RYAN GREEN
MSC. STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
RYAN.GREEN2@UCALGARY.CA |

Hello! My name is Ryan Green. I’m finishing up my MSc. at the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary, studying seismic based lithofacies mapping with Dr. Per Kent Pedersen. My research is centred in the Browse Basin, Northwest Shelf Australia, where Jurassic aged fluvial sandstone gas reservoirs support liquefied natural gas (LNG) activity. This sub-basin is an extensional system with trapping in tilted fault blocks lying within larger regional anticlinal structures (Figure 1). At the reservoir level, intrusive volcanics and gas bearing sands are both represented in the seismic data by high amplitude reflectors. In one case, a 50m thick basaltic intrusion sits directly on top of a 26 mmcf/d reservoir sand.

My research focusses on creating a workflow based on a multi-variate process to differentiate these high amplitude features and associated clastic litho-facies to better predict depositional facies distribution and their geometries, and the timing and origins of volcanic emplacements. The reservoirs are contained within tilted fault blocks and occasionally sealed by volcano-clastic facies adding to the overall complexity.

Figure 1: Browse Basin map with gas fields and major structural elements. Modified from ConocoPhillips Australia.

P-Wave attributes derived from post-stack time seismic data shot in 2010 along with comprehensive log and core data from a handful of ConocoPhillips wells drilled from 2009 to 2014 form the dataset for this project. Seismic attribute work done previously that forms the foundation of my research is that of Radovich and Oliveros (1998) and Hart (2008). I am using the QIPro software by Sound QI to data mine and build the process that selects the appropriate attributes for each case. Figure 2 shows the integration of seismic attributes and well logs to classify volcanic and sedimentary facies. OpendTect and Petrel have been used to interpret the seismic data and for attribute generation.

I chose to get out of my well-log mapping comfort zone for several reasons, ultimately though it came down to one – the power to predict away from the wellbore and make better maps that reflect the structure and stratigraphic information available. Figure 3 illustrates the potential conduit relationship between the NE-SW trending normal fault system and the intrusive volcanics encountered at Kronos-1.

Figure 2: Attribute classification plot and Crossline with logs from Kronos-1 well upon which the classification is driven.

My BSc. was completed at the University of Calgary as well, where I did my undergraduate thesis on the Duvernay Formation, using the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) recently acquired at the time to assess the fabric and mineralogy of samples taken from a wellbore in the Kaybob area. After that, I worked at Apache Canada and Paramount Resources for six years on a variety of projects. While doing my thesis work, I have also been running my family’s business in Kananaskis Country – Sundance Lodges, which we recently sold after a few years of tremendous growth. With that complete, I plan on returning to the industry in 2023.

Figure 3: Horizon map with Seismic Facies classes displayed on white horizon from Figure 2. The volcanic sill is on the scale of 10’s of square km’s and likely to be encountered upon further drilling in the fault block.

References

Hart, B., 2008. Channel detection in 3-D seismic data sing sweetness, AAPG Bulletin, 92 (6).

Radovich, B. and Oliveros, R.,1998. 3-D sequence interpretation of seismic instantaneous attributes from the Gorgon Field, The Leading Edge, 17 (9).