Using Shale Gouge Ratio (SGR) to model faults as transmissibility

barriers in reservoirs: an example from the Strathspey Field, North Sea

D. Harris1, G. Yielding1, P. Levine3, G. Maxwell2, P. T. Rose4 and P. Nell1
1
Badleys, North Beck House, North Beck Lane, Hundleby, Spilsby PE23 5NB, UK (e-mail: david@badleys.co.uk)
2
Texaco North Sea Ltd, Langlands House, Aberdeen, UK (Present address: ChevronTexaco Overseas Petroleum,
4800 Fournace Place, BOB W1064, Bellaire, TX 77401-2324, USA)
3
Texaco Upstream Technology, Houston, USA (Present address: T-Surf Corporation - The GOCAD Company,
11011 Richmond Avenue, Suite 350, Houston, TX 77042, USA)
4
Texaco North Sea Ltd, Langlands House, Aberdeen, UK (Present address: Halliburton Reservoir Services,
Halliburton House, Pitmedden Road, Aberdeen AB21 0GS, UK)

ABSTRACT: Since the onset of production in 1993, extraction and injection in

Strathspey has focused on the central region of the field, around the ‘Central Fault’.
Analysis of RFT measurements from intermittent, but regular drilling on either side
of this fault has allowed reconstruction of footwall/hanging wall pore-pressure fields
for particular time instances. Comparison of these similar age pressure fields shows
the Central Fault capable of maintaining up to 1300 psi pressure differentials. The
results of the pressure analysis were used to calibrate a fault seal attribute, termed
Shale Gouge Ratio (SGR) which is an estimate of clay concentration within fault
gouge, mapped across the surface of the Central Fault. The calibration showed that
as SGR increases, so does the measured pressure differential across the fault. This
positive relationship between SGR and pressure differential suggests SGR is a guide
to potential fluid-flow resistance exerted by faults. We therefore suggest that SGR
can potentially be used as a guide to defining differences in permeability within and
between faults in a given field. This ‘scaleability’ of SGR as an indicator of fault
permeability within a field could provide hitherto unachievable flexibility in the
systematic modelling of the hydraulic behaviour of faults during fluid flow
simulations.
KEYWORDS: permeability (rock), fault (geology), reservoir, fluid flow, producing

INTRODUCTION A REVIEW OF FAULT SEAL MECHANISMS

Faults represent transmissibility barriers in reservoirs, i.e. a fault
is likely to change the efficiency of fluid communication from
one part of the reservoir to the next (e.g. Yielding et al. 1999a).
Within reservoir simulations, the effect of faults on fluid flow is
modelled using a quantity called a ‘transmissibility multiplier’
(see Knai & Knipe 1998; Manzocchi et al. 1999; Yielding et al.
1999b). The properties required to determine transmissibility
multipliers, in particular fault zone thickness and fault zone
permeability, are usually not well understood or defined and
therefore do not provide significant confidence that the reser-
voir fluid simulation model will accurately predict the likely
hydraulic behaviour of faults. Thus, fault transmissibility multi-
pliers are generally considered a great source of uncertainty for
reserve estimation (Lia et al. 1997) and also for reservoir
management.
In this study we use data from the Strathspey (Fig. 1) and
Gullfaks fields in order to calibrate a fault zone permeability
estimator (Shale Gouge Ratio (Yielding et al. 1997)) with
formation pressure differences across the fault. The results
from this study can be used to help refine fault property models
within fluid flow simulations.
The following section provides some background to fault rock
and fault seal terminology and process.
A seal which has the capacity to maintain a pressure
drop over millions of years (geological time) is deemed to
have a ‘static’ sealing capacity. A seal that can maintain a
pressure drop only over the life-time of a single field is
deemed to have a ‘dynamic sealing’ capacity (see Yielding
et al. 1999a,b).
Watts (1987) recognized ‘membrane’ and ‘hydraulic’ seals as
being the two most likely barriers to hydrocarbon flow within
rocks over geological timescales. Membrane seals are generally
classified as the boundary of a layer of smaller pore throats, and
therefore capable of allowing the passage of hydrocarbon under
certain pressure conditions. Capillary entry pressure determines
the effectiveness of membrane seals over geological timescales
and is defined as ‘the pressure required for hydrocarbon to
enter the largest interconnected pore throat in the seal’ (Watts
1987, p. 278). Hydraulic seals have no inter-connected pore
space or the pore throats are so small that the rock strength is
exceeded before the capillary entry pressure and are thus only
breached though fracturing.

Petroleum Geoscience, Vol. 8 2002, pp. 167–176 1354-0793/02/$15.00  2002 EAGE/Geological Society of London
168 D. Harris et al.
Fig. 1. Location map for the Strathspey Field showing the location
of Figure 4.
Fig. 2. The calculation of Shale Gouge Ratio (SGR). Vcl is the
proportion of clay in the unit.
Permeability of fault gouge, in combination with capillary
entry pressure, determines dynamic sealing capacity (Yielding
et al. 1999a,b). In a production situation where extraction of
hydrocarbon on one side of the fault is much greater than flow
of oil through the fault, there is likely to be a substantial
dynamic pressure drop across the fault.
Shale forms an extremely effective capillary seal and perme-
ability barrier due to the very small size of the pore throats and
pore spaces. Faults can incorporate shale from the surrounding
sequence during slip (e.g. Yielding et al. 1997). The process of
shale incorporation is modelled using algorithms such as Clay
Smear Potential (CSP; Bouvier et al. 1989), Shale Smear Factor
(SSF; Lindsay et al. 1993) and the Shale Gouge Ratio (SGR,
Yielding et al. 1997; Freeman et al. 1998). The Strathspey project
used SGR to model clay content of gouge. To constrain SGR
requires:
Fig. 3. Stratigraphic column showing the names and V-clay of the
major reservoir units in the Strathspey Field and their designation in
terms of regional Brent stratigraphy.
Fig. 4. Map of the B4c reservoir horizon showing the position of the
Central Fault (C), Northern Fault (N) and Southern Fault (S) and the
positions of the wells that were used for modelling RFT and V-shale
and V-clay data. The position of the oil–water contact in the
Strathspey Field (9380 feet sub-sea) is indicated. There is no differ-
ence in elevation of the OWC across the Central Fault. No
information about the OWC is available from north of the Northern
Fault.
(a) the clay or shale content (preferably from a V-clay or
V-shale curve) and thickness of individual stratigraphic
units that are cut by the fault; and
(b) the throw of the fault.
A high SGR value for a particular region of a fault would
indicate that rock units with a high percentage of shale have
slipped past that part of the fault (Fig. 2). Pressure differences
 Modelling faults as transmissibility barriers
across faults of known SGR, derived from RFT measurements
or differences in hydrocarbon column height across a fault, can
be used to calibrate the results of the shale gouge algorithm
(e.g. Yielding et al. 1997). Fristad et al. (1997), Yielding et al.
(1999a,b), Ottesen Ellevset et al. (1998) have determined that
the onset of static seal, i.e. seal over geological time, occurs
when the fault gouge reaches 18–20% SGR. The pressure drop
(hydrocarbon column height) that the fault gouge can maintain
increases as the calculated clay content of the fault increases
(Yielding 2002). Foxford et al. (1998) concluded that field
observations support using a Shale Gouge Ratio of c. 20% to
distinguish between the presence or absence of a continuous
clay smear and, implicitly, to distinguish those parts of faults
which are sealing and non-sealing. Yielding (2002) suggested
that an SGR >15–20% indicates that a shaley or clay-rich gouge
predominates in the fault, whereas SGR <15–20% indicates a
clay-poor fault gouge, e.g. a cataclasite or disaggregation zone
(see Fisher & Knipe 1998).
The precipitation of minerals, e.g. carbonate and silica,
within pore spaces is likely to produce a fault rock in which
pore throats are diminishingly small or absent (Fisher & Knipe
1998). This type of within-fault mineral precipitation is likely to
provide a seal to the migration of both hydrocarbon and water
(a hydraulic seal). In addition, fluid flow through a fault can also
cause selective dissolution of particular grains, leading to
porosity collapse (Fisher & Knipe 1998).
Sperrevik et al. (2002) found that fault gouge with a high clay
proportion is the most effective inhibiter of hydrocarbon flow.
Cataclasis alone, without diagenetic alteration or large amounts
of pressure solution, does not reduce pore throat radii to a level
where an individual fault could maintain a substantial pressure
drop (hydrocarbon column) (Gibson 1998). However, where
cataclasis and diagenetic alteration combine, the seal can be as
efficient as a clay-rich gouge.
The value of SGR is assumed to approximate to the
percentage of clay in the fault zone (Yielding et al. 1997). Thus
SGR can be converted to permeability using experimental
determinations of permeability for fault gouges with varying
clay content and appropriate geological history (see Manzocchi
et al. 1999, Sperrevik et al. 2002 and references therein). The
Manzocchi et al. (1999) calibration indicates that a fault gouge
169
Fig. 5. Fixing horizon surfaces to faults
in order to calculate displacement and
display stratigraphic overlap diagram.
The Central Fault is viewed from the
downthrown side, looking southeast.
(a) Horizon surface is fixed to the fault
at the footwall (upthrown) and hanging
wall (downthrown) side of the fault.
(b) The fault has a footwall cut-off
and a hanging wall cut-off known as a
horizon-fault intersection polygon.
(c) Each horizon in the Strathspey
dataset showing the footwall and
hanging wall intersection polygon with
the Central Fault. This type of diagram
shows which reservoir units are
juxtaposed at the Central Fault.
with a clay content of c. 20% will be expected to have a
permeability of between 0.03 and 0.3 mD.
To validate the SGR method of estimating up-scaled fault
permeability (at the seismic scale, or scale of the fluid-flow
simulator) would require direct measurement of flow rate
across the fault. Such flow-rate measurements are, in general,
difficult to perform. However, there is a potential to measure
pressure differential where formation pressure measurements
have been taken simultaneously during production on both
sides of the fault. Pressure differential is likely to record the
extent to which a fault resists flow and thus can be used, with
care, to measure permeability in a qualitative way. If a relation-
ship between SGR and pressure differential can be established
for a given field, any subsequent reservoir simulation using
SGR would, at the very least, have a systematically scaleable
permeability attribute for faults.
In reality, the complexity of interaction between injection
and extraction within producing reservoirs makes interpretation
of pressure differential patterns across faults difficult. However,
collating pressure differential (
P) data of different ages across
a fault or series of faults within a particular field or group of
fields might provide an indication of a simple relationship
between SGR and
P for dynamic production environments.
This type of data collation has been undertaken in Strathspey
and the results are detailed below.
THE STRATHSPEY FIELD
Strathspey is located 100 miles NE of Shetland and 300 miles
NNE of Aberdeen. The field is situated within a trend of
normal fault blocks that also contain Alwyn North, Brent and
Statfjord oil fields (Fig. 1). The Strathspey Field contains
volatile oil in Middle Jurassic Brent Group and gas condensate
in Lower Jurassic/Upper Triassic Banks Group. Although the
faults described in this paper have an expression in both the
Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs, only the Brent Group is
discussed in this paper.
The Strathspey Brent Group trap is an eroded tilted fault
block with seal provided by Humber Group Shales on the
uneroded western flank, and Base Cretaceous and Humber
 170
D. Harris et al.

Fig. 6. The values of V-shale and depletion that were assigned to each stratigraphic unit are shown. The equation for ‘static’ oil and water legs relating depth to pressure is presented. Thus, for a
given depth within the oil leg, there is a ‘static’ oil pressure. The depletion is the result of subtracting the observed RFT value from the calculated static value. (a) The V-shale values and depletion
values for M5 and M6 wells. The SGR of the Central Fault was calculated using the V-shale values of these wells. (b) The V-shale values and depletion values for M10 and M9Z
 Modelling faults as transmissibility barriers
Group Shales on the eroded crest. The full Brent Group
sequence is represented in the oil column and this has been
subdivided for modelling purposes into seven principal layers
(B1–B7) and 19 subunits (Fig. 3). B1 to B2 is a sandy Broom to
Etive sequence; B3 and B5–B6 are intercalated mud–sand Ness
Formation delta top sediments; B4 is a marine- influenced sand
body, equivalent to the Mid Ness Shale in the Brent Field; B7
is the Tarbert Formation.
There are three important E–W faults which cut the
Strathspey Field termed the Southern, Central and Northern
faults (S, C and N in Fig. 4). This study focused on the Central
Fault which cuts the Strathspey accumulation in half. This fault
has a throw of up to 200 ft and the footwall and hanging
wall have a common initial oil–water contact of
9380 ft
TVDSS, implying that the fault does not support a static seal.
Data from two pairs of wells that are located on either side of
the Central Fault have been used to calibrate SGR to cross-fault
pressure difference. The Southern Fault and Northern Fault
have insufficient well pressure data to perform a calibration
analysis.
171
Fig. 7. Calculation of the Shale Gouge
Ratio (SGR). (a) The shale content
(V-shale) of each reservoir unit in the
footwall (upthrown) side of the Central
Fault. (b) V-shale for each reservoir
unit in the hanging wall (downthrown)
side of the Central Fault. Only this side
of the fault was used to calculate the
SGR (see text). (c) The SGR mapped
across the reservoir-reservoir
juxtapositions of the Central Fault.
Note that the area of juxtaposition
diminishes to the east due to erosion by
the Base Cretaceous Unconformity.
Fig. 8. Formation pressure data for the
4 wells used in this study, shown by
depth.
Fault seal analysis of the Central Fault
Faulting occurred during the Late Jurassic (Yielding et al. 1992)
when the Brent Group was at shallow burial depth and poorly
consolidated. From core observations, diagenetic alteration and
cementation was considered only of minor local importance
and not significant. Therefore, clay smear is assumed to be the
primary seal mechanism of the Strathspey faults.
The seal analysis was undertaken using FAPS software
(Needham et al. 1996; Freeman et al. 1998). Each of the B1–B7
Strathspey Brent reservoir layers were imported as 50
50 m horizon grids from an existing reservoir model. Faults
were imported as a series of section-based segments or ‘sticks’
that were later correlated into fault planes that accurately
matched the 3D shape of the fault surface (see Needham et al.
1996 and Yielding et al. 1997 for a more thorough description
of data analysis within FAPS).
Fault displacement within FAPS is calculated by observing
the amount that individual horizon surfaces are offset. The
calculation of displacement requires the position at which
each horizon intersects both the footwall (upthrown side) and
172 D. Harris et al.
the hanging wall (downthrown side) of the fault (Fig. 5a,b,c).
The difference in elevation between the footwall and the hang-
ing wall intersections, or ‘cut-off’, is defined as the fault throw.
Determination of both the upthrown and downthrown
fault-horizon intersection for each layer allows an assessment
of which reservoir layers are potentially in communication
across the fault (Allan 1989; Fig. 5c). The ability of faults to
juxtapose reservoir layers of substantially different flow capa-
bilities can cause a major baffle to the lateral migration of
hydrocarbon.
Fault seal analysis requires an understanding of the clay
content of the sequence that the fault cuts (Fig. 2). The
proportion of clay within each faulted reservoir zone was
calculated using V-shale curves from well M6. This well is
located in the hanging wall to the Central Fault (Fig. 4), west of
the Brent erosion level, and contains an intact, representative
Fig. 9. Depletion patterns for M5/M6
well pairing of late 1993 and the
M10/M9Z well pairing of mid-1996,
shown stratigraphically. (a) The M5/M6
depletion-trend results entirely from
production in neighbouring fields;
Strathspey was not producing at this
time. Note that the depletion is
generally of greater extent in the
hanging wall M6 well than the footwall
M5 well. (b) The M10/M9Z data reflect
depletion due to production (and
injection) within Strathspey and also
from neighbouring Brent and Alwyn-N
fields.
Fig. 10. Pressure differential across the
Central Fault for well pairings M5/M6
and M9Z/M10. (a) Pressure differential
across the fault according to RFT data
from M5/M6 wells. Note that the zone
of strongest pressure differential occurs
in the central eastern portion of the
fault where strongly depleted upper
Brent is juxtaposed against less depleted
lower Brent. (b) Pressure differential
across the Central Fault according to
RFT data from M9Z/M10 wells. Note
that whereas for the M5/M6 wells in
(a) the greatest pressure depletion
occurs in the hanging wall of the
Central Fault, the greatest depletion for
the M9Z/M10 wells occurs in the
footwall. Thus between late 1993 and
mid-1996, the locus of greatest pressure
depletion has switched from hanging
wall into footwall.
sequence that compares quite closely to other wells in the
hanging wall and footwall of the Central Fault. A simple
average of all V-shale values recorded within each reservoir
zone was calculated (Figs 3, 6a,b, 7a,b).
The juxtaposition and fault seal diagram from the FAPS
analysis (Fig. 7c) shows a diminishing area of reservoir overlap
from west to east. In the west of the fault SGR varies in value
from <15% to >40%. The range of SGR decreases eastwards,
and within the oil column only varies between 15 and 30%.
Near the top of the Brent overlap there is a zone of c. 15% SGR
where downthrown B7 (Tarbert) is juxtaposed against up-
thrown B6 (uppermost Ness). This value is below the 18–20%
threshold value which in other Brent fields represents the onset
of static seal (e.g. Freeman et al. 1998). This low value of SGR
at the top of the Brent overlap explains the common oil–water
contact across the Central Fault.
 Modelling faults as transmissibility barriers
Analysis of production pressure trends across the
Central Fault
The Strathspey Field is produced by water flooding from two
injectors (wells M5 and M6) and seven producers, including
wells M9Z and M10 (Fig. 4). The M5 and M6 injectors were
completed about the same time, in December 1993 and March
1994 and are located on the upthrown and downthrown side
respectively of the Central Fault. Formation pressure measure-
ments were taken in both these wells prior to any significant
production from Strathspey. However, production at neigh-
bouring Brent and Alwyn North fields had already caused some
pressure depletion at Strathspey. Wells M9Z and M10 are also
located on the upthrown and downthrown side respectively
of the Central Fault and have formation pressure measurements
for parts of the Strathspey reservoir during the middle part
of 1996, eighteen months after Strathspey production
commenced.
RFT measurements from the Strathspey Field were refer-
enced to the original ‘static’ pressures in order to assess the
pattern of depletion in various parts of the Strathspey reservoir
sequence (Figs 6a,b, 8–9). Original static pressures had to be
assumed because there are no pressure measurements in the
area that are sufficiently old to record pre-Brent or Alwyn
North production trends.
In well M6 the greatest depletion is >800 psi and occurs in
layers B4a–B7. The greatest depletion in well M5 is also
>800 psi and occurs in the B5d–B7 layers (Fig. 9a). Thus the
extent of the >800 psi depletion is greater in the hanging wall
than the footwall of the Central Fault. The depletion of the
Strathspey reservoir recorded in wells M5 and M6 indicates the
extent of regional pressure depletion caused by production
within neighbouring fields, such as Alwyn North and Brent.
Of the two later wells, M9Z only sampled pressures from
B5c to B3b whereas M10 only sampled the pressures from B7
to B4a (Fig. 9b). Thus the study could only determine pressure
differentials across the fault at a limited number of positions
where these sampled layers overlap. For both wells, depletion in
the upper Brent section had reduced from the 800 psi recorded
in early 1994, to 500–600 psi. This reduction is largely due to
pressure support from water injection through wells M5 and
M6. The greatest depletion values (c. 1620 psi) occur in the B3
units in the footwall to the Central Fault (measured by well
M9Z); there may be greater depletions in the B1/B2 units
below B3 but M9Z has no data from these depths. The large
pressure depletion in the B3 units probably results from lack of
injection support from the well M5 reaching below the B3c
intra-Brent shale layer.
The well pressure data are arranged by depth in Figure 8 and
stratigraphically in Figure 9. Neither of these displays shows the
pressure difference across the fault. To see this, we must project
the depletion in each layer to the fault surface. Juxtaposition of
the different pore pressure fields recorded in wells M5 and M6
(Fig. 10a) shows a central region on the fault where there is a
substantial difference in the amount of depletion in the adjacent
layers. The maximum pressure differential in this central region
amounts to c. 650 psi, with greatest pressure depletion (lowest
pressure) in the hanging wall. This zone of strong pressure
differential coincides with juxtaposition between strongly de-
pleted upper Brent (Tarbert B7) units against substantially less
depleted lower Brent (Broom and Lower Ness B1–B3) units.
The pressure differential across the fault diminishes to the west
where Brent units of similar depletion are juxtaposed.
By 1996, the locus of maximum pressure depletion had
switched from hanging wall to footwall. The small area of
overlap between reservoirs that were sampled by M10 and M9Z
shows that there was a band of substantial pressure differential
173
that occurs at the fault zone wherever upthrown B3 units are
in juxtaposition with downthrown Upper Brent units (B6–7)
(Fig. 10b).
Comparing cross-fault pressure difference with Shale
Gouge Ratio
For both M5/M6 and M9Z/M10 well-sets, FAPS calculated
SGR and cross-fault pressure attribute values on a 25 m
25 m grid across the entire surface area of the Central Fault.
Each pair of attribute values was then plotted on a scatter-
graph in order to assess if there was any trend in the
relationship between SGR and cross-fault pressure difference.
The results for the early 1994 M5/M6 well-set show a general
trend of increasing pressure differential, or dynamic pressure
drop, with increasing SGR (Fig. 11a). In general, the lower
pressure differential and lower SGR values are taken from the
part of the fault with low displacement where the clean,
strongly depleted Tarbert B7 sands are self-juxtaposed with
generally low SGR (Fig. 7c). The high differential pressure at
c. 30% SGR occurs where displacement is sufficiently large to
incorporate large amounts of clay into the fault zone and
juxtapose highly depleted upper Brent B5–7 in the hanging wall
against less depleted Lower Brent B1–3 in the footwall (Figs 7c,
10a, 11a).
The 1996 well pairing of M9Z and M10 shows two clusters
of points (Fig. 11b). One group at low pressure differential has
a wide scatter of SGR values. This group represents a position
at the fault plane where the injection-supported Upper Brent
units overlap. The second group with large pressure differential
of c.1300 psi and c. 25–30% SGR occurs where the strongly
depleted B3 units in the upthrown block overlap the pressure-
supported Upper Brent in the hanging wall (Fig. 10b).
The relationship between pressure differential and SGR
attribute in the 1996 M9Z and M10 plot (Fig. 11b) does not
appear to be as strong as that shown in the 1994 plot using data
from well M5 and M6 (Fig. 11a). However, when the two
datasets are plotted on the same graph (Fig. 11c), they both
combine to show the same general trend of an increase in
dynamic pressure drop for an increase in SGR. Open circles in
Figure 11c are measurements taken from a series of faults from
the Gullfaks Field in which a similar pressure calibration was
undertaken (Yielding et al. 1999a). The Gullfaks data show a
similar pattern of dynamic pressure drop against SGR to
Strathspey. The agreement between the Strathspey data sets and
the Strathspey and Gullfaks data provides some encouragement
that there is a real and verifiable relationship between SGR and
permeability of the fault zone. However, caution should be
used when attempting to make any firm conclusions about the
meaning of these data. The pressure patterns in Strathspey and
Gullfaks are dynamic, i.e. RFT measurements in wells are
instantaneous and record a pressure that is probably either
increasing as the result of injection, or decreasing as the result
of extraction. Thus the pore pressure regime in footwall and
hanging wall of the Central Fault is neither in equilibrium, nor
is it changing at a steady rate to higher or lower pressures. A
potential hypothesis that could be tested in future is that the
close relationship between dynamic pressure drop and SGR in
Strathspey and Gullfaks is because both fields are managed in
the same way due to similar Brent lithostratigraphy and
structural style.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Manzocchi et al. (1999) showed that faults can be implicitly
incorporated into reservoir fluid flow simulations using trans-
missibility multipliers and a simple up-scaling assumption in
174 D. Harris et al.

Fig. 11. Cross-plot showing Shale Gouge Ratio versus differential pressure depletion for Strathspey and Gullfaks. (a) Cross-plot showing the
results from the late 1993 M5/M6 RFT measurements. The high pressure differentials with 20–30% SGR are derived from parts of the Central
Fault where strongly depleted upper Brent and less depleted lower Brent are juxtaposed. The displacement in these zones is large and thus the
SGR is also high with little variability in the absolute value. (b) Cross-plot showing results from the mid-1996 RFT measurements of the
M9Z/M10 well pairing. Note that there are two regions in this plot. The large pressure differentials at 20–30% SGR indicate a region where
the strongly depleted B3 units are juxtaposed against the less depleted, pressure-supported upper Brent units. The zone of smaller press-
ure differential indicates a region where the pressure-supported upper Brent in upthrown and downthrown blocks is juxtaposed. (c) Cross-plot
of both the Strathspey and Gullfaks data (latter from Yielding et al. 1999a). Note that for a given SGR there appears to be a maximum level
of pressure differential supported by the fault.

order to incorporate the small-scale variability of fault zone
structure. In this way, a particular fault can be represented by
simple averages when observed at the scale of the reservoir
simulator even though the same fault might look extremely
heterogeneous at the scale of a single outcrop.
A transmissibility multiplier is a simple ratio between
‘unfaulted transmissibility’ and ‘faulted transmissibility’
(Manzocchi et al. 1999). Within a reservoir model, ‘unfaulted
transmissibility’ is the flow potential across a fault that has no
fault rock, such as clay smear, cataclasis or diagenetic alteration;
the primary control on flow potential will be reservoir connec-
tivity across the fault, i.e. the position and surface area of
reservoir connections. The ‘faulted transmissibility’ implicitly
incorporates the permeability (e.g. using SGR) and thickness of
fault rock products into the calculation of potential flow across
reservoir connections. The transmissibility multiplier therefore
expresses the extent to which fault rock products will reduce
flow across reservoir connections.
The ability of fault transmissibility multipliers to accurately
predict retardation of flow across faults is largely dependent on
the veracity of the geological model that has been constructed
for the purpose of reservoir simulation. If the displacement
pattern of the faults is wrong then the reservoir juxtaposition
relationships across faults and the SGR within the faults will be
wrong.
The following are features of transmissibility multipliers.
 A fault that is modelled using a single transmissibility
multiplier across the entire surface generally overestimates
communication between high permeability reservoirs and
underestimates communication between low permeability
reservoirs.
Every faulted reservoir connection must have a unique
transmissibility multiplier that encapsulates the potential effect
of the permeability and thickness of intervening fault zone
material on reducing cross-fault flow between two reservoir
grid cells.
The data from Strathspey and Gullfaks (Fig. 11c) provide
extra evidence for the link between composition of fault zone
material and permeability by demonstrating a positive relation-
ship between SGR and dynamic pressure drop across faults.
However, the Strathspey and Gullfaks data do not give an
indication of absolute permeability of the fault zone, only that
permeability is likely to decrease as the value of SGR increases.
Thus the Strathspey and Gullfaks data demonstrate that SGR
can be used as a scaleable permeability attribute.
A single value of SGR is likely to represent several different
values of permeability, depending on depth of burial or degree
of diagenetic alteration. Thus, at greater depths of burial, fault
zone material with the same value of SGR is likely to be less
permeable than at shallower depths of burial (Sperrevik et al.
2002).
A scaleable fault permeability attribute provides flexibility to
 A fault that separates highly permeable flow units will have a any reservoir simulation. With no reliable absolute measure of
lower transmissibility multiplier than a fault with similar fault zone permeability available, a series of curves that relate
properties that separates low permeability units. permeability to SGR can be used. Thus, a simulation may start
 A fault of uniform permeability that juxtaposes reservoir using the permeability/clay fraction calibration curve of
zones of widely different permeability will produce a hetero- Manzocchi et al. (1999) but may then use a calibration curve
geneous pattern of transmissibility multipliers. with a different gradient or position for further iterations.
 Modelling faults as transmissibility barriers
Fig. 12. Development of Shale Gouge Ratio (SGR) and transmissi-
bility multipliers within TransGen for modelling fluid flow in
reservoir simulations. View looking NE. (a) The SGR mapped onto
every fault within the Strathspey reservoir. The V-shale used for
calculating the SGR comes from the stochastic reservoir model. (b)
The transmissibility multipliers for each fault in the Strathspey
reservoir. Each faulted reservoir cell connection has a different
transmissibility multiplier.
Therefore, a ‘history match’ can use the SGR-permeability
calibration curve that best fits the production data.
In Strathspey, transmissibility multipliers have been devel-
oped, using the method of Manzocchi et al. (1999), within a
proprietary software programme called TransGen. A single
stochastic realization of the permeability and V-shale content of
the principal layers within the Strathspey reservoir sequence
was imported into TransGen as standard ECLIPSE format
ASCII files. The SGR, unfaulted and faulted transmissibility of
the main fault zones were calculated and the transmissibility
175
multiplier at every faulted reservoir connection explicitly de-
fined (Fig. 12a, b). The pattern of SGR on the Central Fault in
Figure 12a reflects the variability of shale within a given
stochastic realization of an ECLIPSE reservoir model. In
Figure 12b a transmissibility multiplier value of c. 0.1 would
indicate that the fault has reduced efficiency of communication
to 10% of the value that would be expected if the fault had no
thickness or internal fault products. The Central Fault is
observed to have transmissibility multipliers of mostly <0.1.
This observation of uniformly low transmissibility multipliers
for the Central Fault fits with the pressure data from Strathspey
that suggests the Central Fault acts to substantially reduce
pressure communication between the southern and northern
parts of the field. The use of SGR as a guide to fault zone
permeability, and the ability to assign unique transmissibility
multipliers to individual faulted cellular connections, signifi-
cantly increased the understanding of the Strathspey faults as
barriers to lateral fluid flow.
The authors would like to thank Texaco, Exxon-Mobil, Kerr-McGee
and Shell for permission to publish the Strathspey data. In addition,
Badley Technology Ltd is thanked for providing the necessary time
and resources for the paper to be written. We are very grateful to two
anonymous referees for their thorough reviews of an earlier version
of this paper.
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Received 30 April 2001; revised typescript accepted 22 January 2002