Cross-borehole seismic tomography has been applied to assist in the monitoring of an EOR displacement front in a heavy oil field located in Kern County, California. Results from this survey indicate that tomographically processed cross-borehole seismic surveys can image variations in the velocity field of the subsurface. Several factors including the temperature, type, and physical state of the pore filling material strongly affect the velocity field of a ·reservoir. Crossborehole velocity profiles, referred to as tomograms, are interpreted to provide insight into the physical changes taking place in the reservoir as an EOR process progresses.
Clastic reservoirs saturated with heavy oils have been observed to exhibit a marked relationship between velocity of propagation of acoustic waves and changes introduced by certain kinds of enhanced oil recovery procedures, including heating of the reservoir. This observation forms the basis for a method of monitoring the changes which occur in the reservoir when these enhanced oil recovery (EOR) procedures are used. New developments in diffraction tomographic imaging allow accurate, high‐resolution images to be obtained in hydrocarbon reservoirs, clearly delineating the zones affected by these enhanced oil recovery procedures. When both compressional and shear wave data can be obtained, additional physical parameters such as Poissons ratio can be reconstructed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.