GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 73, NO. 6 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2008 ; P. C23C30, 10 FIGS. 10.1190/1.

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Spectral-decomposition response to reservoir uids from a deepwater West Africa reservoir

Ganglin Chen1, Gianni Matteucci2, Bill Fahmy3, and Chris Finn4

ABSTRACT
We study the spectral-decomposition response to reservoir uids from a deepwater West Africa reservoir through a systematic modeling approach. Our workow starts from selecting the seismic data far-angle seismic images that show more pronounced uid effect based on amplitude-versus-offset AVO analysis. Synthetic seismic forward modeling performed at the control well established the quality of the seismic well tie. Reservoir wedge modeling, spectral decomposition of the eld and synthetic seismic data, and theoretical analyses were conducted to understand the spectral-decomposition responses. The reservoir uid type is a main factor controlling the spectral response. For this deepwater reservoir, the amplitude contrast between oil sand and brine sand is higher at low frequencies 15 Hz . In addition, synthetic modeling can help identify the possible frequency band where the amplitude contrast between hydrocarbon sand and brine sand is higher. When properly included in a comprehensive direct-hydrocarbon-indicator DHI AVO evaluation, spectral decomposition can enhance the identication of hydrocarbons.

INTRODUCTION
Spectral-domain seismic data attributes have been useful for some applications in hydrocarbon-reservoir characterizations. For example, Dilay and Eastwood 1995 analyze seismic data in the spectral domain for monitoring bitumen production by cyclic steam stimulation steam injection at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada. Partyka et al. 1999 discuss spectral-decomposition analysis and interpretation of 3D seismic data. They show how channel details and discon-

tinuities could be imaged and mapped better with spectral-decomposition results. Both studies used a Fourier transform over short time windows, or short-time Fourier transform STFT . Chakraborty and Okaya 1995 compare different methods for performing frequency-time analysis on seismic data. They show that the STFT method suffers from time-frequency resolution limitations. Improved spectral-decomposition results could be obtained by methods such as discrete wavelet transform and matching pursuit algorithm. Castagna et al. 2003 apply instantaneous spectral analysis to seismic data and obtain high-resolution spectral-decomposition images. They illustrate how spectral-decomposition results are used to detect low-frequency shadows beneath gas-sand reservoirs. Related studies also show that spectral decomposition could be used to image hydrocarbon sands at certain frequency bands Burnett et al., 2003; Sinha et al., 2003 . In this paper, we use instantaneous spectral analysis Castagna et al., 2003 to study the spectral-decomposition response to reservoir uids from a deepwater West Africa reservoir Figure 1a . From amplitude-versus-offset AVO analysis, uid effect is more pronounced in far-angle seismic traces class IIp . Our analysis therefore focuses on far-angle stack seismic data. Spectral decomposition of far-angle stack seismic images reveals that the amplitude contrast between the oil sand and downdip brine sand is higher at low frequencies Figure 1b . A systematic seismic forward-modeling approach helps us to understand the response. Four key factors control the spectral-decomposition response of a reservoir: thickness, stratigraphy i.e., reectivity series , uid type, and effective attenuation. For this reservoir, the reectivity series and uid type are the main controlling factors. We do not discuss details of our work on the other two factors because the focus of this paper is the effect of reservoir uids. We show that reservoir uid type is a main factor controlling spectral response. Synthetic modeling can be used to identify the possible frequency band where the amplitude contrast between hydrocarbon sand and brine sand is higher.

Manuscript received by the Editor 16 November 2007; revised manuscript received 25 January 2008; published online 24 October 2008. 1 ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Houston, Texas, U.S.A. E-mail: ganglin.chen@exxonmobil.com. 2 ExxonMobil International Limited, London, U.K. E-mail: gianni.matteucci@exxonmobil.com. 3 ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Houston, Texas, U.S.A. E-mail: bill.a.fahmy@exxonmobil.com. 4 ExxonMobil Production Company, Houston, Texas, U.S.A. E-mail: chris.nn@exxonmobil.com. 2008 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.

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METHODS AND WORKFLOW

First, we performed seismic well tie at the control well. Toward this end, wireline sonic logs and density logs were blocked Figure 2a . A far-angle synthetic seismic trace was generated through isotropic synthetic seismic forward modeling using a ray-tracing method Figure 2b . The tie achieved a crosscorrelation coefcient of 94% over the reservoir interval Figure 2c . This high-quality synthetic/seismic eld data tie gave us condence in the quality of logs and input seismic data. Rock properties P-velocities, S-velocities, and densities from this well were the foundation of our simulations. We then studied in detail the spectral-decomposition response to different reservoir uid lls gas, oil, and brine of a wedge model. Rock properties of sand and shale in models were taken from the av-

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Figure 1. a Interval average absolute amplitude AAB map of a deepwater West Africa reservoir. Red regions have high AAB values, as indicated by the color scale bar on the right. Black polygons are fault zones. For scale, the width of the eld high AAB region is about 2 km. b Spectral-decomposition frequency slices of a seismic traverse AA : blue line in Figure 1a showing oil-leg brightening on the 15-Hz section relative to the brine leg. The time scale is about 600 ms for each image.

Figure 2. a Original and blocked logs at the control well used for modeling. b Gamma-ray log, P-impedance log, and far-angle seismic black to synthetic green plane-wave convolution well tie. c Sample-by-sample crossplot of far-angle synthetic trace amplitude versus far-angle eld seismic stack trace with regression line that shows a correlation coefcient of 94%.

Spec decomp response to reservoir uids erage of some typical deepwater WestAfrica reservoirs used in a previous seismic/well-tie study Gratwick and Finn, 2004; Gratwick and Finn, 2005 . Figure 3a shows acoustic impedance models of studied reservoirs. Near-angle Figure 3b and far-angle synthetic seismograms were generated with a plane-wave convolution approach. Spectral decomposition of synthetic seismograms was performed, and two spectral attributes peak frequency and peak amplitude were calculated for analyses. More than 1000 models were analyzed. These models examined the effect of attenuation, elastic anisotropy, different acoustic properties for the encasing shale, and normal-moveout NMO stretch on far-angle synthetic traces. In addition to the plane-wave convolution approach, we also used raytracing and wave-equation modeling to examine the effect of different modeling algorithms on spectral-decomposition output. In the second part of the study, reservoir rock-property models were generated by perturbing the control well logs stochastically to span model parameters Vshale: shale volume fraction, porosity, and thickness observed in logs from wells that penetrated this reservoir.

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Model parameters were adjusted based on comparisons of spectraldecomposition attributes from the synthetic seismograms and eld seismic images. Thousands of models were generated in each simulation while adjusting the model parameters. Figure 4 shows the distribution of three key parameters from the nal models:

Total sand thickness

sand 1

Thickness,

Avg net porosity

sand 1

Thickness

Porosity

Total sand thickness

, 2

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b)

Figure 3. a P-impedance and S-impedance models of the schematic reservoir 30 m thick. Three bottom shale properties were modeled to examine the effect of symmetrical and nonsymmetrical shale casings. b The 15-equivalent synthetic seismograms for wedge models with symmetrical encasing shale properties.

Figure 4. Distribution of average sand properties in nal models for the West Africa reservoir.

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Avg Vshale
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Thickness Vshale
shale 1 3

Thickness

100%

Wedge-model results
,

Total sand thickness

Total shale thickness

3
where

Total shale thickness

sand 1

Thickness.

An extension of the Xu-White Xu and White, 1995 sand/shale model was used to convert porosity and Vshale values to VP, VS, and densities as input to reservoir models to compute synthetic seismograms. Two types of displays were used to examine the spectral-decomposition response of reservoir uids: peak frequency versus gross reservoir thickness and spectral ratios from hydrocarbon models, and the brine model at representative sand thicknesses. The former provides an abstract illustration of the frequency response of the synthetic to the reservoir uid changes. The latter shows the amplitude contrast between different uid-lled reservoirs and highlights the frequency range over which the largest amplitude contrast may occur.

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Figure 5a shows results for 15-equivalent synthetic seismograms from wedge models 135 m encased in symmetric shale same acoustic impedance for the shale above and below the reservoir . Notice, in this case, how peak frequencies decrease monotonically with increasing gross reservoir thickness as a consequence of the increasing time duration for the acoustic wave to propagate through the reservoir sand Figure 5b . The small separation in peak frequency between different reservoir uids is because of small time-thickness differences. The situation becomes more complicated for models with nonsymmetric shale casing acoustic impedance is different between the shale above and below the reservoir . The spectral response is complicated by the nonsymmetric interference effect of wavelets at the top and bottom of the reservoir, in addition to the time-thickness changes. Figure 5c and d shows the peak frequency versus gross reservoir thickness for the 15-equivalent and 40-equivalent models. Two regimes can be distinguished: for thin sand, the peak frequency of the hydrocarbon sand is higher than the brine sand; for thick sand, the peak frequency of the hydrocarbon sand is lower than the brine sand. In comparison with near angle, the maximum peak-frequency separation at far angle increases by 50% for a thin sand regime and 100% for thick sand. A detailed explanation of the phenomenon is provided in a later section using the convolution model. The consequence of peak-frequency shifts because of different reservoir uid lls is demonstrated through spectral-ratio plots in Figure 6. The left column of Figure 6 Figure 6a and c shows results for a 5-m sand thin sand model. The right column Figure 6b and d shows results for a 30-m sand thick sand model. For clarity, three

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Figure 5. a Peak frequency versus gross reservoir thickness of 15equivalent seismograms symmetrical encasing shale . b Verticalincidence traveltime time thickness of the reservoir versus gross reservoir thickness. c, d Peak frequency versus gross reservoir thickness for c 15 and d 40 synthetic seismograms from a wedge model encased in nonsymmetrical shale. The separation between thick and thin sands is based on the crossover of the peak-frequency curves between the hydrocarbon scenarios and the brine scenario.

Figure 6. a, b Interval-averaged spectra and c, d their ratios for 15-equivalent synthetic seismograms of a, c a 5-m sand model and b, d a 30-m sand model.

Spec decomp response to reservoir uids instead of ve uid-ll scenarios were plotted: dry gas, light oil, and brine. Figure 6a shows interval-averaged amplitude spectra for 5-m gas sand, oil sand, and brine sand models. Figure 6c shows the spectral ratio versus frequency. The peak-frequency shift toward higher values, as brine is replaced by hydrocarbon, causes a monotonic increase of spectral ratios with frequency between hydrocarbon and brine scenarios. We expect that hydrocarbon sand is better illuminated at higher frequencies. For example, at 50 Hz, the hydrocarbon-sand and wet-sand contrast is more than 30% higher than at 30 Hz, the Ricker-wavelet frequency used to generate synthetic seismograms. For thick sand Figure 6b and d , as brine is replaced by hydrocarbon, the peak frequency of the spectrum shifts to lower values. This peak-frequency shift causes a low-frequency peak in the spectral ratio between hydrocarbon sand and wet sand Figure 6d . As a consequence, the hydrocarbon sand would be better illuminated at frequencies near this low-frequency peak. The contrast between gas sand and wet sand is more than 40% higher at 16 Hz than at 30 Hz Ricker-wavelet frequency . For oil sand and wet sand, the contrast is about 24% higher at 16 Hz than at 30 Hz. We can explain these results in the spectral domain invoking the convolution approach. With the convolution model, the amplitude spectrum of the synthetic seismogram is the product of the reectivity spectrum with the wavelet spectrum:

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better separation between the oil-leg bright and brine-leg dim/ blue amplitudes. The 25-Hz spectral-decomposition map Figure 8c has a very similar amplitude pattern to the input full-band seismics Figure 8a because the dominant frequency of the full-band seismic data is about 25 Hz. The high-frequency 37-Hz spectraldecomposition map Figure 8d shows that high-amplitude patterns bleed across the oil-water contact upper-left area . The change of high-amplitude patterns inside the white polygon the reservoir is caused primarily by the variation in the thickness of the reservoir interval and net-to-gross sand volume fraction. Note a dim area inside the reservoir upper region inside the white polygon . This is because of the interference effect of an overlying reservoir that was not investigated in this study. Figure 8e and f further demonstrates the difference of the seismic stack response in the spectral domain between the oil leg and brine leg. Figure 8e shows ve rectangular regions over which average interval spectra in Figure 8f were calculated. Three regions are in the oil leg, with corresponding spectra black. Two regions are in the brine leg with corresponding spectra red. Two effects are clear from brine-leg spectra to oil-leg spectra: amplitude brightening higher peak amplitude and peak frequency shift to lower values.

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Time domain: Spectral domain:

St S

RC t  Wavelet t RC Wavelet .

5 6

In this study, a 30-Hz Ricker wavelet was used. The wavelet spectrum peaks at 30 Hz Figure 7b . Reectivity spectra for thin hydrocarbon sand increase monotonically with increasing frequencies Figure 7a . Multiplication of monotonic increasing-reectivity spectra with the Ricker-wavelet spectrum leads to a higher peak frequency of the nal spectrum than the peak frequency of the Ricker wavelet Figure 7c . For thin brine sand, the situation is different. Reection coefcients from the top and base of the sand have the same sign and form an even pair. The reectivity spectrum is a broad cosine curve and decreases monotonically with increasing frequencies over the frequency range used in the modeling 180 Hz . Multiplying the reectivity spectrum with the Ricker-wavelet spectrum shifts the peak frequency of the nal spectrum to a lower value than the peak frequency of the wavelet spectrum Figure 7c . Figure 7d-f shows the convolution model for thick-sand reservoirs. Examples here serve as illustrative cases on the controlling effect of the reectivity series on spectra. The deepwater West Africa reservoir analyzed in this paper belongs to the thick-sand regime reservoir see Figure 4, total sand thickness plot . The effect of attenuation was investigated with wave-equation modeling and was found to be relatively small less than 1 Hz for single-cycle oil-lled reservoirs.

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The West Africa reservoir

Figure 8a-d is an average absolute amplitude AAB map over the reservoir interval from the full-band far-angle seismic stack Figure 8a , low-frequency 13-Hz spectral decomposition Figure 8b , dominant frequency 25-Hz spectral decomposition Figure 8c , and high-frequency 37-Hz spectral decomposition Figure 8d . The thin white polygon outlines the oil-water contact, conrmed by well data. Low-frequency 13-Hz spectral decomposition provides

Figure 7. Modication of the Ricker spectrum middle column by reectivity spectra left column for a-c thin-sand models and d-f thick-sand models red curves are gas sand; green curves are oil sand; blue curves are brine sand .

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To understand the spectral response of seismic images in the oil and brine legs, we performed synthetic seismic forward modeling on logs at the control well Figure 9a from the oil scenario in situ and brine scenario through Gassmann uid substitution . Figure 9b shows far-angle synthetic seismic traces. The left trace is for the oil scenario, and the right trace is for the brine scenario. Three horizontal lines indicate the top of the reservoir black , the base of the oil reservoir green , and the base of the reservoir for the brine-ll scenario blue . There is a noticeable upward time shift in the reservoir base when oil is replaced by brine because of faster velocities in the brine-lled reservoir. Accordingly, the frequency content of the brine scenario is higher, as shown in Figure 9c. Plotted in Figure 9c are Fourier spectra for two synthetic traces in Figure 9b and the Ricker-wavelet spectrum black curve . Notice the similarity between spectra for oil and brine scenarios in Figure 9c and Figure 8f:

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Figure 8. Interval average absolute amplitude AAB of a the input to spectral decomposition full-band far-angle seismic stack, b 13 -Hz spectral decomposition, c 25-Hz spectral decomposition, and d 37-Hz spectral decomposition. For scale, the width of the eld high-amplitude region is about 2 km. e 27-Hz approximate dominant frequency of the seismic data AAB map averaged over the top and base of the reservoir interval. Five rectangular areas were outlined over which spectra in f were calculated.

Figure 9. a Gamma-ray, P-wave, S-wave, and density logs at the control well. For the P-wave, S-wave, and density logs over the reservoir interval 2060-m relative depth , green curves show the oil scenario in situ , and blue curves show the brine scenario obtained by Gassmann uid substitution . b Far-angle synthetic seismic traces generated from the velocity and density logs in a . The left trace is for the oil scenario in situ logs , and the right trace is for the brine scenario uid-substituted logs . c Interval averaged Fourier spectra of the synthetic seismic traces in b . The green curve is for the oil-scenario trace and the blue curve is for the brine-scenario trace. The black curve is the Ricker-wavelet spectrum.

Spec decomp response to reservoir uids Peak amplitude reduction and peak frequency shift toward higher frequency. Thus, the spectral-response modeling at the control well Figure 9c explains the main features of the spectral-decomposition response of the eld seismics Figure 8f . A more elaborate modeling approach was done by stochastically varying the reservoir properties at the control well, based on information obtained from other wells drilled into this reservoir and seismic isochrons for thickness variation . Two spectral attributes were extracted from the spectral decomposition of synthetic seismic traces and eld seismic data for comparison. These are peak amplitudes and peak frequencies computed from averaged interval spectra over the reservoir interval. Results are plotted in Figure 10. Figure 10a and b shows results from eld seismic data. Figure 10c and d shows results from modeling. The left column is for the brine scenario, and the right column is for the oil scenario. One polygon was drawn on the oil-scenario eld seismic data, and another was drawn on the brine scenario to highlight the distribution of peak amplitudes and peak frequencies. The same polygons were overlaid on the peak-amplitude/peak-frequency crossplots from synthetic-modeling results. Comparison of Figure 10c and 10b-d shows that spectral-decomposition attributes peak amplitude and peak frequency from synthetic modeling reproduce the overall patterns observed from the far-angle stack seismic data. The average peak frequency for all synthetic models shifts to lower values when oil substitutes for brine about 3 Hz . Consequently, the oil leg brightens in contrast to the brine leg in the low-frequency spectral-decomposition section.

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There are some differences in details partially resulting from an imperfect match of reservoir properties between the simulation and eld seismic data sets. The above modeling studies suggest that an analytical convolution approach in the Fourier domain potentially could serve as a quick evaluation tool for examining the spectral-decomposition response to reservoir uid. The Fourier amplitude spectrum for a reectivity series RCi ti can be represented by
N N

A
i 1

RC2 i
i 1,j 1,i j

RCiRC j cos ,

tij 7

WRicker

where RCi is the reection coefcient at time ti, tij t jti is the time difference, 2 f is the frequency, and WRicker is the Ricker spectrum. Figure 10e and f shows spectra and the spectral ratio computed from this analytical expression for the reectivity series at the control well Figure 2 for the oil and brine scenarios. With oil substituted to brine, the peak amplitude decreases as peak frequency increases. The spectral ratio shows that the amplitude contrast between the oil and brine scenarios is largest 5 at about 13.5 Hz and is near one at about 35 Hz. This result explains the oil/brine contrast of spectral-decomposition sections at 15 and 35 Hz, illustrated in Figure 1b.

CONCLUSIONS

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Synthetic seismic forward modeling explains the low-frequency hydrocarbon anomaly observed from the spectral decomposition of the far-angle stack seismic data from a deepwater West Africa reservoir. We identied four main controlling factors on the spectral-decomposition response of a reservoir: thickness, stratigraphy i.e., reectivity series , uid type, and effective attenuation. For the reservoir in this example, peak frequencies are lower for the oil scenario compared with the brine scenario, leading to a larger amplitude contrast between the oil leg and brine leg at low frequencies. This spectral-decomposition response is consistent with results of stochastic simulations and analytical Fourier-domain representation. Our workow could be used to highlight and analyze the optimal frequency band at which the uid effect shows the largest spectral-decomposition response. Because variations in reservoir properties sand-shale thickness, porosity, net-to-gross, etc. collectively affect the spectral response, resulting in ambiguities/overlaps in spectral attributes between oil and brine scenarios, detailed modeling is needed for each reservoir to interpret spectrally decomposed seismic data correctly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are thankful for ExxonMobil managements support for the research and approval for the publication and data release. Discussions with many ExxonMobil geoscientists greatly beneted this work, including Jie Zhang, Ramesh Neelamani, Dominique Gillard, Michael Payne, and Wenjie Dong. Bob Keys provided critical reviews to the write-up that predated this paper. We are grateful to Ellen Clark for arranging reviews of this paper. Dengliang Gaos and Brian P. Wallicks detailed reviews and comments greatly improved the manuscript. We thank a third anonymous reviewer for comments and John Castagna for many benecial discussions on this topic.

Figure 10. Crossplots of peak amplitude and peak frequency from spectral decomposition of the a, b eld seismics and c, d synthetics. The left column is for the brine scenario and the right column is for the oil scenario. e Analytical Fourier spectra of the oil scenario green and brine scenario blue at the control well. f Spectral ratio of oil/brine.

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REFERENCES
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Gratwick, D., and C. Finn, 2004, Seismic gather modeling and far-offset well-ties West Africa study: 74th Annual International Meeting, SEG, Expanded Abstracts, 244247. , 2005, Whats important in making far-stack well-to-seismic ties in West Africa?: The Leading Edge, 24, 739745. Partyka, G., J. Gridley, and J. Lopez, 1999, Interpretational applications of spectral decomposition in reservoir characterization: The Leading Edge, 18, 353360. Sinha, S. K., P. S. Routh, P. D. Anno, and J. P. Castagna, 2003, Time-frequency attribute of seismic data using continuous wavelet transform: 73rd Annual International Meeting, SEG, Expanded Abstracts, 14811484. Xu, S., and R. E. White, 1995, A new velocity model for clay-sand mixtures: Geophysical Prospecting, 43, 91118.