The Research and Application of Bright Spot Quanti
The Research and Application of Bright Spot Quanti
The Research and Application of Bright Spot Quanti
http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojg
ISSN Online: 2161-7589
ISSN Print: 2161-7570
Zhanjiang Branch of China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd., Zhanjiang, China
Keywords
Bright Spot, Wedge Model, Tuning Thickness, Rock Physical Analysis,
Amplitude Quantitative Interpretation
1. Introduction
Bright Spot Technology [1] [2] is a method used to detect oil and gas accumu-
lated in traps based on real amplitude, which became an important or indis-
pensable means in oil-gas exploration with good results in practical application
[3] [4]. This technology is based on the change of seismic wave amplitude versus
hydrocarbon in reservoir. Usually when searching the favorable target with
bright spot, we mostly used the energy strength of seismic amplitude to distin-
guish the bright spot, and eventually achieved the target evaluation. This method
to determine whether the stratigraphic is a favorable target is simple and rough,
which can’t actually judge whether the stratigraphic really contains gas on the
basis of the strong amplitude from seismic profile. According to bright spot
identification, the upper and lower groups of strata are characterized by strong
amplitude and continuous reflection in the central canyon target area of the
deep water area of the South China Sea. Based on that, the target in two strata
has been evaluated and drilled. The drilling result indicated that the lower bright
spot is thick sandstone that was full of high-yield gas. It was found that both gas
layer and water layer drilled the well L1 and well L2 show bright spot features in
seismic profile with horizontal contrast (Figure 1).
The practice has proved that not all the bright spots are the reflection of oil
and gas reservoirs and all the oil and gas reservoirs do not necessarily show the
bright spot characteristic. This bright spot feature in seismic profile is the ex-
pression of not only oil and gas, but also some special geological bodies like wa-
ter layer. In 1975 [5], according to the success or failure experience in Bright
Spot technology, Royal Dutch Shell considered most bright spots have been not
resulted in by the hydrocarbon reservoirs which have commercial value, and
warned the industry that there have been some traps in bright spots in time.
Bright Spot technology has become one of the key technologies in oil and gas
exploration, which has been used to discover lots of large and medium oil-gas
fields successfully. With the deepening of exploration more and more cases of
failure in Bright Spot technology have come, whose drawback of multi-solution
has been exposed gradually [6] [7] [8] [9]. By analyzing the reason of the failure,
it is attributed to the multi-solutions of the geophysics that is the equivalent of
petrophysical properties. Therefore, in order to better serve the exploration,
Bright Spot technology also needs to keep pace with the times. According to the
Figure 1. The true bright spots in conventional seismic section of three wells drilled.
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change of oil and gas exploration environment and in order to meet the new
demand, it is necessary to further study and improve the applicability of Bright
Spot technology.
By analyzing the petrophysical data of the wells drilled in the study area, it is
found that there is a great difference between the elastic parameters of the reser-
voir contained gas and water. The low impedance and low density characteristics
have been showed in both of gas layer and water layer, but the acoustic impedance
and density of gas layer is lower than water layer, which caused that the impedance
difference between gas layer and the overlying mudstone is far greater than the
difference between aquifer and mudstone. There is a close relationship between
the difference of P-wave impedance and the reflection coefficient, which is that the
impedance difference is big, the reflection coefficient is large, and the impedance
difference is small, the reflection coefficient is small. The value of the reflection
coefficient determines the amplitude value of the seismic profile. Therefore, gas
layer and water layer will show different amplitude values in the seismic profile. In
this case, whether gas layer and water layer can be identified directly on the seis-
mic profile by analyzing the amplitude of bright spot, so as to reduce the mul-
ti-solution of bright spot identification [10] [11] [12] [13]? Based on rock physics
analysis and using the current amplitude fidelity of seismic data, the quantitative
interpretation research of bright spot has been carried out from the perspective of
amplitude quantification for gas layer and water layer, which directed the identifi-
cation of hydrocarbon reservoir in study area and laid the foundation for the suc-
cess of subsequent wells.
2. Principle of Method
In order to realize the purpose of explaining the bright spot directly into gas
layer or water layer in seismic profile, first of all, based on the petrophysical
analysis for the wells drilled and according to the relationship between the im-
pedance of the reservoir and the surrounding rock, determine the relative rela-
tionship of amplitude between the reservoir and the surrounding rock by using
simulation method, combine the relationship with the statistical results of the
actual seismic amplitude value corresponding to the drilled reservoir, distinguish
bright spots shown by gas layer and water layer with the quantitative display
means, eliminate the false bright spots caused by water layer and highlight the
true bright spots caused by gas layer [14] [15] [16].
Then, based on the above understanding and aimed at the different situation
of reservoir contained gas and water, carry out the petrophysical analysis deeply,
find the sensitive elastic parameters of gas layer and water layer, conduct the
forward modeling of reservoir fluid, physical properties and thickness tuning by
using wedge model, further simulate and analyze the relationship of amplitude
value caused by the impedance difference between gas layer, water layer and
surrounding rock, determine the numerical value of gas layer and water layer
amplitude under the same surrounding rock.
Ultimately, combined with the actual seismic amplitude statistics of gas layer
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and water layer in wells drilled, establish the quantitative relationship between
reservoir and amplitude [17], form a quantitative interpretation and evaluation
technique for Huangliu Formation reservoirs in the central canyon.
Figure 2. The petrophysical analysis of the well drilled in the Central Canyon.
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sity, and the P-wave impedance difference between water layer and mudstone is
much smaller than that of gas layer and mudstone. Therefore, the petrophysical
analysis results of three wells give that once the reservoir is filled with gas, the
impedance of it will be far less than that of water layer, and there is obvious dif-
ference between these layers of Huangliu Formation with the density of mud-
stone, water layer and gas layer decreasing.
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Figure 3. The physical property, the thickness and the amplitude relationship analysis.
Figure 4. The amplitude relationship analysis of gas layer and water layer in different porosity.
tuning amplitude of gas layer is greater than that of other three layers, the max-
imum tuning amplitude of water layer is equivalent to that of gas layer, and it is
less than the maximum tuning amplitude of gas layer, the non-tuning amplitude
of water layer is smallest; iii) When the difference between two different porosi-
ties is in the range of 3% to 4%, the non-tuning amplitude of gas layer with small
porosity is still greater than the non-tuning amplitude of water layer with large
porosity.
2) Fluid
The reservoir drilled in Huangliu Formation are mainly explained as gas layer
and water layer, so gas layer and water layer with different depths were chosen in
three wells drilled respectively, and the amplitude of these layers was simulated.
It is known from the simulation results (Figure 5) that the amplitude of gas
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Figure 5. The forward modeling of gas layer and water layer in the central canyon.
layer is much larger than that of water layer, which is consistent with the ampli-
tude value of gas layer and water layer extracted from the seismic profile. These
results show that the top surface of gas layer can lead to stronger seismic ampli-
tude, and there is a great difference of amplitude caused by the top surface of gas
layer and that of water layer in the seismic profile, which can be distinguished by
naked eyes.
3) Thickness tuning
The corresponding wedge models have been designed respectively for gas
layer and water layer chosen above, meanwhile, the forward modeling of the ef-
fect of thickness tuning on amplitude has been carried out for these layers. The
steps of simulation are as follows: firstly, according to the actual logging data,
the corresponding velocity and density curves of gas layer and water layer have
been turned into square wave; secondly, referring to the thickness of the sand
which has been drilled, the thickness of the wedge model is changed from 0 m to
2 times the maximum thickness of reservoir; finally, the wedge model has been
simulated by using theoretical wavelet(Ricker) and the wavelet extracted from
Well-to-Seismic Calibration referring to convolution theory. The frequency of
Ricker wavelet is determined in the light of the main frequency of the objective
layer obtained from frequency analysis of the seismic data.
The simulation result shows that the amplitude values of gas layer and water
layer have increased with the increasing of thickness gradually, when the thick-
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ness increases to a certain value, the amplitudes of gas layer and water layer
reach the maximum value (the maximum tuning amplitude), then the amplitude
with thickness decreases, at last, the amplitude tends to be stable after the thick-
ness reaches a certain greater value. As a whole, the amplitude of gas layer is
stronger than that of water layer, even if water layer is in the maximum tuning
amplitude, the value of which is still smaller than that of gas layer (Figure 6).
Further analyzing the relationship between the amplitude values of gas layer and
water layer deeply, pick up the maximum tuning amplitude value of gas layer,
the non-tuning amplitude value of gas layer , the maximum tuning amplitude
value of water layer and the non-tuning amplitude value of water layer, think
that there are multiple relationship between the amplitude values of gas layer
and water layer like this: 1.1 ~ 2.6 after comparing and calculating the four kinds
of data (Figure 7). In addition, when the gas layer and water layer in the study
area get the maximum tuning amplitude, the corresponding thickness is 16 m
and 19 m respectively; when the amplitude of gas layer and water layer is trans-
ferred from tuning to non-tuning, the thickness of them is 32 m and 38 m re-
spectively; both of the amplitudes tend to be stable and remain unchanged when
the thickness of them is more than 32 m and 38 m respectively.
Figure 6. The influence analysis of the reservoir amplitudes during the thickness tuning.
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Figure 7. The numerical relationship analysis of gas layer and water layer.
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weakened by reducing the gain of seismic profile, which is greater than the thre-
shold of water layer, and the event that still shows very strong amplitude in the
profile is the top interface of gas layer (Figure 8).
Table 1. The amplitudes and the porosity statistics of the well drilled in the central canyon.
IV −4.5 × 108 −4.0 × 108 12.2 28.62 Water (gas contained in top of layer)
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nition of gas layer and water layer and in drilling operations has achieved good
results. It is not only presented that the method is simple and practical and it
Figure 10. The pre-stack inversion of the section through well L3 and L4 before drilling.
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plays an important role in the objective assessment, but also that its application
brings direct economic benefits for production operations, especially the in-
crease of reserves, saving the drilling cost.
Fund Project
National Science and technology major special projects supported by 2016ZX-
05026-002.
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