Preparing the physical modelling facility to simulate injection/storage of fluids and gases in complex stuctures

Kevin L. Bertram, Joe Wong

The physical modeling facility has been used for many years to simulate real world acquisition experiments with immense success. The system uses models to acquire data to test processing techniques and interpretation methods that have been developed to create an understanding of structure using seismic data more accurately. To that end, steps were taken in recent years to simulate real world acquisition techniques more accurately. Being able to simulate activities currently being conducted in a smaller, very repeatable way, will be useful to create a database that can be used to determine or predict how varying factors can affect real world acquisition results. Knowing that gas injection is an area of interest, we devised a scale model for physical modelling of seismic surveys monitoring gas injection into a geological water-saturated porous zone. The goal of this model will be to simulate 2D and 3D surface surveys as well as VSP acquisition in both land and marine environments. With the accurate repeatability of the modeling facility various time lapse experiments can be conducted to determine how injecting over time will change the results of a survey.