azimuth prestack inversion results.

Conclusions

In this study, we present a multi-azimuth inversion workflow which enables us to extract mechanical
features of the Barnett Shales from prestack seismic data. These preliminary results are encouraging
and provide new insights to characterize such shaly formations. Nevertheless, we have to go further
by investigating the potential link between areas with azimuthal variation of inverted impedances and
chasing sweet spots which is key to optimize reservoir production of unconventional reservoirs. The
multi-azimuth prestack inversion workflow could be generalized to other challenging plays such as
fractured conventional reservoir or mines.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the European GASH project for providing seismic and log data. They
also thank Sébastien Rohais and William Sassi from IFP Energies nouvelles to shed us light on the
geological characteristics of the Fort Worth Basin.

References

Adelinet M., Barnoud A., Clochard V. and Ricarte P. [2013]. Improved unconventional reservoir
characterization using multi-azimuth stratigraphic inversion, case study on the Fort Worth Basin.
Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources, 3-4, 15-26.

Tonellot T., Macé D. and Richard V. [2001]. Joint stratigraphic inversion of angle-limited stacks. 71st
SEG Annual International Meeting, Expanded Abstracts, 227-230.

Refunjol X. E., Keranen K.M., Le Calvez J.H. and Marfurt K.J. [2012]. Integration of hydraulically
induced microseismic event locations with active seismic attributes: A North Texas Barnett Shale case
study. Geophysics, 77 (3), 1-12.

Rickman R., Mullen M., Petre E., Grieser B. and Kundert D. [2008]. A practical use of shale
petrophysics for stimulation design optimization: all shale plays are not clones of the Barnett Shale,
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Denver, Colorado,USA.

Varga R., Lotti R., Pachos A., Holden T., Marini I., Spadafora E. and Pendrel J. [2012]. Seismic
inversion in the Barnett shale successfully pinpoints sweet spots to optimize wellbore placement and
reduce drilling risks, 82nd SEG meeting, Las Vegas, USA, Expended Abstracts.

76th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2014

Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands, 16-19 June 2014