The application of seismic attributes for reservoir characterization in Pre-Tertiary fractured basement, Vietnam-Malaysia offshore

The Pre-Tertiary fractured basement forms important hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs in the Vietnam-Malaysia offshore area, and is being produced from such reservoirs in Vietnam where the authors have extensive working experiences for both clastics and fractured basement reservoirs and in both exploration and development phases. Due to their very small matrix porosity, the basement rocks become reservoirs only when they are strongly fractured. The quality of the fractured basement reservoirs depends on basement rock type, fracture density, and fracture characteristics including aperture, azimuth, dip, continuity, and fracture system intersection. Three-dimensional seismic data is applied widely to characterize these basement reservoirs. Based on results from applying many different seismic attributes to 3D seismic data from different Pre-Tertiary fractured basements in Vietnam and Malaysia, we demonstrate the utility of attributes in characterizing fractured basement reservoirs. Seismic attributes help predict the basement rock type and fracture characteristics from near top basement to deep inside basement. In the zone near the top of basement, the characteristics of fracture systems can be predicted by amplitude, coherence, curvature, and secondary derivative attributes. Deep inside the basement, relative acoustic impedance and its attributes have been successfully applied to predict the distribution of high fracture density, while dip and azimuth, ant-tracking, and gradient magnitude attributes have proven to be effective for predicting fracture characteristics. The accuracy of fracture characterization based on seismic attributes has been verified by drilling results.