Constraining a Heavy Oil Reservoir to Temperature and Time Lapse Seismic Data Using the EnKF

Proper understanding of the distribution of porosity and vertical permeability is required for optimal extraction of hydrocarbons. While porosity defines the amount of oil resources, permeability determines the fluid flow in the reservoir from drainage area to production wells. Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is a method for thermal recovery of heavy oil and bitumen that is widely employed in Northern Alberta. Vertical permeability is important in SAGD since it determines communication between the reservoir and paired horizontal injector and producer wells. Additional data will improve reservoir characterization. The Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) is proposed to constrain the spatial distributions of porosity and permeability by integrating core measurements, dynamic temperature observations and time-lapse seismic attributes. The proposed methodology is demonstrated with a synthetic 2D case study. Implementation details are discussed. Integration of temperature is presented for a realistic case study based on the Tucker thermal project. The EnKF is shown to be an effective and promising modeling technique.