Stochastic simulation of fracture strikes using seismic anisotropy induced velocity anomalies

Availability of a fracture map of a producing reservoir aids in increasing productivity. Generally, accurate information related to fracture orientation is only available at a few sparse well log locations. However, fractures introduce velocity anomalies in seismic data by making the medium azimuthally anisotropic. When multi-azimuth data is available then it is possible to map the fracture attributes in the entire reservoir zone by analysing the anisotropy induced velocity anomalies in the seismic data. In the absence of 3D data, seismic anisotropy induced velocity anomaly from 2D data (as fracture strikes are not constant and data contains multi-azimuthal effect even when it is 2D) can still be used as a secondary source of information for the purpose of fracture strike simulation. To validate the above hypothesis, fracture strike information in a reservoir from the Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico is derived using Markov-Bayes stochastic simulation. In this simulation process, accurate well log derived fracture information is used as hard or primary data and seismic velocity anomaly/uncertainty based fracture information is used as soft or secondary data. The Markov-Bayes Stochastic simulation provides multiple realisations of the fracture patterns and thus helps to estimate the uncertainty associated with the fracture strikes of the reservoir. Accuracy of the simulation process is also estimated and the simulation result is compared with simple and ordinary kriging methods of fracture strike simulation.