TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact of heterogeneous salt velocity models on the gross rock volume estimation
T2 - An example from the santos basin pre-salt, brazil
AU - Maul, Alexandre
AU - Cetale, Marco
AU - Guizan, Cleverson
AU - Corbett, Patrick
AU - Underhill, John R.
AU - Teixeira, Leonardo
AU - Pontes, Rodrigo
AU - González, María
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Petrobras for permission to publish this work, ANP for providing the data, and the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) in Brazil and Heriot-Watt University (HWU) in the UK, where the investigation was conducted. We also thank the colleagues who contributed to this manuscript, reviewing it and authorizing the reproduction of their figures, when needed.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s).
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - The thick and heterogeneous salt section in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil, imposes great challenges in accessing the pre-salt hydrocarbon reservoirs, especially in relation to seismic imaging, signal quality and depth positioning. Some problems arise from the current velocity models for the salt section, which, for the majority, assume that the salt is a homogeneous halite layer. In the Santos Basin, the commonly assumed salt – halite – only makes up to 80% of the mineral in this section. The inclusion of other salts as stratification in the velocity models, based on seismic attributes, has achieved good results in the last decade, especially for depth resolution. In this work, we analyse the benefits of different velocity models, considering presence/absence of salt stratification and comparing the gross rock volume above the oil–water contact. The results show a significant effect on the depth resolution of the events, as well as on volume estimation, indicating that the greater the reliability captured by the complex velocity models, the greater the confidence in the resulting volumetric information.
AB - The thick and heterogeneous salt section in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil, imposes great challenges in accessing the pre-salt hydrocarbon reservoirs, especially in relation to seismic imaging, signal quality and depth positioning. Some problems arise from the current velocity models for the salt section, which, for the majority, assume that the salt is a homogeneous halite layer. In the Santos Basin, the commonly assumed salt – halite – only makes up to 80% of the mineral in this section. The inclusion of other salts as stratification in the velocity models, based on seismic attributes, has achieved good results in the last decade, especially for depth resolution. In this work, we analyse the benefits of different velocity models, considering presence/absence of salt stratification and comparing the gross rock volume above the oil–water contact. The results show a significant effect on the depth resolution of the events, as well as on volume estimation, indicating that the greater the reliability captured by the complex velocity models, the greater the confidence in the resulting volumetric information.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85119100181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1144/petgeo2020-105
DO - 10.1144/petgeo2020-105
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85119100181
SN - 1354-0793
VL - 27
JO - Petroleum Geoscience
JF - Petroleum Geoscience
IS - 4
M1 - petgeo2020-105
ER -