A fast-track simulator to seismic proxy for quantitative 4D seismic analysis

We propose a stable and accurate proxy for generating maps of 4D seismic attributes using only the original baseline seismic data and fluid-flow simulation predictions. The approach provides a fast track procedure for generating 4D seismic data from the simulator. It has particular use in quantitative 4D seismic analysis, and specifically for incorporating time-lapse seismic data into the history-matching loop where many seismic modeling iterations are required. The method circumvents the petro-elastic model with its associated uncertainties and also the need to choose a seismic full-wave or convolutional modeling solution. Despite the relative simplicity of the proxy, it is found not to bias the choice of optimal solution for the history match. Application to synthetic datasets based on a two North Sea fields indicates that the proxy can remain accurate to within a mean error of 5%.