Fractal Distributions of Reservoir Heterogeneity and their Influence on Fluid Transport

Hewett, T.A.

doi:10.2118/15386-ms

Cited by 344 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The fabric of the sandstone s~ple is characterized by a series of sub-horizontal bounding surfaces spaced approximately [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] cm apart (Fig. 1A).…”

Section: Multi-support Permeameter (Msp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneity, Permeability Patterns, and Permeability Upscaling: Physical Characterization of a Block of Massillon Sandstone Exhibiting Nested Scales of Heterogeneity

Tidwell

Wilson

2000

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

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Over 75,000 permeability measurements were collected from a meter-scale block of Massillon sandstone, characterized by conspicuous cross bedding that forms two distinct nestedscales of heterogeneity. With the aid of a gas minipermeameter, spatially exhaustive fields of permeability data were acquired at each of five different sample supports (i.e., sample volumes) from each block face. These data provide a unique opportunity to physically investigate the relationship between the multi-scale cross-stratified attributes of the sandstone and the corresponding statistical characteristics of the permeability. These data also provide quantitative physical information concerning the permeability upscaling of a complex heterogeneous medium.Here, a portion of the data taken from a single block face cut normal to stratification is analyzed.Results indicate a strong relationship between the calculated summary statistics and the crossstratified structural features visibly evident in the sandstone sample. Specifically, the permeability fields and sernivariograms are characterized by two nested scales of heterogeneity, including a large-scale structure defined by the cross-stratified sets (delineated by distinct bounding surfaces) and a small-scale structure defined by the low-angle cross-stratification within each set. The permeability data also provide clear evidence of upscaling. That is, each calculated summary statistic exhibits distinct and consistent trends with increasing sample support. Among these trends are an increasing mean, decreasing variance, and an increasing sernivariogram range. Results also clearly indicate that the different scales of heterogeneity upscale differently, with the small-scale structure being preferentially filtered from the data whale the Iarge-scale structure is preserved. Finally, the statistical and upscaling characteristics of individual cross-stratified sets were found to be very similar owing to their shared depositional environrnenc however, some differences were noted that are likely the result of minor variations in the sediment load and/or flow conditions between depositional events. IntroductionGeologic materials are inherently heterogeneous owing to the depositional and diagenetic processes responsible for their formation. These heterogeneities often impose considerable influence on the performance of hydrocarbon bearing reservoirs. Unfortunately, quantitative characterization and integration of reservoir heterogeneity into predictive models is complicated by two challenging problems. First, the quantity of porous media observed and/or sampled is generally a minute faction of the reservoir under investigation. This gives rise to the need for models to predict material characteristics at unsampled locations. The second problem stems from technological constraints that often limit the measurement of material properties to sample supports (sample volumes) much smaller than can be accommodated in current predictive models. This dispm.ityin support requires measured data be averaged o...

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“…The fabric of the sandstone s~ple is characterized by a series of sub-horizontal bounding surfaces spaced approximately [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] cm apart (Fig. 1A).…”

Section: Multi-support Permeameter (Msp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneity, Permeability Patterns, and Permeability Upscaling: Physical Characterization of a Block of Massillon Sandstone Exhibiting Nested Scales of Heterogeneity

Tidwell

Wilson

2000

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

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“…honors the measured data, follows a desired correlation structure, and maintains reasonable heterogeneity (Journel and Huijbregts, 1978;Hewett, 1986;Lake and Malik, 1993;Malik, 11396).…”

Section: Geostatistical Permeability Modelingmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Rescaled range (€US) plots (Hewett, 1986;Malik, 1996) were also made to investigate the possibility of a power-law or fractal (Yang, 1990;Fogg and others, 1991) was used to generate the 3-D permeabilities. This method involves the inversion of a full matrix, which is computationally intensive and time consuming.…”

Section: Autocorrelationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geologic and engineering characterization of Geraldine Ford field, Reeves and Culberson Counties, Texas. Topical report -- 1997

Dutton¹,

Malik²,

Asquith³

et al. 1998

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“…The fractal Dimension is the measure of scaling properties of a feature; any irregularly shaped body can be studied using the mathematics of fractals. It has been demonstrated that well-log and seismic data follow a power-law relationship (Hewett, 1986;Emanual et al, 1987;Hardy,1992;Dimri, 2000Dimri, , 2005 and thus can be subjected to fractal theory. Geological phenomenon such as rock fragments, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes etc.…”

Section: Fractal Dimension Attributementioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-attribute Seismic Analysis using Fractal Dimension and 2D & 3D Continuous Wavelet Transform

et al. 2013

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3D post-stack seismic attributes provide an intuitive and effective way of utilizing seismic volumes for reservoir characterization and development, and further identification of exploration targets. Some of the seismic attributes can aid in precise prediction of geometry and heterogeneity of subsurface geological settings. These can also provide useful information on petro-physical and lithological properties when combined with well-log information. There exist numerous seismic attributes providing unique interpretation on some aspects of subsurface geology. Of these, proper demarcation of structural features, such as location and edges of faults, salt domes, their throw and extent, has always been of primary concern. In this paper we propose new multi-attribute seismic algorithms using fractal dimension and 2D/3D continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The use of higher dimensional wavelets incorporates information from ensemble of traces and can correlate information between neighboring traces in seismic data. The spectral decomposition based on CWT aids in resolving various features of geological interest at a particular scale or frequency, which when rendered with fractal attribute demarcates the boundaries between those. We apply these two algorithms separately to a seismic amplitude volume and co-render output volumes together with some weights to yield a final attribute volume incorporating information from above mentioned algorithms. We demonstrate the efficacy of these two algorithms in terms of resolution and proper demarcation of various geological structures on a real seismic data. Results illustrate better illumination and proper demarcation of various geological features such as salt domes, channels, faults etc. at a desired frequency and how simple mathematics can provide tools to extract most of the information from seismic data.

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Fractal Distributions of Reservoir Heterogeneity and their Influence on Fluid Transport

Cited by 344 publications

References 37 publications

Heterogeneity, Permeability Patterns, and Permeability Upscaling: Physical Characterization of a Block of Massillon Sandstone Exhibiting Nested Scales of Heterogeneity

Heterogeneity, Permeability Patterns, and Permeability Upscaling: Physical Characterization of a Block of Massillon Sandstone Exhibiting Nested Scales of Heterogeneity

Geologic and engineering characterization of Geraldine Ford field, Reeves and Culberson Counties, Texas. Topical report -- 1997

Multi-attribute Seismic Analysis using Fractal Dimension and 2D & 3D Continuous Wavelet Transform

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