Carbonate Reservoir Characterization with Rock Property Inversion for Edwards Reef Complex

Fracture is both the storage space and migration channel of hydrocarbon fluids. The detection of fracture is of great importance to reservoir prediction. Performing the inversion calculation based on anisotropy of fractured media could predict the fracture characteristics effectively. Conventional method of P-wave fracture inversion requires wide azimuth data to overcome the negative effect by noise. However, massive amount of existing data with limited azimuth and the expense of wide azimuth acquisition might restrict application of P-wave pre-stack fracture detection technique. In this paper, we propose an algorithm with noise suppression to accomplish prestack azimuthal AVO inversion using data with limited azimuthal distribution. The results turn out to be reliable. Additionally, based on the method, the effect of acquisition layout and data quality (S/N) is tested. Tests indicate that with the same fold, the higher the signal to noise ratio the better the inversion result. With the same signal to noise ratio, the larger the offset angle from the survey line to natural fracture direction the better the fracture parameter inverted.