Analysis of the repeatability of time-lapse 3D VSP multicomponent surveys, Delhi field

Abstract

Delhi Field is a producing oil field located in northeastern Louisiana. In order to monitor the CO2 sweep efficiency, time-lapse 3D seismic data have been acquired in this area. Time-lapse studies are increasingly used to evaluate changes in the seismic response induced by the production of hydrocarbons or the injection of water, CO2 or steam into a reservoir. A 4D seismic signal is generated by a combination of production and injection effects within the reservoir as well as non-repeatability effects. In order to get reliable results from time-lapse seismic methods, it is important to distinguish the production and injection effects from the non-repeatability effects in the 4D seismic signal. Repeatability of 4D land seismic data is affected by several factors. The most significant of them are: source and receiver geometry inaccuracies, differences in seismic sources signatures, variations in the immediate near surface and ambient non-repeatable noise. In this project, two 3D multicomponent VSP surveys acquired in Delhi Field were used to quantify the relative contribution of each factor that can affect the repeatability in land seismic data. The factors analyzed in this study were: source and receiver geometry inaccuracies, variations in the immediate near surface and ambient non-repeatable noise. This study showed that all these factors had a significant impact on the repeatability of the successive multicomponent VSP surveys in Delhi Field. This project also shows the advantages and disadvantages in the use of different repeatability metrics, normalized-root-mean-square (NRMS) difference and signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) attribute, to evaluate the level of seismic repeatability between successive time-lapse seismic surveys. It is observed that NRMS difference is greatly influenced by time-shifts and that SDR attribute combined with the time-shift may give more distinct and representative repeatability information than the NRMS difference.