InSAR: Pro-Active Technology for Monitoring Environmental Safety and for Reservoir Management

Abstract

Abstract InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) is a technology used to measure changes in surface elevation between successive passes of orbiting satellites. These changes can be used to understand imbalances in the subsurface between fluid withdrawal and injection, as well as near-surface ruptures caused by failure of well integrity. Satellites have recorded SAR data since the 1990s, and the data have become increasingly higher resolution and more frequently acquired. Combined with faster algorithms and processing chains for interferometry, this has enabled detection of smaller and faster changes at the surface. This in turn has caused a step-change in the usefulness of the data and the interpretations. The result is the ability to depend on the data to monitor the effects of production and injection processes almost continuously. We review several cases to demonstrate the value of rapid revisit, high resolution InSAR. The first is the giant Belridge field in the San Joaquin valley of California, historically the poster child for this application. The diatomite reservoir rock has 60% porosity and is fluid supported. When equilibrium between injection to production is not maintained, the volume changes in the reservoir cause the ground surface to move up or down by amounts detectable with InSAR enabling a feedback loop for injection optimization. The field also has many wells with compromised wellbore integrity that can provide a pathway for reservoir fluids to move upwards towards the ground surface. When water, oil, or steam move out of the reservoir and into the overburden, a potential precursor can be detected provided InSAR is configured carefully. In the second case, InSAR also provides visualizations of ground level changes over a gas field: at the giant Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, long term InSAR time series measurements of elevation changes are used to constrain models about compaction and reactivation of buried faults. Parts of the field that are used for seasonal gas storage and charging/discharging cycles can also be effectively monitored. Measurement of surface deformation by high resolution, fast revisit, optimized InSAR provides an insight into the reservoir and the efficiency of its management. It also provides an early warning of potential problems that, if not corrected, may result in harm to the environment. These step changes in quantity and quality of available InSAR data mean that the remaining barrier to being used for actionable insights is in the widespread inverse modeling of the surface data to sub-surface mass flows.