Carbonates to the Power of Q

WesternGeco is at the forefront of technology development addressing the challenges of carbonate reservoirs. Carbonates contain as much as half of the world’s hydrocarbons and are highly heterogeneous. Our continuous investment in R&D has led to a series of innovations employing
Q-Technology to help our customers reduce risk in development decisions and optimize the characterization, production, and management of carbonate reservoirs:

• Heterogeneities: Model the fine-scale lithological variations, porosity distributions and heterogeneities, that act as baffles or barriers to flow in carbonates.
• Fractures: Model the fractures that create complex flow-networks in carbonate reservoirs, from diffuse microscopic fissures to macroscopic fracture corridors. Obtain a detailed mapping of fracture corridors that can act as major conduits for fluid flow and can be responsible for early water breakthrough.
• Geomechanics: Forecast geomechanical-related changes in production behavior. For example, pressure changes during depletion or injection can lead to stress changes that modify porosities and fracture permeabilities over the life of a field.

Carbonates^Q solutions uses a unique combination of processing, modeling and visualization techniques to simulate carbonate heterogeneities, providing a more complete understanding of the reservoir and its fluid flow mechanisms. These multi-disciplinary seismic-to-simulation workflows have stringent requirements on the input seismic data used to address the subtle and complex challenges of carbonate reservoirs. Q-Technology point-receiver seismic hardware and software provides the cornerstone to these solutions by fulfilling the following key conditions.

• High vertical and lateral resolution to resolve subtle heterogeneities
• Clean signal with low near-surface noise contamination and high amplitude/phase fidelity
• Comprehensive subsurface illumination from a range of incidence and azimuth angles

With a greater understanding of your carbonate reservoir you can: locate injector and producer wells to maximize reservoir sweep efficiency; avoid water breakthrough surprises; avoid unpredictable fluid losses; mitigate the impact of depletion on fracture permeability; develop more reliable strategies to maintain production levels and boost total recovery.

We listen to your challenges, understand your needs, and deliver value.