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Abstract

Fretwell, P. N., W. Gordon Canning, J. Hegre, R. Labourdette, and M. Sweatman, 2007, A new approach to 3-D geological modeling of complex sand injectite reservoirs: The Alba field, United Kingdom central North Sea, in A Hurst and J. Cartwright, eds., Sand injectites: Implications for hydrocarbon exploration and production: AAPG Memoir 87, p. 119-127.

DOI:10.1306/1209856M871380

Copyright copy2007. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

A New Approach to 3-D Geological Modeling of Complex Sand Injectite Reservoirs: The Alba Field, United Kingdom Central North Sea

P. N. Fretwell,1 W. Gordon Canning,2 J. Hegre,3 R. Labourdette,4 M. Sweatman5

1Total Exploration and Production U. K., Altens, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
2Total S.A. Exploration and Production, Centre Scientifique et Technique Jean-Feger, Pau, France
3Total Exploration and Production U. K., Geoscience Research Center, Altens, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
4Total S.A. Exploration and Production, Centre Scientifique et Technique Jean-Feger, Pau, France
5Total Exploration and Production U. K., Geoscience Research Center, Altens, Aberdeen, United Kingdom; present address: BP Exploration, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex, United Kingdom

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Alba Operator ChevronTexaco U. K. and the other Alba partners (Statoil, Talisman, BP, ConocoPhillips, Unilon Baytrust, and Total Exploration and Production U. K. PLC) for permission to publish this study. The observations and conclusions of this study do not necessarily reflect the opinions of all Alba partners. Thanks also to reviewers Kevin Purvis, Nigel Mountney, and Andrew Hurst for greatly improving the initial draft.

ABSTRACT

Alba is a heavy oil (19–20deg API) field discovered in 1984 and brought on production in 1994. The oil is reservoired within middle Eocene turbiditic sands deposited within hemipelagic background argillaceous sediments. Alba sands have been subjected to postdepositional remobilization and sand injection on a fieldwide scale. Sand geometries are highly complex. Prediction of sand-shale lithology from the Alba field four-component Ocean Bottom Cable seismic data set is refined through detailed horizontal and vertical well-seismic integration. Reservoir sands are subdivided into remobilized or injected and depositional facies in all wells by recognition in cores and/or logging-while-drilling response and by elastic impedance seismic character. An abundance of multiple horizontal well sidetrack data (commonly in the same vertical plane) in the Alba field allows the construction of facies cross sections against a seismic impedance data backdrop with some confidence. A new, three-dimensional (3-D) geomodeling software is used that can directly include these facies cross sections as constraints on geomodeling, in addition to conventional well and seismic data constraints. This allows a degree of geological interpretation to be imposed and supported with outcrop analogs within the uncertainties of the available data. Numerous equiprobable 3-D cellular geomodel possibilities are created that differentiate remobilized or injected reservoir facies from depositional reservoir facies. The impacts of facies variability on production profiles are tested in a streamline reservoir simulator at the geological model scale.

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