Locating High-productivity Areas of Tight Gas-sand Reservoirs Using LF Seismic Surveys

A low-frequency (LF) seismic survey was acquired over the Jonah and Pinedale gas fields to verify whether changes in the LF passive wave field could discriminate the higher productivity areas. The 2D profiles of the survey crossed the field in places that show maximum contrast in well productivity. As part of the LF seismic survey processing, the anthropogenic noise generated by the operations and the infrastructure of the field was captured and analyzed. Results of this analysis show that the LF seismic attributes correlate well to reservoir properties like estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) and hydrocarbon pore thickness (HPT or SgPhiH) while the anthropogenic noise was not responsible for the measured LF seismic signal anomaly. This opens the door to the use of LF seismic surveys to extend existing tight gas-sand fields and to locating the high-productivity areas in tight gas-sand exploration plays.