Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) aims at reversing a decline in production or extending the productive life of a field. Prior to engaging substantial resources in such activities, gaining a thorough understanding of all the geological, mineralogical, fracture and fluid content aspects of the reservoir is critical.

Paradigm has a number of solutions that can help improve the structural image of the reservoir.  For fields that were put in production many years ago, seismic data at the time may not had the benefit of today's technologies for creating an accurate picture of the shape of both overburden and reservoir. Reprocessing in depth and taking into account anisotropy effects, especially in complex areas, can provide important insights that will guide EOR planning.  Even if actual reprocessing or depth imaging is not deemed necessary, a more accurate depth conversion based on a detailed velocity model, including anisotropy, can already make a great impact.

4D techniques may be applied to gain a better understanding of where unrecovered oil may be trapped.  Paradigm’s full waveform inversion techniques, target-oriented Amplitude versus Angle (AVA) and calibrated reservoir characterization tools can help provide answers.  

In a mature field with a long production history, making sense of all well and production data accumulated over the years is also pertinent to the EOR planning process.  Advanced statistical analysis tools and prediction methods yield information that is not readily visible in the data.

As injector wells flood the reservoir, time-lapse seismic surveys will facilitate the tracking of the front along which the process is proceeding.  Paradigm’s unique neural network classifier highlights variations that may relate to pore content.

At the point where production decline is such that the cost of production exceeds the value of what is being produced, relinquishment becomes a realistic scenario.  Before moving ahead with this, and ultimately decommissioning the surface production facilities, it makes sense to take one last look at the data, and ascertain that one has not overlooked a possibility for additional production, from the same reservoir or from satellite structures, un-drained pockets or a formation that may have residual amounts of hydrocarbons.  Having a complete suite of tools to revisit any aspect of the existing subsurface model, or rapidly expand the interpretation to neighboring areas, makes such studies cost-effective and exhaustive without tying down important resources for long periods of time.  Having all the data accessible through a flexible data infrastructure makes the task easier.