A Dual Representation of Multiscale Fracture Network Modeling - Application to a Giant Carbonate Field, UAE

This paper describes a novel workflow applied on a Middle East case study, aiming to detect and characterize fracture corridors in a Type III carbonate reservoir (Nelson, 2001). Fracture corridors are zones of fracture clustering dominated by highly persistent parallel joints thought to promote fluids arrival. The innovative aspects introduced in the study include the detailed 3D seismic analysis to detect the location of the fracture corridors, supported by new developments in dip calculation and seismic fault detection techniques (Aarre, 2010), and the introduction of a hybrid model to characterize and model the fracture network (Souche et al., 2009). This novel dual technique combines traditional Discrete Fracture Modeling (DFN) to model large fractures and a new statistical approach dealing with smaller scale fractures. It allows a more quantitative approach to fracture characterization than the current standard methods, enabling the computation of more rigorous statistics and the calibration of intermediate and final results.