Turbidite Reservoir Characterization at Marlim Field,

Campos Basin, Brazil

Tatiane M. Nascimento

, Paulo T. L. Menezes

and Igor L. Braga

Invision Geophysics,
Rua Barra do Pira, 387 c1,
Rio das Ostras, RJ, 28895-895

DGAP/FGEL/UERJ,
Rua Sao Francisco Xavier 524, 4006a
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 20550-013
email: ptarsomenezes@pq.cnpq.br
(August 8, 2013)
GEO-Example
Running head: High-Resolution AI inversion
ABSTRACT
Deep-water turbidite sedimentary systems can form prolic hydrocarbon plays. However,
due its high complexcity and heterogeinity .
1
INTRODUCTION
High-resolution reservoir characterization studies allow a more detailed lithology-uid pre-
diction in the various stages of the reservoir life cycle. Commonly this is a complex task,
where interpreters usually have to integrate a huge amount of data with dierent degrees
of accuracy and spatial resolution, like 3D seismic data (uniform sampled areal informa-
tion with low vertical resolution), well logs (high resolution distributed along irregularly
distributed well paths) and geological conceptual models.
Inversion of seismic data is a widely used tool to estimate reservoir geometry and petro-
physical characterization (Kelamis et al., 1995). One benet of the seismic inversion is to
increase the frequency content of the seismic data, which is band-limited (Latimer et al.,
2000). Furthermore, the result of inversion also allows the lithology dierentiation and esti-
mation of the uid content, not only the interface geometry as given the amplitude attribute
(Avseth et al., 2005; Contreras et al., 2005). Since the acoustic impedance is a property
related to the layer, the inversion process adds information to the seismic interpretation,
enabling greater inference of subsurface geology (Goodway et al., 1997).
Seismic inversion procedures can be divided into two main categories (Bosch et al.,
2010): deterministic and stochastic methods. Geoscientists tend to use the deterministic
methods as their rst choice (Tetyukhina et al., 2010). The incorporation of structural and
stratigraphic features in the inversion process decrease the inherent nonuniqueness of the
inversion results (Merletti and Torres-Verdn, 2006). These inputs allow to dierentiate
between similar mathematical solutions of the basis of their geologic viability (Pendrel and
Van Riel, 1997).
A major issue of the seismic inversion procedure is the inherent nonuniqueness of the
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obtained solution. This is mainly due to the band-limited frequency content, missing the
highest and lowest frequencies even for noise-free data, of the registered seismic waves. This
can be partially mitigated by introduction of external independent a-priori information, e.g.
coming from the wells, to estimate the low frequency and highest frequency content to be
incorporated into the inverse model. In practice, the inversion of seismic data is more
complicated (Bosch et al., 2010) due to; (1) presence of noise in real data (2) forward-
modeling simplications needed to estimate the solutions in a reasonable time, and (3)
uncertainties in well-to-seismic ties (velocities used in depth to time conversions), wavelet
extraction, and in the links between reservoir and elastic parameters.
Standard inversion workow commonly use stratal slicing technique for building low-
frequency model in model-based inversions (Russell and Toks oz, 1991). In some areas,
the construction of this low-frequency model is hampered due to a wide variation in the
lithology distribution throughout the investigated area. Examples in oshore Brazil include
deep-water channels fan complexes, switching delta lobe deposits, structural highs caused
by faults and irregular deposition due to the movement of salt layers (salt tectonics). The
described scenario corresponds exactly to what is found in the giant Marlim eld (Fig. 1),
where Oligocene and Miocene sand-rich turbidites form important reservoir rocks. These
turbidites were deposited in deep-water settings associated with slope and continental rise
deposits (Freire, 1989). The Marlim sandstones occur dominantly as tabular bodies with
more than 95% of massive sand with excellent porosity, up to 30% (Souza et al., 1989). The
porosity is controlled by carbonatic cementation, Carvalho et al. (1995) identied four dif-
ferent diagenetic reservoir facies within Marlim sandstones. Deep-water turbidite reservoirs,
like Marlim, usually show a complex distribution of sand bodies with thicknesses many times
smaller than the vertical resolution limit of the seismic data (Ribeiro, 2012). Therefore, a
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more detailed description of the reservoir can only be achieved through inversion procedure.
In the present paper we show the results of a high-resolution deterministic inversion
workow to recover acoustic impedance and predict porosity distribution of the Marlim
turbidite reservoirs. The main advantage of the proposed workow is to better estimate the
low-frequency model, the so-called HorizonCube (Brouwer et al., 2012), that incorporate
stratigraphic knowledge of the main sedimentary sequences of Campos Basin in the studied
area. Independent a priori information given by four available wells in the area plays
a fundamental role in dierent steps of the proposed workow. Besides the traditional
well-to-seismic ties for wavelet estimation, well information were used to help in the seismo-
stragraphic interpretation and build the high resolution low frequency model, and nally
providing constraints to the absolute impedance and porosity estimations, calibrating our
inverted models.
MARLIM FIELD DATASET
The giant Marlim eld is located in the northeastern portion of the Campos Basin, oshore
Brazil, in water depths ranging from 600m to 1200m (Fig. 1). The eld was discovered in
1985 with an initial estimate of over 6.4 billion STB with 1.97 billion barrels recoverable
(Candido and Cora, 1978). Production started in 1991 and Marlim shortly became the
largest producing eld in Brazil with daily production of 610,000 barrels (Johann et al.,
2009).
The reservoirs in Marlim eld (Fig. 1) consist of an Oligocene/Miocene deep-water
turbidite system. They form a series of amalgamated sandstone bodies that are informally
called Marlim Sandstone (Peres, 1993). The turbidite sedimentation occurred under the
4
inuence of NW-SE transfer faults, which were reactivated in the Tertiary providing the
pathway for the turbidite sedimentation, reworking and redistribution of several deep-water
reservoirs in Campos Basin (Cobbold et al., 2001; Lourenco et al., 2014).
The Marlim sandstone is easily recognized in the seismic amplitude data (Fig. 2). This
high amplitude seismic response was attributed by Fainstein et al. (2001) to the impedance
contrast between the high porosity of the reservoirs, and the relatively low speed of the
overlying shale. The Marlim trap is notably stratigraphic (pinch out) in the western, north-
ern and southern portions of the reservoir. In Eastward, the trap is structural, where the
accumulation ends against a normal listric fault generated by the underlying moving salt.
This fault is considered to be the main route of oil migration from the pre-salt source rocks
to the turbidite reservoir (Mello et al., 1994).
The 3D seismic data herein interpreted was acquired for Petrobras by Geco Prakla at the
end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997 (Sansonowski et al., 2007). The survey area spanned
over 720 km
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(Johann et al., 2009). The acquisition parameters of the 1997 survey are
shown in Table 1. Due to the high data quality, the 1997 survey became the base survey of
a 4D monitoring study realized in the Marlim eld (Johann et al., 2009). The 1997 dataset
became public in 2003 and made available as by ANP (Brazilian Petroleum Agency) as
a PSTM-migrated zero-phase 3D seismic amplitude data. ANP also provided checkshots,
stratigraphy and composite well-logs (lithology, density, sonic, porosity and gamma ray) of
four wells in the studied area (Fig. 1). Three of the four wells (P1, P2 and P3 in Fig. 1)
targeted Marlim reservoir at an average depth of 2600 m.
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INVERSION WORKFLOW
To interpret the Marlim reservoir we applied a ve steps inversion workow, namely:
(1) seismic data ltering; (2) well-to-seismic tie; (3) HorizonCube building; (4) acoustic
Impedance (AI) inversion; and (5) porosity estimation.
Seismic Data Filtering
We applied a dip steering median lter (Brouwer and Huck, 2011; Qayyum and de Groot,
2012) to remove the high frequency random noise from the seismic amplitude data. The
main advantage of this approach is that the traces amplitudes and edges are preserved during
the ltering process, so it enhances laterally continuous events. Therefore, it facilitates
structural interpretation, as it improves the performance of auto-tracker algorithms an
allows to extract more detail from the seismic data.
In Figure 3 we show the comparison between the original amplitude data (upper panel in
Figure 3) and the dip steering median ltered data (lower panel in Figure 3). It is possible
to observe in the ltered data and overall improvement, associated with the high frequency
noise content reduction. As result, a better image with higher resolution is obtained. An
important aspect, is that t small amplitude reectors are much better dened in the ltered
data. This enhancement on the lateral continuity of the reectors is a necessary condition
for a more precise structural horizon mapping of the HorizonCube building, as the dat-
driven multihorizon tracking algorithm is based on following the dip and azimuth of the
seismic data. According to Brouwer et al. (2012) the use of dip is preferable because they
are more continuous than amplitude leds, and less prone to noise.
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Well-to-seismic tie
The well-to-seismic tie is the best way to tie seismic data back to rock properties by using
synthetics seismograms generated from well logs (White, 1997). It is also widely used
for interpretation, as it enables the correct identication of mapped seismic reectors and
optimizes the correlation between the acoustic impedance model and seismic data. To
properly run a successful inversion scheme it is necessary to determine the wavelets for
a well-to-seismic tie for all suitable wells. After that generation, cross-correlation and
validation can be used to select one wavelet to invert the seismic data. Usually, the value
of the seismic-to-well tie depends on the quality of well and seismic data, but also the
time/depth relationship.
The original sonic and density well-log data of all four available wells were edited to
remove spurious values. The sonic logs were corrected with checkshot information to adjust
the time-depth curves. From sonic we calculated the Vp log. The well data were then
converted to time using a checkshot-calibrated time-depth curve. After that, we established
the well-to-seismic tie in time by using a Ricker-based (10 Hz) wavelet that were extracted
from the data by applying methods based on minimizing the prediction error (Akaike, 1969).
The chosen wavelet minimized the mistie between between synthetics and the seismic data
(Fig. 4). An appropriate choice of interval, length, frequency and taper lter is very
important for a better estimation of the wavelet (Salleh and Ronghe, 1999).
HorizonCube Building
The well-to-seismic tie is the best way to tie seismic
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank DBG Earth Sciences for making freely available the open-source seismic interpre-
tation software OpendTect. We acknowledge LAGEX/UERJ and Invision Geophysics for
making available its computational park. PTLM thanks the support provided by research
grant from CNPq. Dataset made available by ANP under the support of CNPq Project no.
470742/2011-9 coordinated by Alexandre Evsuko. We also thank the additional support
by CNPq project no. 470742/2011-9.
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FIGURE CAPTION
Figure 1 - Location map of Marlim Field. P1, P2, P3 and P4 are available wells. Marlim
reservoir outline is shown in black line.
Figure 2 - Local signature of the Marlim reservoir (turbidite), modied from Candido
and Cora (1978).
Figure 3 - Upper pannel: left - original amplitude data, right- correspondent amplitude
espectra. Lower pannel left - dip steered median ltered data, right correspondent amplitude
espectra.. Note the enhancement of low-amplitude reectors in the ltered data associated
to the noise reduction in the high frequency range (above 75 Hz).
Figure 4 - Well-to seismic tie at P1 borehole with synthetic constructed using extracted
wavelet (bottom right). Track1 = well logs. Track 2 = reectivity. Track 3 = synthetic and
observed seismic amplitude.
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