GSOC 2023 March Technical Talk

Improved Seismic Reservoir Characterization with Interbed Multiple Suppression

by

Gabriel Gil

Abstract

Interbed multiples make it difficult to correlate seismic data to wells, resulting in incorrect interpretation and mapping of seismic events thought to be associated to reservoir responses. Multiples are a known source of seismic noise that, when interfering with primary events, often result in subtle, but significant, time delays and phase rotations of the seismic response. This effect is more dramatic in seismically dim reservoir levels. The strength and number  of interbed multiples depend on the elastic properties contrast between layers and their thickness relative to the wavelength of the seismic waves.  Additionally, multiples are not limited to shallow layers, but instead occur all along the vertical column.  Typically, they can vary laterally depending on the local geology, and are often present in all offsets with similar moveouts as primary events, making them hard to detect and eliminate. The workflow presented shows a model-based approach to predict and suppress  interbed multiples on migrated pre-stack data using an adaptive subtraction method. This workflow was applied to seismic data in the Midland basin and improved correlations to available well data. These steps plus subsequent elastic properties estimation show an improvement in the seismic image achieved by removing interbed multiple interference.

BIO

Gabriel received his bachelor’s degree in Geophysical Engineering from the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela in 2003, and his Master in Science degree in Geophysics at the University of Houston under the advice of Dr. John P. Castagna in 2010. Gabriel counts with more than 15 years of experience in Reservoir Geophysics, with some experience in seismic processing and acquisition. He previously worked CGGVeritas and in 2010, Gabriel joined Lumina where he has occupied several technical and management positions. His areas of expertise are data processing and conditioning, AVO analysis, Rock Physics, seismic inversion, spectral decomposition analysis, spectral inversion, seismic interpretation and quantitative interpretation. He is currently holding the position of Chief Geophysicist at Lumina Technologies, Inc.