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The Leading Edge; July 2001; v. 20; no. 7; p. 706-717; DOI: 10.1190/1.1487282
© 2001 Society of Exploration Geophysicists
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Reservoir characterization of Permian Khuff-C carbonate in the supergiant Ghawar Field of Saudi Arabia

Shiv N. Dasgupta, Ming Ren Hong and Ibrahim A. Al-Jallal

Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Corresponding author: S. N. Dasgupta, dasgupsn@mail.aramco.com.sa

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The Permian Khuff-C carbonate reservoir in the ‘Uthmaniyah sector of Saudi Arabia's super giant Ghawar Field was discovered by exploratory drilling in 1982 (Figure 1). The reservoir is a prolific producer of nonassociated gas and condensate but its porosity and permeability distribution is complex and primarily controlled by the depositional facies distribution and its later diagenesis.


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  		Figure 1. Map of regional setting of Ghawar Field in the northeastern part of the Arabian peninsula showing the study area in Uthmaniyah Sector.

 
Khuff sediments were deposited in subtidal and gently dipping tidal flats in an extremely arid environment. Khuff-C reservoir facies vary in quality as a result of their diagenetic history. Khuff-C porosity varies from about 30% to less than 5%. Some parts of Khuff-C reservoir facies have been dolomitized and later leached which resulted in good reservoir development. Some dolograinstone facies, however, have been cemented by anhydrite that destroyed the reservoir porosity and permeability. These localized cemented reservoir facies of various sizes are distributed sporadically throughout the field. The challenge is to predict the occurrence of these tight Khuff-C facies between wells, in order to avoid them when planning development drilling for gas.

The characterization of interwell heterogeneity has reduced risk in the location of development wells. Khuff-C reservoir well spacing in this area of Ghawar is more than 2 km. With such a coarse well spacing, it is difficult to characterize the reservoir heterogeneity with well data alone. Integration of 3-D seismic data with petrophysical information and reservoir simulation history match results has improved our understanding of the reservoir complexity and improved the mapping of porosity distribution in Khuff-C reservoir. This has permitted us to define the local tight porosity facies in Khuff-C reservoir throughout the field.

Amplitude inversion of the 3-D seismic data has revealed high acoustic impedance in . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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