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VSP and Invers
VSP and Invers
VSP and Invers
Abstract
The measurements of vertical seismic profiles (VSP) used in the petroleum industry are often limited to direct
arrivals to establish time-depth laws. Many other measurements such as PP and PS corridor stacks, offset vertical
seismic profiles (OVSP) and walkaway can help to predict P and S wave impedances estimated by inversion of
surface seismic data.
This article shows the use of all available VSP records to constrain the inversion of surface seismic data and predict
matrix properties of Carboniferous and Devonian intervals in the Machukhske gas field in the Ukrainian Dnieper-
Donetsk basin.
The use of PS corridor stack, in addition to PP corridor stack, allows a better optimization of the S impedance at the
well. Moreover, corridor stacks allow a better estimate of the P and S impedance below the well TD than surface
seismic data alone, and therefore an enhanced characterization of the Devonian sands, which has been drilled
by only a few wells. OVSPs help to build a more reliable a priori model by confirming or discarding the faults
identified on the 3D seismic data.
Results of reservoir characterization show a clear impact of the VSP integration on lithology prediction from surface
seismic data.
1
Beicip-Franlab | 2 DTEK group | 3 RPS group
*
Corresponding author, E-mail: nawal.defreslon@beicip.com
DOI: 10.3997/1365-2397.fb2021041
Figure 1 Stratigraphic column and location of Dnieper-Donets basin with Machukhske field (modified from Ulmishek, 2001).
This a priori impedance model is updated through the A geological term: it expresses the distance between the
inversion process, so that the final optimized model is able to optimal (m) and the a priori model (mprior). It is weighted by (a)
reproduce the seismic signal. This modelling phase is crucial a parameter to express the confidence in the a priori model, and
in the overall workflow as it defines the low frequencies, lower (b) correlation lengths to characterize the spatial distribution of
than seismic ones, that will not be updated through the inversion the elastic impedance.
process. Also, it provides a way of constraining the inversion by
incorporating stratigraphic information.
Elastic inversion
The main purposes of the inversion are to maximize the signal
content and resolution, to reduce the random noise and to gener-
ate optimized impedances (IP and IS) and synthetic volumes. The
model-based elastic inversion combines geological knowledge,
seismic data and well log information to build optimized imped-
ance distributions consistent with all input data (Tonellot et al.,
2001). The inversion aims at minimizing an objective function,
J(m), which is the sum of two terms and is expressed such as:
Figure 3 Surface seismic data in time domain (a) Near (b) Mid (c) Far angle-stack sections (d) Full-stack cube sections with interpreted surfaces and well MACH-55.
Figure 7 First track corresponds to facies, second track to P-impedance and third track to S-impedance logs, in the depth domain, at log scale.
The same analysis is performed at the top of the sand layer using of additional events, other than pure AVO modifying the
well MACH-51 crossing the Devonian reservoir, and a similar amplitudes.
AVO class anomaly is shown. However, this well exhibits a The application of joint elastic inversion aims at solving the
thick sand layer which brings a clear AVO response, contrary uncertainty on the AVO interpretation. The joint elastic inversion
to other wells where the mixed sand-shale layers lead to a more provides quantitative properties (impedance) which can be
confused response. directly linked to matrix properties, which are consistent in terms
Trace comparison and analysis show that the theoretical of AVO effect and provide an interpretation of the angle-stacks
variations of amplitude with offset does not always match through a link derived from Aki-Richards equations, together
with real data: regarding surface data, for the top C1t, the with rejecting inconsistent data in the residuals.
highest amplitude is measured at the mid stack, whereas it The AVO response is also checked using VSP corridor-stacks.
should be for the near stack. It is probably the consequence of It shows that AVO modelling results are consistent with real VSP
the contamination of data with random noise, and the effect data at the C1t level, whereas this modelling is not in agreement
Figure 10 AVO PP-up image gathers, near, mid, far and full, from left to right.
with the amplitude as a function of the incidence angle observed 2004). All sub-stacks are inverted simultaneously using a global
on surface seismic data. As a consequence, VSP inversion results cost function considering the two wavefields in the same PP time
should be more consistent with well data. Also, the VSP corri- domain. It produces a unique optimal earth model parameterized
dor-stack samples the D3fm interval at higher frequencies, thus it by three elastic parameters (IP, IS, Density).
can help to position and give more precision on the D3fm interval. Well-to-Seismic calibration is carried out: wavelet phase
Walk-away VSP data could have been used additionally for and energy are estimated in the interval of interest and tie is
AVO analysis, but the available data appears not to be suitable performed using dedicated PP and PS elastic impedance traces
for the analysis. Indeed, various angles of incidence do not (Ramos et Castagna, 2001). The calibration is satisfying. Howev-
illuminate the same Common Image Point for a reliable analysis er, the PS far corridor-stack trace is short as highlighted through
of any variation of amplitude with the angle. This is highlighted trace extraction, thus calibration cannot be properly carried out.
in Figure 10, PP-up image gathers clearly show a very limited Using the previous calibrated well data, the a priori model is
overlap. Nevertheless, acoustic inversion is performed, and the built. Since the MACH-55 well does not reach the D3fm interval,
resulting section is compared to surface seismic inversion results the results from first-pass 3D surface seismic inversion were
(Figure 11). It shows a good consistency in terms of acoustic extracted at well, merged with well-log and filtered in order to
impedance variations, benefiting from higher resolution WVSP improve the constraint for the Devonian interval. The initial P-im-
data. Trace extraction is performed and shows the consistency pedance a priori model and the one using information from 3D
between the different datasets. inversion show that incorporating those results allows us to add
To summarize, seismic amplitude issues appear within sur- low frequency information below the TD of the well (Figure 13).
face data that cannot be handled at this stage. This is confirmed Both sequential (PP, PS) and joint inversions (PP-PS) of the
by VSP data that are consistent with the well data. This should be VSP corridor stacks are carried out. Model-based joint inversion
tackled thanks to the inversion process. is performed using PP and PS near and mid corridor-stacks.
Similar weights are selected on all cubes. High weighting of the
A priori model
Structural framework
The VSP record can be used for interpretation and profiling of
features in addition to surface data (Emsley et al., 2002). As
stated, uncertainties lie in the seismic interpretation in the north-
ern part of the study, which has a direct impact on the structural
framework and subsequently the final a-priori model. Using VSP
measurement can bring an additional value to help understanding
of the structural features, in particular OVSP data.
To illustrate, the OVSP1 line and a surface seismic line
parallel to it are compared (Figure 12). The initial top C1t inter-
pretation is displayed. It shows that, at the north of MACH-55,
a quite steep slope was picked on the 3D section, whereas this
feature is not visible on the OVSP section. The dipping observed
on the 3D section might be non-geological and is most probably
related to seismic processing velocity anomalies visible in this
area. Similarly, the OVSP2 line brings additional information and
enhances the structural understanding of the area.
The geometrical framework has been updated with the
insights provided by the VSP data.
Stratigraphic framework
Multi-component inversion is carried out in order to take advan- Figure 13 A priori model without (left) and with (right) low frequency information
tage of the availability of both PP and PS data (Agullo, Y et al., from 3D surface data inversion below the TD of the well.
geological term allows optimized impedance results to differ The a priori model, composed of a structural and stratigraph-
significantly from the a priori model. P-impedance, S-impedance ic framework, is enriched by the analysis of OVSP records which
and density traces from well-logs, the a priori model, initial (first allow us to build a more reliable structural framework close to
pass) surface data inversion and VSP data joint inversion are the well location. In addition, the stratigraphic framework is
displayed in Figure 14. improved below the TD of the wells thanks to the integration
Impedance results show a good consistency between resulting of corridor-stack inversion results. Here, the resultant inverted
elastic impedance traces from PP-PS, corridor-stack inversion traces are merged with the well-log driven a priori model below
and well-log data. The main trends are correctly retrieved as well D3fm. Once the structural and stratigraphic grids are defined and
as the amplitude, particularly at C1t level. There is a decrease the well information is correctly calibrated, the a priori model is
of impedance below the massive carbonate thanks to the low produced.
frequency component brought by 3D inversion results when The second pass inversion used similar parameters to the
building the a priori model. It also shows a poor optimization tuned first pass inversion. Various QCs are performed such as
of density, which is more likely to be owing to the lack of large extraction at well location, maps generation, a check of the con-
angles for PS data. vergence function and analysis of the lateral variations of elastic
When compared to first pass surface data 3D inversion, impedance cubes though maps and sections.
impedance results are also in line. In detail, it shows that the Optimized P-impedance sections from first pass (Figure 15 – a)
frequency content is higher in VSP inversion results and resulting and second pass (Figure 15 – b) inversion are displayed. The
impedance amplitudes are closer to the ones of well-logs. It structural update can be clearly seen, in particular on the flank. High
demonstrates that inverted S-impedance resulting from joint impedance values are mainly linked to carbonate facies within the
inversion is more reliable. There are several reasons for this, C1t interval. The deeper clastic interval exhibits lower values, which
especially the more accurate AVO response of VSP data, the is in line with the rock physics model. Vertical and lateral changes of
higher frequency content and the lower level of AVO noise. impedance values after update of the inversion are observed.
To summarize, thanks to the use of VSP and both PP and PS Using inversion results, and well-log information, discri-
data, the optimized elastic parameter traces are improved. The minant analyses targeting the carbonate and clastic interval
prediction of S impedance at the well is improved by using the independently are performed. It provides the probability of
corridor stack data compared to PP surface data alone. However,
there is no significant optimization of density. This work shows
the feasibility of multi-component inversion of VSP PP and PS
dataset.
Data integration
The next step is to rerun the surface seismic elastic inversion
with the updates derived from the VSP results. Resulting elastic
parameter cubes will be used for further reservoir characterization
work, allowing a quantitative analysis of reflection amplitudes.
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