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7th Middle East Geosciences Conference and Exhibition
Manama, Bahrain
March 27-29, 2006
Monitoring
Reservoir
Fluids Using Microearthquake Technology in a Middle East Carbonate Oil
Field
Saudi Aramco, Dhahran Saudi Arabia, phone: (9663)8745496, [email protected]
Majority of the giant oil fields in the Middle East produces from prolific carbonate rock reservoirs. Collectively these
carbonate reservoirs hold well over 50% of the world oil reserves. The high rigidity of the limestone-dolomite reservoir
rock
matrix, a small contrast between the elastic properties of pore fluids, low GOR oil and mixed salinity water are responsible
for the weak 4D seismic effect from oil production in the
reservoir
under study. An alternative
reservoir
fluid
monitoring
technique, between wells, was therefore considered. Permanent seismic sensors installed in a borehole and on the ground
surface over a producing field will record passive
monitoring
of microseismic activity from
reservoir
pore pressure
perturbations.
Reservoir
production and injection operations create these pressure or stress perturbations that are induced
by shear stress release along zones of weakness in these rocks. The injection operation generates
reservoir
pore pressure
increase which creates shear stress increase affecting the stability along the planes of weakness in
reservoir
rocks like
joints, bedding planes, faults and fractures. Similarly
reservoir
production operation or fluid withdrawal creates a pore
pressure sink that affects the stability in zones of weakness. The microseisms or minute earthquakes emanated from the
reservoir
would be recorded simultaneously at a large number of multicomponent seismic sensors that are deployed
permanently at various levels in the borehole and over a surface area surrounding the borehole. Special geophones
capable of measuring frequency response over 100-1000Hz frequency range would be installed.
Reservoir
heterogeneities
affecting the fluid flow could be mapped by recording the distribution of hypocenter locations of these microseisms or small
earthquakes.