American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2016 - 82

SpecialReport: Big Data & Geostatistics
verse isotropy was negligible in this area.
In Figure 4, the correlation to the well
log synthetic seismogram is very high,
with no stretching or squeezing applied.
Compared with the original time migration
result on the right in Figure 4, the PSDM
image derived using this workflow revealed
mappable shallow reflectors.
As the Midland Basin project illustrates,
isotropic acoustic 3-D FWI can be employed successfully in unconventional
reservoirs without the availability of well
log information. In this application, the
FWI results closely matched the shallow

sonic logs.
Furthermore, the results of PSDM
with the FWI velocity model provided
both a strong match with known stratigraphic markers within the 3-D survey
area and a high correlation with the well
log synthetic seismogram.
r
Editor's Note: The preceding article
was adapted from a technical paper presented at the 2015 Society of Exploration
Geophysicists annual meeting, held Oct.
18-23 in New Orleans. For additional information, see SEG paper 5914651.

FIGURE 3
Prestack Depth Migration using FWI Velocity Model
(Correlates with Yates Tops)
Inline
Well

100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1,000
1,100
1,200
1,300
1,400
1,500
1,600
1,700
1,800
1,900
2,000
2,100
2,200
2,300
2,400
2,500
2,600
2,700
2,800
2,900
3,000

1,175 1,193 1,211 1,228 1,246 1,264 1,282 1,300 1,3

Color Data: PSDM_volume_BP
Inserted Curve Data: Gamma Ray

Well B

0 1,408 1,426 1,444 1,462

Well C

Color Key
48
44
40
36
32
28
23
29
15
11
7
3
0
-4
-8
-12
-16
-20
-25
-29
-33
-37
-41
-45
-49

FIGURE 4
Well Log Synthetic (Blue) with 0.75 Correlation
With Prestack Depth Migrated Seismic
Time
(ms)

Gamma Ray I
API
150

P-wave 1_corr_1
5,000 ft/s 20,000

Well A

Xline 693
1,240 1,244 1,249 1,253 1,258 1,262 1,267 1,271

100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
750

82 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

FWI + PSDM

Xline 693
1,239 1,244 1,249 1,254 1,259 1,263 1,268 1,272

Conventional PSTM

ANTHONY A. VASSILIOU is chief
executive officer and president of
GeoEnergy Inc. in Houston. He began
his career in 1987 as a research geophysicist at Mobil Research & Development Corp., and later served
as a senior research geophysicist at
Amoco Production Research before
founding GeoEnergy in 1998. The
company specializes in seismic data
processing, full-waveform inversion,
seismic imaging, acoustic/elastic wave
equation modeling, and denoising.
Vassiliou holds a B.S. in geodesy
from the National Technical University
of Greece, and an M.S. and a Ph.D.
in civil engineering from the University of Calgary.

TVD (ft)
from
surface
0

500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500

ROBERT A. MEEK is a technical
specialist in the geophysical technology
group at Pioneer Natural Resources
in Irving, Tx. His focus is on rock
property estimation using prestack inversion, microseismic, and surface
seismic data analysis. Meek began
his career in 1987 as a geophysicist
at Mobil Oil. After serving 10 years
at Mobil, he joined Conoco, serving
for seven years as a senior research
geophysical scientist and geophysical
adviser. Meek holds a B.S. in geology
from the University of North Dakota
and an M.S. in geophysics from Southern Methodist University.
RODNEY STROMBERG is a geophysicist at GeoEnergy Inc. Before
joining the company, he held various
positions and responsibilities with major oil and gas companies as well as
service companies supporting exploration, related mostly to seismic data
processing. Stromberg holds a B.S. in
geological engineering from the University of Utah.
LIONEL WOOG is director of software development at GeoEnergy Inc.
He joined the company in 2003, after
previously serving at Adapted Wave
Technologies and Fast Mathematical
Algorithms & Hardware Corp. Woog's
professional interests are in seismic
denoising, depth imaging, and graphical processing unit software development. He holds a B.S. in computer
engineering from Rochester Institute
of Technology and a Ph.D. in computer
science from Yale University.

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2016

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