Fracture characterization from refraction travel time data

摘要

Refracted energy travel time can help to derive anisotropic parameters in a target layer. These anisotropic parameters allow us to both explore for new reservoirs and to understand stress and fracturing in existing reservoirs. This information can be used to i) detect oil reservoirs, ii) spot naturally fractured, hence high production zones, iii) detect dominant natural stress directions, iv) better place horizontal wells to optimize production, v) monitoring man made fractures or induced directional stress changes. The method is demonstrated using synthetic and real data.

主权项

1. A method to identify fractures in a hydrocarbon reservoir comprising:
transmitting one or more seismic source signals into the earth; receiving one or more seismic signals at two or more geophones; recording source-receiver records to a computer processor comprising a user interface and a storage medium; pre-processing each pair of source-receiver records for each azimuth around one or more common source signals, including:
applying linear move-out,removing dipping signals,extracting refraction travel time, andremoving linear move-out; deriving anisotropic parameters from refraction travel time; and correlating changes in anisotropic parameters to one or more reservoir models.