Recent Advances in Seismic Monitoring of Thermal EOR

Well-planned and executed reservoir surveillance has proven to add significantly to the production and ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons, notably in areas of Improved and Enhanced Oil Recovery (IOR/EOR). Recent technological advances in the area of data acquisition and integration have led to increased use of well and reservoir surveillance data to optimize such processes. In the case of thermal EOR, one of the most important subsurface uncertainties impacting performance is heat and steam front conformance, both vertically and arealy. This paper illustrates new geophysical technologies used for monitoring various thermal EOR recovery strategies in The Netherlands, Canada, and Oman. We focus on permanently buried seismic sources and receivers, refraction seismic, down-hole seismic, and the newly developed Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) to enable low-cost and non-intrusive seismic surveillance. These technologies are not without challenges, but our field trials indicate they have the potential to broaden the successful application of reservoir monitoring onshore.