Discrete fracture network helps target fractured hydrocarbon

zones in basement
CHALLENGE
Formulate development plan for a large basement field with limited well data and low-resolution
vintage seismic data.
SOLUTION
Develop a discrete fracture network (DFN) model to identify areas of high potential by conducting
fracture modeling within the Petrel E&P software platform .
RESULTS
Identified links between fractures and hydrocarbon in basement rock and proposed new well
locations based on the fracture distribution.
Understanding basement with only limited data
Indias company initiated a pioneer exploration project in the fractured basement reservoir of a
large field in the Indian western offshore basin. Although many wells had been drilled in the area,
the targets were sections overlying the basement, and few wells had been extended into this area
to gain information on basement depth and lithology.
A small amount of fracture data was available from three wells. The vintage seismic data, shot in
1997 using a narrow aperture, did not take basement imaging into consideration, and seismic
resolution below the top of the basement was poor.
The company sought a way to extract enough information from these limited data to formulate a
development plan with the maximum chance of success. Specifically, the goal was to model a DFN
that could be used to plan wells more effectively. Determining the fractured areas would reduce
the chances of drilling a dry well.

The workflow followed by Petrel Fracture Modeling is conducted in a fully

integrated environment.

Deriving the DFN model

A DFN model was created using the fracture-network capabilities in Petrel Fracture Modeling. The
modeling workflow combined the sparse well and vintage seismic data with informed fault tracking in
3D seismic cubes to determine fracture intensity and build the DFN model.
As a first step, image logs from the three wells were analyzed to determine fracture orientation. The
fault orientations were entered into the Petrel platform as point data. The points were plotted on a
stereo-net to distinguish clusters of data that could indicate fracture families (sets). This led to the
identification of four fracture sets exhibiting two trends: northeastsouthwest and northwest
southeast. These trends agreed with the borehole stress studies done in the area.

The stereonet plot of the fracture data distinguished four fracture sets
following two trends.

In the next step, automated fault tracking (ant tracking) on the seismic data provided the means
to propagate the fracture intensity of each fracture set from the wells to the 3D structural model.
To avoid overestimating the fault intensity, ant tracking was run for each fracture set with a
stereonet filter applied to reflect set orientation. The resulting output of four ant-tracked cubes
enabled the identification of discrete fracture planes and a determination of fracture intensity for
each of the four fracture sets. The DFN, containing all of the fracture planes identified by set, was
then compared with the previously drilled wells.

Correlating fracturing and production

The DFN model correlated with the wells, showing that producing wells were cutting through
fractured zones and dry wells were not intersecting fractures. The network model formed the
basis for four new wells in the fractured zones. Whereas the sparse and incomplete well and
seismic data alone yielded little information for future exploration, the DFN model constructed with
Petrel Fracture Modeling from these data proved to be a valuable prediction tool.

Intensity properties were generated for the four fracture sets to correlate with
the existing well

The complete DFN model (left) and detail (right) show the producing well
(green) intersecting numerous fractures and the dry well (blue) that did not
encounter fractures.