The impact of heterogeneous salt velocity models on the gross rock volume estimation: An example from the santos basin pre-salt, brazil

Alexandre Maul*, Marco Cetale, Cleverson Guizan, Patrick Corbett, John R. Underhill, Leonardo Teixeira, Rodrigo Pontes, María González

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberpetgeo2020-105
JournalPetroleum Geoscience
Volume27
Issue number4
Early online date1 Jun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Fuel Technology
  • Geology
  • Geochemistry and Petrology
  • Economic Geology
  • Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)

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