IPA11-G-203

PROCEEDINGS, INDONESIA PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

Thirty-Fifth Annual Convention & Exhibition, May 2011

PREDICTING RESERVOIR PROPERTY UNCERTAINTY THROUGH AVA MONTE CARLO

MODELING AT KERISI AND HIU FIELDS, NATUNA SEA

Riki Tasrianto*
Yasril Kahar*
John Hughes*

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION

ConocoPhillips Indonesia is currently producing oil
and gas from Kerisi and Hiu Fields, Block B,
Natuna Sea. Kerisi and Hiu Fields are independent
faulted four-way dip closures containing an oil leg
overlain by a gas cap. Production is primarily from
the Oligocene Gabus Massive sand. This study
addresses a predictive technique to evaluate the
upside potential from secondary reservoirs within
the Gabus formation excluding the currently
producing sands.
Although the Kerisi and Hiu structures are relatively
simple, the Gabus Formation was deposited in a
stratigraphicaly complex fluvio-deltaic environment.
The reservoir is generally high porosity and has a
Class II to Class III AVA response that varies
depending on reservoir properties and fluid type.
Notably, lateral changes in gross sand thickness and
net to gross of the package cause corresponding
changes in the seismic response.
The 3D seismic volume shows several other isolated
bright events in the Gabus interval, outside of the
primary producing reservoir, but with a similar
AVA expression. Some of these have been
penetrated by development wells which provide a
means of calibrating their seismic expression to their
reservoir properties.
This work examines the non-unique AVA response
of these anomalies and rather than making a
deterministic prediction, uses Monte Carlo
simulation to establish the thickness and net to gross
ranges consistent with the anomaly. These reservoir
properties can further be used to determine the
viability of future drilling and completion targets to
optimize field production.
* ConocoPhillips Indonesia
The Kerisi and Hiu Fields are located in Block B,
Natuna Sea (figure 1) approximately 200 miles
northeast of Singapore in water depths of around
300 ft. The fields produce oil and gas from the
Oligocene Gabus sandstone reservoir at depths
between 3500 ft and 5500 ft sub-sea. The reservoir
sandstones typically exhibit an anomalous seismic
AVA (amplitude verses angle) response. We present
an analysis to characterize predicted reservoir
properties of untested bright amplitudes within the
Gabus formation using seismic rock physics and
Monte Carlo simulation stochastic AVA forward
modeling.
The Gabus Massive sand is the primary producing
reservoir in the Kerisi and Hiu Fields. The Gabus
formation was deposited during post-rifting tectonic
phase, in a fluvial-deltaic setting. In general, the
reservoir quality is excellent with average effective
porosity around 25% and average permeability
around 400 mD.
The Kerisi and Hiu Fields lie adjacent to each other
in a similar structural setting. Both are four way dip
closures within antiformal structures formed by
inversion of early Tertiary half grabens. Structural
inversion occurred during a Miocene compression
phase, at which time the half graben fault system
underwent major slip reversal to form a reverse fault
system that bounds the south and east limits of the
structures. The Kerisi anticline is further dissected
by a series of smaller normal faults trending SE-
NW, the largest of which has a maximum
displacement of approximately 450 feet and divides
Kerisi Field into two distinct regions (“western” and
“eastern” areas). At Hiu, the major reverse fault
system trends from SE-NW to SW-NE. Figure 2
shows the general depth structure of the Kerisi and
Hiu Fields.
METHOD
Our workflow involved establishing well to seismic
ties and then scenario modeling AVA data for
varying reservoir properties these were then
matched to surface seismic near and far offset angle
stacks to derive reservoir property uncertainty
ranges (figure 3).
The database used in the analysis consists of 7 wells
in the Kerisi and Hiu area, together with near and far
offset angle stack 3D seismic data. The objective
was to model the AVA response by varying
reservoir properties such as gross thickness, net to
gross ratio, and fluid phase, calibrate these to
surface seismic data and thereby predict the
reservoir properties at undrilled areas exhibiting
anomalous AVA responses. A Monte Carlo
simulation approach was applied to provide ranges
of uncertainty for the reservoir properties. The
simulation results were then compared with the
surface seismic AVA response in pseudo AB (AVA
intercept–gradient) cross plot space. The simulations
were performed iteratively and were terminated
when the simulated result matched the seismic
response.
Compressional, shear sonic and density well log
data were used to perform rock physics analysis.
The rock physics analysis involved 4 steps: 1. fluid
and grain property definitions, 2. fluid substitution,
3. log trend curve generation, 4. fluid discrimination
analysis:
1. Fluid and Grain Property Definitions.
Fluid density and Bulk modulus properties were
calculated using equations derived by Batzle
and Wang (1992). Input parameters include
hydrostatic pressure, formation temperature, gas
specific gravity, oil gravity and brine salinity.
These were taken from the Kerisi-4 well and
used to calculate gas-oil-brine density and Bulk
Modulus for the fluid properties.
2. Fluid Substitution
Fluid substitution was performed using
Gassman’s equation (Gassman, 1951, op cit.
Mavko, 2003) to derive brine-gas-oil saturated
compressional velocity (Vp), shear velocity
(Vs) and Density logs. The dry rock Poisson’s
ratio method using the Gauss Newton algorithm
was employed to estimate the dry rock Bulk
modulus. Based on fluid and grain properties
inputs, grain and elastic moduli of the rocks
were then calculated and iterated until the
modeled insitu compressional velocity (Vp),
shear velocity (Vs), and density matched
measured logs. During the iterative process, a
number of physical bounds were setup, so that
the final modeled logs are physically realizable
and consistent. Figure 4 shows the final fluid
substituted curves for Kerisi-4 results.
3. Log Trend Curve Generation,
Trend curves were fitted to the oil, gas and
brine fluid substituted Vp, Vs, and density logs
from Kerisi-4. The trend curves were used to
construct “pseudo logs” at the prospective
anomalous amplitude locations. This was
achieved by taking an offset well log and using
a Monte Carlo approach to simulate varying
gross thicknesses and sand net to grosses for the
prospect interval using the trend curve values
for Vp, Vs and density. Figure 4 shows the log
trend curve for Kerisi-4 well and figure 5
compares the Kerisi-4 derived trend curves and
the Hiu-3 well log data. This comparison
provides quality control for the validity of the
log trend curve.
4. Fluid Discrimination Analysis.
Cross-plotting of acoustic and elastic terms, in
this case acoustic impedance (AI) verses
Poisson’s ratio (figure 6) shows that gas or oil
sands can be distinguished from brine sand, but
gas sand cannot be discerned from oil sands.
This implies that seismic AVA data could
differentiate brine sands from oil or gas bearing
sands assuming the reservoir is resolved within
seismic bandwidth.
Based on the Kerisi-4 data (figure 4) it is
observed that:
• Sands are relatively fast compared with
shales in terms of both compressional and
shear velocities. This applies to hydrocarbon
and brine fluid substituted logs.
• Sands are relatively low density compared
with shales. This applies to hydrocarbon and
brine fluid substituted logs, although
hydrocarbon presence enhances the density
contrast between sands and shales.
• Sands and shales are similar in terms of
acoustic impedance. This applies to
hydrocarbon and brine fluid substituted logs.
• Sands show a relatively low Poisson’s ratio
compared with shales. This applies to
hydrocarbon and brine fluid substituted logs.
Hydrocarbon presence enhances the
Poisson’s Ratio contrast between sands and
shales.
Based on the above observations it can be
qualitatively concluded that lithology is best
discerned using an elastic term such as Poisons
Ratio (or Far Offset seismic data), and that
hydrocarbon presence will enhance this response.
This is consistent with class 2 AVA behavior.
A number of isolated amplitude anomalies were
identified within Gabus formation in reservoir zones
stratigraphicaly separate from the producing Gabus
massive sand (figure 7). These amplitude anomalies
were studied to characterize the possible causative
reservoir properties by stochastic AVA modeling.
As the seismic data is considered to be zero phase
SEG positive standard polarity (decrease in
impedance equals a trough on seismic data) the
maximum trough amplitude was considered
representative of the top of a hydrocarbon bearing
sand and used as the primary attribute in this
analysis. Maximum trough seismic amplitude
extractions were performed for all anomalously
bright Gabus events, at near and far offset stacks.
The near and far offset seismic amplitudes were then
plotted on intercept verses gradient (A-B) AVA
cross-plots using near offsets to represent the
intercept term (A) and far offsets minus near offsets
to represent a “pseudo” gradient (B) term. Figure 9c
shows an example of A-B AVA cross-plot for an
amplitude anomaly. Each of the AVA anomalies
plot on the A-B AVA cross-plot varying as a
function of the physical properties of the reservoir
rock reflective interfaces (Vp, Vs & density) and
reservoir properties (thickness, net to gross,
porosity, etc.). To capture this uncertainty a
stochastic approach, using Monte Carlo AVA
modeling, was utilized to predict the reservoir
property variation consistent with the seismic
amplitude character on the A-B AVA cross-plot.
Monte Carlo AVA Modeling
The Monte Carlo method is a repeated random
sampling technique useful for stochastic modeling
of uncertainty within input ranges. The method was
used to stochastically sample a range of possible
thickness and net to gross parameters for a reservoir
interval tied to an offset well. Compressional
velocity, shear velocity and densities were
constrained by the calculated trend curves and AB
plots generated. AB plots were generated in this
manner for gas, oil and brine fluid substituted cases
using the appropriate trend curves. Implicit in this
assumption is that the trend curves themselves were
held constant which implies an average description
of Vp, Vs and density and thereby a similar average
description of porosity. Combinations of thickness
and net to gross were simulated within reservoir
physical properties, and correlated with the surface
seismic AB plot to predict the most likely reservoir
thickness and net to gross at the prospective
location. In practice, the modeling was iterative, the
modeled net to gross and thicknesses being varied
until convergence occurred between the modeled
AB scatter and the observed seismic AB scatter.
RESULTS
Iterative Monte Carlo AVA modeling was run for
each amplitude anomaly observed within the Gabus
formation.
Amplitude Anomaly 1 (Kerisi Structure)
An example of a Gabus Formation amplitude
anomaly at Kerisi structure is shown in Figure 8.
This amplitude was penetrated by the Kerisi-4 well.
At the Kerisi-4 well location, the amplitude
corresponds to a gas sand interval with 56 ft gross
thickness, 67% N/G and 21% average effective
porosity. This sand is referred to as gas sand 1.
Figure 8a and figure 8b show the near and far-angle
maximum negative amplitude extractions. The
amplitude anomaly is strongly negative at far-angles
and weakly negative at near-angles, and hence can
be classified as a class II - III AVA response. Figure
8c and 8d show the amplitude anomaly on seismic
profiles.
Figure 9a shows the synthetic angle gather
generated for Kerisi-4 gas sand 1. The model angle
gather shows weak negative amplitudes at near
angles increasing to stronger negative amplitude at
far angles. It plots as a class II AVA anomaly in A-
B space (figure 9b). The modeled data shows a
qualitatively comparable response to the amplitudes
extracted from a region around the Kerisi-4 well
location (figure 9c). However, the surface seismic
data corresponding to gas sand 1 has a broader
scatter on the A-B AVA cross-plot (red ellipse on
figure 9c). Figures 9d & 9e show the Monte Carlo
AVA modeling for amplitude anomaly gas sand 1.
Figure 9e shows that when using a gas sand trend
curve and allowing the sand gross thickness to vary
between 51–75 ft, and the net to gross to vary
between 40-80% the resulting A-B cross plot has a
similarly broad data scatter to the surface seismic.
This implies that either the reservoir quantity or the
seismic data quality vary laterally around the Kerisi
4 well location.
The following sensitivities validate the above
conclusions:
1. If the wet sand trend curves are used instead of
gas sands a weakly reflective response is
modeled on the synthetic A-B AVA cross-plot
(Figure 9f). This is clearly inconsistent with the
surface seismic A-B AVA response (Figure
9c).
2. If the gas sand trend curve is used but sand
thickness reduced to 32–50 ft, and net to gross
to 10-30%, the synthetic A-B AVA cross-plot
modeling shows a weak AVA gradient and
again does not match the surface seismic A-B
AVA response (figure 9g).
Amplitude Anomaly 2 (Hiu Structure)
Figure 10 shows an example of an amplitude
anomaly at the Hiu structure that has had not been
tested by a well. To perform the thickness and net to
gross AVA Monte Carlo modeling for this
amplitude, the Hiu-3 logs were used with Kerisi-4
log trend curve data to splice in the stochastically
varying reservoir section for input to the modeling.
The observed AVA response is similar to amplitude
anomaly 1, with strongly negative amplitude far-
offset amplitude and a weak near offset amplitude
thereby classified as class II AVA (figure 10a, 10b,
10c &10d). At the closest well, Hiu-3, this
amplitude correlated to wet sand interval with a
gross thickness of 55 ft, net to gross of 16%, and
average effective porosity of about 5%. Synthetic
AVA modeling (figure 11b) of this wet sand at the
well location exhibits zero offset weak reflectivity
and a weak gradient term, this being consistent with
the surface seismic A-B AVA cross-plot response
(blue ellipse on figure 11c). To obtain the best
match with the AVA response at amplitude anomaly
2 (red ellipse on figure 11c), it was necessary to use
the gas sand trend curves with reservoir properties
of gross thickness 51– 75 ft and net to gross of 30–
50% (figures 11d and 11e).
To confirm this modeling result, a Monte Carlo
model sensitivity was run using a sand gross
thickness range 30–50 ft and net to gross of 10-30%,
together with the gas sand trend curves. Figure 11f
shows the resulting A-B cross plot which does not
show as good a match with the observed surface
seismic data (figure 11c) as the prefered model
results above.
CONCLUSIONS
This work describes a case study approach to
quantify reservoir quantity (thickness & net to
gross) based on integration between well and
seismic data. Rather than using deterministic
assumptions for thickness and net to gross, a
stochastic approach was employed to be consistent
with seismic amplitude observations but also capture
the inherent uncertainties in this approach. Rock
physics analysis, with fluid substitution and log
curve trend generation were critical steps in the
analysis. While this method offers a good first pass
at characterizing the reservoir properties it is based
on a qualitative comparison between modeled and
observed AVA anomalies, future work to progress
the analysis would be to calibrate the surface
seismic AVA data to the well models.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank BPMIGAS,
ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Inpex Petroleum for
their permission to publish this work. Special thanks
are also given to DR. Sigit Sukmono & Mark Boyd,
whom supervised this work.
REFERENCE
Batzle, M. And Wang, Z., 1992, Seismic Properties
of Pore Fluids, Geophysics : Vol 57, no 11
(November 1992); P. 1396-1408.
Deuflhard, P. And Hohmann, A., 2003, Numerical
Analysis on Modern Scientific Computing An
Introduction, Springer
Mavko et. all, 2003, The Rock Physics Handbook,
Cambridge University Press.
Sheriff, R.S, 2002, Encyclopedic Dictionary of
Applied Geophysics, SEG
 Block B
Natuna Sea

500 km Kerisi- Hiu

25 km

Figure 1 a - Location of Block B at Natuna Sea; 200miles North East of Singapore.

b - Location of Kerisi Hiu field at Block B Natuna Sea.

High

Hiu

Low

Kerisi

N 

450 ft
fault 3km

Figure 2 - Gabus Formation depth structures map, Kerisi-Hiu Fields, with exploration and
development wells posted.
 Well Seismic
data data

Well seismic
tie

Near – Far amplitude

extraction
Rock Physic, Trend
Curves Generation
& AVA modeling

AVA interpretation

N: G / Thickness
uncertainty estimation

Figure 3 - General workflow

Depth (ft)

Shale  Wet  Oil  Gas 

Figure 4 - Fluid Substitution and Log trend curves Kerisi-4.
1100

Shale  Wet  Oil  Gas 

Figure 5 - The comparison between Kerisi-4 log trend curves compared with Hiu-3 log curve.
 Poisson' ratio vs AI

0.5
Oil
Gas
0.4 Shale

Poisson's Ratio
Brine
0.3

0.2

0.1
6 7 8 9
AI (GR*KM/S/CC)

Figure 6 - Poisson’s ratio vs. AI cross-plot. Cross-plot illustrates that AI - Poisson’s ratio space can differentiate gas sands from wet sands, but cannot discern gas
sand from oil sands
 N 

K‐2  K‐1A  NE‐Hiu 1 

K‐3  K‐4  H‐2  H‐3 
B 
A 

Gabus massive sand amplitude

Base upper Gabus

Top lower Gabus

Figure 4.25 A-B Far stacks seismic Section. Red Ar

2 Km
A  B 
Figure 7 - Full stack seismic across Kerisi-Hiu structure. Black circle indicate amplitude anomalies within Gabus formation outside the producing Gabus massive
sand.
 Far offset Near offset
Kerisi‐4  1 km Kerisi‐4  1 km
A 
N  N 

B 

a) b)
A  Kerisi‐4  B  A  Kerisi‐4  B 
GR  RTD   GR  RTD  
V Clay  GR  RTD  Phie 

At Kerisi‐4  
0.5 km 56 ft Gross sand 
38 ft Net sand 
67 % N/G 
21 % Ave Porosity

c) d) e)
Figure 8 - Amplitude anomaly 1: a. Max negative far angle slice, b. Max negative near angle slice, c. A-B far angle seismic section d. A-B near angle seismic
section e. Kerisi-4 log showing gas sand 1 interval with average effective porosity 21%
Kerisi-4 Thickness 56 ft
Vp  Vs  RHOB  Synthetic 
N/ G 0.67

Far – Near 
a) b) Near 
c)
Gas sand thickness 51 – 75 ft
Vp  Vs  RHOB  Synthetic 
N/G 0.4 – 0.8

Top Sand

Base Sand

d) e)
Figure 9 - Amplitude anomaly 1; a, b. AVA modeling & synthetic intercept-gradient cross-plot, using gas trend curve as the sand curve and Kerisi-4 well
data as the background curve, c. seismic pseudo intercept-gradient cross-plot d, e. AVA modeling & intercept-gradient cross-plot, using gas trend
curve and range of thickness 51–75 ft & N/G 40-80%.
 Brine sand thickness 50 – 75 ft Gas sand thickness 32 – 50 ft
N/G 0.4 – 0.8 N/G 0.1 – 0.3
Gradient 

Gradient 
Intercept  Intercept 
f) g)

Figure 9 - f. Synthetic intercept-gradient cross-plot, using wet sand trend curve as the input log and range of thickness 50–75 ft & N/G 40-80 %
g. Synthetic intercept-gradient cross-plot, using gas sand trend curve as the input log and range of thickness 32–50 ft & N/G 10–30 %.
 Far offset Near offset
Hiu‐3  Hiu‐3 
N  B  N 

A 

1 km 1 km

a) b)

A  Hiu‐3  B  A  Hiu‐3  B 
GR  RTD   b) GR  RTD    V Clay  GR  RTD  Phie 

At Hiu‐3  
55 ft Gross sand 
1 KM 9 ft Net sand 
Far Near 16 % N/G 
c) d) 5  % A e 
e)
Figure 10 - Amplitude anomaly 2 a. Max negative far angle slice b. Max negative near angle slice c. A-B far angle seismic section d. A-B near angle seismic
section e. Hiu-3 log curve.
 Top Sand

Vp  Vs  RHOB  Synthetic  Base Sand

Brine sand thickness 30 ft N/G 0.1

Far – Near 
a
b Near 
Vp  Vs  RHOB  Synthetic  c)
Gas sand thickness 20 - 30 ft N/G 0.15 – 0.2
Gas sand thickness 28 - 60 ft N/G 0.2 – 0.7

d) e) f)

Figure 11 - Amplitude anomaly 2 a, b. AVA modeling and synthetic intercept-gradient cross-plot c. seismic pseudo intercept-gradient cross-plot d, e. AVA
modeling & intercept-gradient cross-plot using gas trend curve with thickness range of 51–75 ft & N/G 30–50 %, f. AVA modeling intercept-
gradient cross-plot using gas sand trend curve with range of thickness 30–50 ft & N/G 10–30 %.