Locating the Remaining Oil by a Novel Hybrid Data-Driven Physics-Compliant Technique, Under 4D Constraints

In a mature basin, a significant challenge of managing fields in late life is locating and unlocking the bypassed oil pockets. This work describes a novel digital workflow integrating 4D seismic data to identify and quantify bypassed oil targets. The workflow leverages an innovative hybrid physics-guided data-driven, constrained by 4D time-lapse data, generating historical phase saturation maps, forecasting future fluid movements, and locating infill opportunities. This new workflow was applied to a giant mature oil field located in the North Sea. Twenty-four different static and dynamic realizations were defined to capture a wide range of uncertainties. A range of movable oil in place maps (P10/ P50/ P90) was calculated in full compliance with the 4D interpreted saturation distribution uncertainties. This process allowed to generate alternative infill targets to that originating from the traditional ‘4D attic’ deterministic maps. A total of 12 infill targets were generated, with their probabilistic production forecast. It has been proved that the new workflow can unlock the remaining potential of mature fields in a shorter time frame and generally very cost-effectively compared to the advanced dynamic reservoir modelling and history-match workflows.