Quantifying the Reliability and Value of 3D Land Seismic

Abstract

Summary Seismic data provide essential information for guiding reservoir development. Improvements in data quality hold the promise of improving performance even further, provided that the value of these data exceeds their cost. Previous work has demonstrated value-of-information (VOI) methods to quantify the value of seismic data. In these examples, seismic accuracy was obtained by means of expert assessment instead of being based on geophysical quantities. In addition, the modeled seismic information was not representative of any quantity that would be observed in a seismic image. Here we apply a more general VOI model that includes multiple targets, budgetary constraints, and quantitative models relating poststack seismic amplitudes and amplitude-variation-withoffset (AVO) parameters to the quantities of interest for reservoir characterization, such as porosity and reservoir thickness. Also, by including estimated changes in data accuracy based on signal-tonoise ratio, the decision model can provide objective estimates of the reliability of measurements derived from the seismic data. We demonstrate this methodology within the context of a west Texas 3D land survey. This example demonstrates that seismic information can improve reservoir economics and that improvements in seismic technology can create additional value.