Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Raef, A. E. Articles by Harrison, W. E. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

4D seismic to image a thin carbonate reservoir during a miscible CO₂ flood

Hall-Gurney Field, Kansas, USA

Kansas Geological Survey, Lawrence, USA

Corresponding author: rmiller{at}kgs.ku.edu

Time-lapse (TL) seismic monitoring has proven a valuable tool for reservoir management. If available in a timely and cost-effective manner, it can be incorporated into a dynamic reservoir management approach, spec-ifically in terms of assessing sweep efficiency through constraining reservoir simulations, quantifying compartmentalization, and enhancing the placement of infill wells. Thus, cost-effectiveness, rapid turnaround time, and sensitivity of the seismic response to subtle changes in reservoir properties evident in production data are critical assets of a robust and economic TL application. Successful applications of TL monitoring have been predominantly offshore—Gulf of Mexico and North Sea—in thick clastic reservoirs characterized as low technical risk. Changes in TL seismic images as a direct result of enhanced oil recovery operations in low compressibility, "stiff" carbonate reservoirs are so small that distinguishing reservoir fluid changes from background noise on seismic attribute maps is challenging at best and many times impossible. Consequently, reservoirs predicted to produce weak TL anomalies associated with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations are classified as high-risk cases and languish in what has been designated the "stretch portfolio" of time-lapse application in reservoir management.