Measurement and Potential Applications of Time-lapse Attenuation

Can we use other time-lapse seismic attributes to compliment our measurements of travel-time and reflectivity changes? In this paper we have measured attenuation changes in a seismic reservoir undergoing depletion and in some locations water injection. We will discuss these measurements in three sections, covering: 1.Potential uses of time-lapse attenuation measurements. What can we use them for? Time-lapse inverse Q? Interpretation? For this we will show an example of trying to separate water and gas saturation effects. 2.Real signal or an artefact? Could we just be looking at an apparent effect from, for example, migration using the same velocities for all vintages? Is a dedicated workflow necessary to extract what might be very subtle signals? 3.What are the underlying mechanisms controlling attenuation? What could we learn if we made these time-lapse measurements in other reservoirs?