Hydrate quantification: Integrating full-waveform inversion, seismic attributes, and rock physics

Abstract

Hydrate quantification from seismic data is a two-pronged challenge. The first is creating a velocity field with high enough resolution and accuracy such that it is a meaningful representation of hydrate variability in the host sediments. The second is constructing a rock-physics model that accounts for the appropriate growth of the hydrate and allows for the interpretation of the velocity field in terms of hydrate saturation. In this paper, both challenges are addressed in a quantification workflow that uses 2D seismic and colocated well logs. The study area is situated in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, offshore eastern Indian coast, where hydrate was discovered in the National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 (NGHP-01). The workflow hinges on a rock-physics model that expresses total hydrate saturation in terms of primary (matrix) and secondary (fractures, faults, voids, etc.) porosities and their respective primary and secondary saturations and incorporates hydrate-filled secondary porosity into the rock as an additional grain type using the Hashin-Shtrikman bounds. The model is first applied to a set of well logs at a colocated site, NGHP-01-10, following which the application is extended into the seismic domain by (1) the incoherency attribute as a proxy for secondary porosity and (2) a full-waveform inversion-based P-wave velocity ([Formula: see text]) model as a proxy for primary saturation. The remaining — the primary porosity and secondary saturation — are assumed to remain the same across the seismic profile as at the site NGHP-01-10. The resulting, seismically estimated, hydrate saturation compares well with saturations from core depressurization at colocated sites NGHP-01-10 and NGHP-01-13. The quantification workflow presented here is potentially adaptable to other geographical areas with the caveat that empirical relations between porosity, saturation, and seismic attributes may have to be locally established.