From Well-Driven Seismic Data Processing to Seismic Reservoir Characterisation by 3D Seismic Imaging of Ordovician Karst Caves in West China

Accurate identification of oil bearing caves within Ordovician Karst carbonate formation utilizing conventional low-fold 3-D seismic data has been a rigorous challenge. We executed a well-driven seismic data processing workflow which includes prestack time migration and reservoir characterization by prestack simultaneous AVO (amplitude variation with offset) inversion for estimation of physical rock properties and postmigration multi-attribute analysis. Delineation of oil bearing caves is achieved by the interpretation of the inverted attributes, postmigration attributes, and attenuation factor analysis with angle stacks. As a result of this work, two highly productive wells were drilled which and successfully reached the target of oil bearing caves.