Schlumberger Introduces Depth Domain Inversion Services

Schlumberger petro-technical experts use the services to improve the reliability and consistency of seismic structural and quantitative interpretation in complex environments.

“Conventional seismic inversion in the time domain introduces inconsistency between the seismic images and the rock properties, especially where there’s a significant overburden, such as subsalt,” said Maurice Nessim, president, Schlumberger PetroTechnical Services.

“With Depth Domain Inversion Services, customers receive more information derived from seismic data for reservoir characterization. This helps reduce uncertainty in complex reservoir environments, improve the confidence in prospect delineation, reservoir properties and volumetric calculations.”

Performing seismic inversion in the depth domain fully integrates the inversion with the imaging products to improve the reliability of estimating rock properties for reservoir characterization. This is done by correcting for depth space and dip dependent illumination effects during seismic amplitude inversion directly in the depth domain.

Depth Domain Inversion Services have been successfully applied in complex geological environments in North and South America. In the Green Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico, Schlumberger petrotechnical experts used a Depth Domain Inversion workflow in a complex subsalt area that was poorly illuminated.

Reverse time migration produced seismic amplitudes adversely imprinted by the illumination effects. Executed in the Petrel E&P software platform, the workflow improved structural and quantitative interpretation, corrected illumination effects and provided a much sharper reflectivity image for better event continuity, more reliable seismic amplitudes and a higher fidelity acoustic impedance volume.