Four-D seismic monitoring: Blackfoot reservoir feasibility

Laurence R. Bentley, John Jianlin Zhang, Han-xing Lu

The Blackfoot reservoir has been analysed to determine the feasibility of monitoring changes in reservoir conditions using time-lapse seismic monitoring (four-D seismic monitoring). The results indicate that the change in the seismic response will be mild to moderate, depending on the assumptions of the fluid distribution. The largest difference in a difference section created from the 1997 2D-3C seismic survey and a contiguous line extracted from the 1995 3D-3C data volume is found to be in the Blackfoot reservoir zone. The difference results are consistent with mild to moderate changes in the seismic response. The results indicate that water flood areas should have observably different changes in seismic response than the non-water flood areas.