Validating Predicted Fracture Corridors by Statistical Comparison With Well Data

Abstract

Summary A challenge in oil–reservoir studies is evaluating the ability of geomechanical, statistical, and geophysical methods to predict discrete geological features. This problem arises frequently with fracture corridors, which are discrete, tabular subvertical fracture clusters. Fracture corridors can be inferred from well data such as horizontal–borehole–image logs. Unfortunately, well data, and especially borehole–image logs, are sparse, and predictive methods are needed to fill in the gap between wells. One way to evaluate such methods is to compare predicted and inferred fracture corridors statistically, using chi–squared and contingency tables. In this article, we propose a modified contingency table to validate fracture–corridor–prediction techniques. We introduce two important modifications to capture special aspects of fracture corridors. The first modification is the incorporation of exclusion zones where no fracture corridors can exist, and the second modification is taking into consideration the fuzzy nature of fracture–corridor indicators from wells such as circulation losses. An indicator is fuzzy when it has more than one possible interpretation. The reliability of an indicator is the probability that it correctly suggests a fracture corridor. The indicators with reliability of unity are hard indicators, and “soft” and “fuzzy” indicators are those with reliability that is less than unity. A structural grid is overlaid on the reservoir top in an oil field. Each cell of the grid is examined for the presence and reliability of inferred fracture corridors and exclusion zones and the confidence level of predicted fracture corridors. The results are summarized in a contingency table and are used to calculate chi–squared and conditional probability of having an actual fracture corridor given a predicted fracture corridor. Three actual case studies are included to demonstrate how single or joint predictive methods can be statistically evaluated and how conditional probabilities are calculated using the modified contingency tables. The first example tests seismic faults as indicators of fracture corridors. The other examples test fracture corridors predicted by a simple geomechanical method.