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AVO modeling of pressure-saturation effects

in Weyburn CO2 sequestration
JINFENG MA, State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Northwest University, China
IGOR MOROZOV, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

T he Weyburn Field in southeastern Saskatchewan,

Canada (Figure 1) was discovered in 1954 and has been
water-flooded since the 1960s. In October 2000, injection
Parameters
Temperature
Baseline
63˚C
Monitor
56˚C (52~58˚C)
of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery was started by EnCana, Oil API gravity 29 (25~34) 29 (25~34)
concurrently with a multidisciplinary International Energy Gas gravity 1.22 unchanged
Agency Greenhouse Gas (IEA GHG) CO2 Monitoring CO2 gravity 1.5249 unchanged
and Storage Project (CO2MSP). In order to monitor CO2
injection, storage, and oil recovery, several vintages of 3D Gas/oil ratio 30 L/L unchanged
and 3D/3-C data were acquired, starting with a baseline (GOR)
survey in December 1999. These time-lapse data sets were Salinity 85,000 ppm 79,000 ppm
used to evaluate the quality and safety of CO2 sequestration, NaCl NaCl
and monitor the reservoir pressure front, water flooding, and Water resistivity 0.149 ± 0.023 0.104 ± 0.014
bypassed oil (White et al., 2004). (ohm-m) (ohm-m)
Several geophysical studies were conducted during Phase Oil saturation in Average 53% Average 30%
I of CO2MSP (White, 2009); however, the potential of the Marly zone
3D/3-C data sets for monitoring the CO2 propagation still
has not been fully explored. In this study, we analyze the 3-C Oil saturation in Average 35% Average 28%
data sets to extract the shear-wave properties of the reservoir Vuggy zone
by using advanced AVO analysis. We focus on using forward Pore pressure 15 MPa 23 MPa near
modeling to develop AVO attributes that could be used for injector
separating the pore-pressure and CO2 saturation effects with- 8 MPa near
in the reservoir. producer
In the Weyburn reservoir, crude oil is produced from the Confining 32~33 MPa unchanged
Midale beds of the Mississippian Charles Formation (Figure pressure
1c). These beds range from 16 to 28 m in thickness and con- Mineral bulk 83 GPa (Marly unchanged
tain two litho-stratigraphic units: the lower vuggy limestone modulus zone)
(8~22 m thick) and the upper marly dolostone (2~12 m). The 72 GPa (Vuggy
porosity of the marly zone is high (29%); however, its per- zone)
meability is low (average ~10 mD). Within the vuggy zone,
Mineral shear 48 GPa (Marly unchanged
porosity is ~10%, and the average permeability is high (~50
bulk modulus zone)
md) (Brown, 2002; White et al., 2004).
33.5 GPa (Vuggy
As a basis for AVO modeling, we used well 102042300614
zone)
that was drilled in conjunction with CO2MSP and logged in
August 2000. It is near the southwest border of Phase 1A and Clays (shale) 21 GPa (bulk) unchanged
about 15 m away from a water injection well (Figure 1a). This moduli 7 GPa (shear)
Table 1. Reservoir parameters used in modeling.

Figure 1. EnCana’s Weyburn seismic monitoring project area: (a) 3D/3-C survey layout and location of well 102042300614 (red); (b) location
map in southeastern Saskatchewan; (c) stratigraphic column of Mississippian units. The reservoir is highlighted in cyan.

178 The Leading Edge February 2010

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 C O 2
S e q u e s t r a t i o n
Figure 2. CO2 properties calculated by Xu’s equations (dashed lines), and the Batzle-Wang equation (solid lines). Red lines = 56˚C. Black lines
= 63˚C.
well contains the most complete sets of geophysical logs avail-
able to this study; therefore, it is suitable for AVO modeling
and can be considered as representative of the reservoir. Rock
physics properties of this well were studied earlier (Brown,
2002). Pressure, oil saturation, and other reservoir parameters
were measured prior to and during the CO2 injection and are
listed in Table 1. Note that water saturation for the marly and
vuggy zones in this well was recalculated by using Archie’s
equation and calibrated by MnCl2-doping analysis. It was
found to be higher than previously estimated. The average
CO2 saturation in the reservoir injection zone is expected to
be around 20% (White et al., 2004).
Brown developed a fluid-substitution model and normal-
incidence synthetic seismograms for the Weyburn reservoir
by using reservoir fluid parameters similar to our baseline
(Table 1). In the present paper, we extend this analysis to
oblique incidence and focus on the fluid-substitution effects
on AVO attributes during CO2 flooding. The main question
we are addressing is whether and how pressure and CO2- sat-
uration effects can be separated in AVO intercept-gradient
measurements.
Fluid substitution model
Following Wang et al. (1998), the fluid substation model
based on Gassmann’s equation was used to estimate the ef-
fects of CO2 saturation on the elastic moduli within and near
the reservoir. The bulk modulus of fluid-saturated porous
rock (K sat) is related to the dry (Kdry) and matrix (Km) moduli
as
(1)
where φ is the porosity, and all parameters are functions of
the depth, denoted z. In Equation 1, Kf is the bulk modulus
of mixed reservoir fluids. Pore fluids generally consist of wa-
ter, oil, gas, and CO2, and the bulk modulus of their mixture
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(Kf ) is a function of their relative saturations, temperature,
salinity, pore pressure, etc. The shear modulus μsat = μdry is
considered independent of fluid saturation. Assuming that
Km is constant within the marly and vuggy zones, we inverted
Equation 1 to obtain the Kdry at the current reservoir pressure.
Further, pressure-dependence of the dry bulk and shear
moduli of the Midale zones was approximated from the re-
sults of ultrasonic lab testing. Differential-pressure-related
trends Kdry(p) and μdry(p) were measured under confining
pressure 23 MPa and pore pressure 15 MPa (Brown, 2002).
This confining pressure of 23 MPa was taken as the average
of the vertical stress of 32~33 MPa and horizontal stress of
18~22 MPa. Brown derived a polynomial increase of Kdry with
differential pressure, which we denote KB(p), and a similar
dependence for μdry. Denoting the in-situ differential pressure
at baseline conditions as p0, the pressure-corrected dry bulk
modulus then is
(2)
A similar equation exists for the shear modulus. Here, Kdry (z)
is estimated from Equation 1, and p is the differential pres-
sure. In our calculations, we took the vertical stress of 32.5
MPa as the confining pressure, which allowed relating the
differential pressure in Equation 2 to pore pressure in subse-
quent fluid-substitution estimates.
The quality of Gassmann’s fluid substitution is highly
dependent on the accuracy of fluid parameters and physical
parameters of reservoir rocks. Several selections of the most
appropriate models should be made in order to construct an
adequate fluid-substitution model. These selections are brief-
ly reviewed below.
Constitutive equation for calculating CO2 properties. Brown
calculated CO2 properties using the equation by Batzle and
Wang (1992). More recently, Xu (2006) modified these equa-
tions to provide more accurate estimates of CO2 properties
(Figure 2). Note the significant difference in the bulk moduli
predicted by these methods, and also the broader minimum
in VP shifted to higher pore pressures in Xu’s model.
February 2010 The Leading Edge 179
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S e q u e s t r a t i o n

Figure 3. Fluid-substituted VP,VS, and density logs (green) and original logs (black) in well 102042300614. Vsh is the shale content estimated
from the gamma-ray log, and Sw is water saturation. The total and effective porosities are shown by blue and black lines, respectively. Fluid-
substituted logs were calculated using pore pressure of 15 MPa and mixed fluids (40% CO2, 48% brine, and 12% oil). Kf of mixed fluids
(green) is assumed constant, whereas Kf of in-situ fluids (black) is variable.

Using the effective porosity in Gassmann’s equation. Total mixture of dolostone and shale by using shale parameters
rock porosity includes isolated pores and the volume occu- given in Table 1. Note that the use of shale corrections re-
pied by clay-bound water. These volumes cannot be filled by duced the matrix bulk modulus Km within the marly zone,
the injected CO2 and water. By contrast, effective porosity which was assumed constant in previous studies (Figure 3).
represents the interconnected pore volume into which fluid Finally, in addition to the described elastic moduli and densi-
substitution can occur, and therefore it (and not the total po- ties, other measured fluid and reservoir parameters (such as
rosity) should be used as parameter φ in Equation 1. Because temperature, salinity) were considered constant during the
the effective porosity is lower than total porosity, its use leads modeling described below.
to smaller changes in the elastic parameters. Therefore, time-
lapse velocity, traveltime, and reflectivity variations estimated AVO forward model and attributes
by using the effective porosity should be smaller than those Traditionally, AVO interpretation is based on two-layer or
derived from total porosity. blocked-log models and small-contrast (such as Shuey or
Shale corrections to matrix modulus of marly dolomite zone. Aki-Richards) approximations. However, this is inappropri-
Although the porosity of the marly dolomite zone is high, its ate for the thin and high-contrast Weyburn reservoir. Our
permeability is quite low, mainly caused by high shale con- fluid-substitution model incorporates computations de-
tent within its pores. Shale present within the pores (Vsh in rived from well-log measurements made at 0.5-ft intervals
Figure 3) effectively reduces the bulk modulus of the reservoir throughout the entire zone of interest. This allows detailed
rock matrix (Figure 3). On the other hand, shale content is calculation of the reservoir response to the finite-bandwidth
low within the vuggy zone, and it is ignored in our model. seismic wavelet.
Following Dvorkin et al. (2007), we replaced the single- AVO intercept (I) and gradient (G) values were measured
mineral Km of dolostone within the marly zone Equation 1 from ray-tracing synthetics over the 0–30° range of incidence
with the effective matrix bulk modulus calculated from the angles. The full Zoeppritz equation and a zero-phase Ricker
wavelet were used to generate the synthetic seismograms.
Type of Density Total Effective Depth-to-time conversion of well logs was performed at all
VP (m/s) VS (m/s) individual depth readings, which allowed bypassing typi-
rock (g/cc) porosity porosity
cal problems related to log and seismic record resampling.
Anhy-
5900.0 3250.0 2.90 0 0 In the following, AVO attributes and CO2 discriminator are
drite
estimated by using different approaches, and a simple CO2-
Marly saturation pore-pressure discriminator is proposed and tested.
dolo- 3600.0 2000.0 2.31 0.29 0.20 Using the Zoeppritz equation and its approximations.
mite Figure 4 compares the accuracy of small-contrast computa-
Vuggy 5100.0 2900.0 2.56 0.10 0.10 tions obtained by using Shuey’s equation to the exact solution
lime- in two-layered models corresponding to the ranges of elastic
stone parameters encountered in the reservoir. The first of these
models (Table 2) represents an anhydrite/marly interface,
Table 2. Parameters of two-layered models (Figure 5a). which is the upper boundary of the reservoir. Note the ~10%

180 The Leading Edge February 2010

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 C O 2
S e q u e s t r a t i o n
Figure 4. AVO curves in anhydrite/marly model (Table 2) using the
Zoeppritz equation (solid lines) and Shuey’s approximation (dashed
lines). Black lines = 30% oil and 70% water mixture. Green lines =
18% oil, 72% water, and 10% CO2.
differences in the reflectivities at larger ray parameters, which
correspond to almost double AVO gradients in the exact solu-
tion (Figure 4). Considering that the marly zone is relatively
thin (Figure 3) compared to the dominant wavelength, the
second end-member model was constructed by removing the
Marly zone and placing the anhydrite layer directly above the
vuggy zone (Table 2).
The strong difference in AVO gradients (Figure 4) shows
that Shuey’s approximation would lead to incorrect represen-
tation of AVO responses. Therefore, the full solution to the
Zoeppritz equations should be used for accurate modeling.
Figure 5. (a) AVO crossplots from two-layered models and well-log-based models; (b) detail of the well-log model. 40-Hz Ricker wavelet was
used. Solid and dashed arrows indicate pore pressure increasing from 7 to 23 MPa, and CO2 saturation increasing from 0 to 100%, respectively.
Yellow ellipse indicates the area of I,G values converging at low pore pressure. Pink lines and large dot show the CO2 discriminator (see text).
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AVO attributes in well-log based models. AVO attributes of
models with realistic depth variations of reflectivity are quite
different from those of the conventional two-layered mod-
els (Figure 5). Interestingly, in the AVO crossplots, the I, G
points computed by using the realistic depth-dependent pa-
rameters (Equation 1) are located between those of the anhy-
drite/marly and anhydrite/vuggy end-member models (Figure
5a). This effect occurs because the half-length of the incident
wavelet (~50 m at 40 Hz) exceed the thickness of the reser-
voir, particularly of its marly zone. When the dominant fre-
quency of the wavelet is increased, a separate reflection from
the anhydrite/marly contact becomes observed, and therefore
the I,G values approach those of the anhydrite/marly model.
Conversely, when the dominant frequency of the wavelet is
decreased, the reflectivity from Marly zone becomes relatively
insignificant, and the I,G response approaches that of the an-
hydrite/vuggy model (Figure 5a).
By using the well-log-based models, we simulated fluid
saturations ranging from 100% water to 100% oil and 100%
CO2. In the example presented here (Figure 5), the satura-
tion of CO2 (denoted SCO2) in the mixture was varied from
0 to 100%, and the relative saturations of oil and water were
maintained at the ratio of 1:4. This allowed examining the
effect of CO2, which is dominant compared to the relative
composition of the liquid oil/water mixture. Pore pressures
were varied from 7 to 23 MPa, which corresponded to the
estimated variation of the pressure from the production to
injection wells (Figure 5).
When fluids contain even small amounts of CO2, their
bulk moduli are strongly affected by the pore pressure. For
relatively low pore pressures (~7 MPa) and SCO2 changing
from 0 to 1%, the I,G values of the reservoir rapidly move
into the area indicated by the yellow ellipse in Figure 5b.
Note that the amount of this shift is comparable to the total
distance between the 100%-oil and 100%-water cases (Figure
5b). From this area, I,G values move with increasing pressure
February 2010 The Leading Edge 181
 C O 2
S e q u e s t r a t i o n
Figure 6. Principle of CO2 discriminator: (a) two zones in the I,G
crossplot (compare to Figure 5b); (b) the same zones in the pressure-
saturation domain.
Figure 7. Dependence of the slope, dG/dI, of the discriminator line
on: (a) the wavelet frequency and (b) G0/I0 ratio. Blue and black
dashed lines give two possible selections for such discriminators
picked from the synthetics. The red line is the interpreted optimal
discriminator. Note that the discrimination can be performed
independently of the absolute amplitudes I0 and G0.
in a fan-like pattern, generally opposite to the general CO2-
saturation trend for SCO2 ≈ 1–5% (i.e., to the dashed arrow in
Figure 5b) and in the direction of the oil/water pore-pressure
trend when SCO2 ≈ 10 – 100% (solid arrow). By contrast,
changes in the oil/water mixture cause subparallel I,G trends
that are consistently different from those caused by pore-pres-
sure variations (brown and blue circles in Figure 5b).
The pink line in Figure 5b illustrates the proposed ap-
proach to AVO classification with respect to the studied
pressure-saturation variations. This “discriminator” line rep-
resents the lower bound of the CO2-free distributions and
subdivides the I,G plane into two zones denoted A and B
(Figure 5b). In terms of the pressure-saturation parameters,
these zones are separated by a pressure threshold whose shape
can be described by specifying the cutoff saturation level Sc
and pore pressure pc (Figure 6). By checking the pore-pressure
values at which the I,G trends modeled for different SCO2 val-
ues cross the discriminator line (Figure 5b), we estimated Sc ≈
2% and pc ≈ 18–20 MPa.
For each of the models (log-based or two-layer), such dis-
criminator lines can be represented by their central points,
I0,G0 (pink dot in Figure 5b) and slopes, dG/dI. If not seeking
a precise discrimination of pore pressures (i.e., allowing some
vertical position uncertainty in Figure 6b), then a range of
slopes can be selected for a fixed central point. This range was
picked by eyeball-fitting different straight lines separating the
“CO2-free” and “CO2-containing” distributions (black and
182 The Leading Edge February 2010
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blue lines in Figure 7a). This allowed estimating the uncer-
tainty in I0, G0, and dG/dI parameters. Further, both I0,G0
and dG/dI depend on the dominant frequency of the wavelet.
By measuring dG/dI from models with different frequencies
of the incident Ricker wavelet, we estimated its dependence
on the frequency (Figure 7a). Finally, by using the uncertain-
ty bounds, a simplified empirical dependence was selected,
giving the slope of the discriminator line (red line in Figure
7a). Note that for frequencies >45 Hz, this slope is constant
and approximately equal -1.4.
Discussion
Most interestingly, the slope, dG/dI, of the discriminator
line can also be represented as a function of the ratio G0/
I0 (Figure 7b). This relation is independent of both the fre-
quency and the amplitude of the incident wavelet. Therefore,
it should be insensitive to the seismic amplitude scaling and
could be directly applicable to reflection AVO data. In this
type of AVO crossplot, the cases with “some CO2” should be
located below the modeled red curve in Figure 7b.
As mentioned above, the described AVO modeling
strongly depends on the adopted fluid-substitution model.
This sensitivity naturally applies to the proposed CO2 dis-
criminator. For example, it can be shown that by using the
Batzle-Wang equations instead of Xu’s (Figure 2), the dis-
criminator lines could be approximately considered as un-
changed, but the corresponding parameters would change
significantly, to Sc ≈ 5% and pc ≈ 12 MPa (compared to 2%
and 18–20 MPa, respectively, in Figure 6b). Unfortunately, it
appears that such sensitivity cannot be overcome or mitigated
because it is caused by the strong and fundamental contrasts
in mechanical properties of the fluids and dry-rock frame.
Further modeling and application to real seismic data in the
future should provide additional insights into the utility and
stability of this discriminator.
Conclusions
The application of Xu’s equation instead of the Batzle-Wang
equation for calculating CO2 properties leads to significantly
different fluid-substitution models and AVO attributes. The
use of effective porosity in place of total porosity and in con-
junction with the shale content correction yields reasonable
fluid-substitution models. Using fluid-substitution models
based on real well logs yields more realistic AVO attributes
than those produced from the traditional two-layered or
blocked-log models. The use of the exact Zoeppritz equation
rather than its approximations is essential for accurate mod-
eling of AVO in carbonate reservoirs.
Based on detailed AVO modeling, an empirical pressure
CO2 saturation discriminator is proposed for the Weyburn
reservoir. The discriminator is approximately represented by
cut-off CO2 saturation (Sc ≈ 2%) and pore-pressure (pc ≈ 18
–20 MPa) parameters. It can also be expressed in terms of
relative AVO attributes, which makes it independent of the
dominant frequency and amplitude of the seismic wavelet.
This property should make the proposed discriminator suit-
able for application to real time-lapse reflection data.
 C O 2
S e q u e s t r a t i o n

Because of the nonlinearity and acute sensitivity of the White, D. 2009. Monitoring CO2 storage during EOR at the Wey-
AVO response to CO2 saturation, the modeled Weyburn Sc burn-Midale Field, The Leading Edge, 28, 838–842.
value is low. This may also be similar to other reservoirs. Con- Xu, H., 2006, Calculation of CO2 acoustic properties using Batzle-
sequently, it appears that CO2 saturations above ~3% may Wang equations, Geophysics, 71, 2, F21–F23.
be difficult to differentiate quantitatively from seismic AVO
analysis. Acknowledgments: We thank David Cooper of EnCana, Don
White of Geological Survey of Canada, and Sandor Sule of
the University of Saskatchewan for numerous valuable discus-
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February 2010 The Leading Edge 183

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