Using Multivariate Data Classification on Frontier Exploration Basins to Enhance the Information Value of Suboptimal 2D Seismic Surveys for Unconventional Reservoir Characterization

Abstract

We developed a workflow that allows integrating legacy 2D seismic surveys with modern log and core data, validating their consistency, classifying them into rock classes with consistent properties, propagating material properties across each of these rock classes, and using this information to improve reservoir characterization and the assessment of their hydrocarbon resource potential. As proof of concept, we analyzed two intersecting 2D seismic lines shot in 2001 in a frontier basin in Canada to determine the distribution of reservoir quality. Each of these had been separately prestack inverted, but have modern core and log data (as well as legacy log data) which were integrated with the inverted attributes. Results identify a most prospective class for reservoir quality within the zone of interest, and show that it increases in thickness to the south in the seismic section.