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CASE STUDY

Halliburton FiberVSP™ Service Enhances Surface Seismic Data Processing

3D earth model generated from data to increase accuracy in drilling future wells

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Opportunity

Unconventionals

Opportunity
Specific Challenge

Acquire the first arrival times from the required survey geometry in one pass

REGION - USA / THE ROCKIES REGION - USA / THE ROCKIES

The Rockies

REGION - USA / THE ROCKIES

Challenge

  • Acquire the first arrival times along the entire wellbore from near- to far offset source locations to provide an estimation of the Delta and Epsilon anisotropy parameters

Solution

  • Use FiberVSP™ service to acquire a vertical transverse isotropy (VTI) walkaway vertical seismic profile to efficiently and quickly acquire the first arrivals every meter along the entire wellbore

Result

  • Cost effectively recorded first arrivals from surface to TD in just a few sweeps of the vibrator at each offset source location starting at 200 ft and ending at 27,000 ft

Overview 

One of the latest technologies in the Halliburton family of fiber-optic services is the FiberVSP™ service—a Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology for vertical seismic profile (VSP) data acquisition. The ability to access and interrogate the retrievable fiber-optic cable from total depth (TD) to surface with each triggering of the seismic source allows for the possibility of acquiring VSP data using DAS for a single survey through time-lapse 3D VSP studies, quickly and economically. It is a risk-averse method for acquiring VSP data on a retrievable fiber-optic cable at a high spatial resolution. 

 

Challenge

An operator requested Halliburton to record and process the first arrival data over the entire well in an accurate and cost-effective manner. The first arrival times were then plugged into calculations for the estimation of the Delta and Epsilon anisotropy parameters. These anisotropy parameters greatly improve the 3D earth model, which helps in the placement of future wells. VTI walkaway VSP surveys have traditionally been acquired with conventional geophones in the well. It takes multiple passes of the source along the walkaway line to record into conventional geophones as the geophones are moved up the well after each pass of the source on the walkaway line. This methodology requires substantially more time and a higher cost to the operator to acquire.

Solution

To acquire the desired first arrivals, Halliburton used the FiberVSP™ service to run a VTI walkaway VSP survey. An advantage of using the FiberVSP service over conventional geophones is that it can interrogate the entire wellbore in a single sweep with a vibrator during the acquisition of each source point in the VTI walkaway line. By acquiring the entire VTI walkaway line in one pass, it greatly reduces costs and data acquisition time. The one-meter channel (depth) spacing on the FiberVSP service provides more robust and higher-resolution measurements when compared to traditional geophone data acquired every 15 m. 

Result

Data was recorded in a single pass of the vibrator with the FiberVSP service recording data from the wellhead to 27,000 ft away from the wellhead. This single pass of the walkaway line resulted in a much more cost-effective survey than a survey with geophones only. The retrievable wireline with fiber in the vertical well recorded the seismic signal from three vibrators acting as the seismic source at each location. SEGY traces were generated in the field and sent to Halliburton Formation Evaluation and Reservoir Solutions (FERS) where data was further processed, and the first arrivals were picked and sent to the operator. The first arrival times were plugged into calculations for Delta and Epsilon to build an earth model to enhance the operator’s previously acquired surface seismic image. This allowed the operator to better position its wells to minimize risk and uncertainty.