Methods for improved prediction of elastic, electrical and reservoir properties

Abstract

This thesis is submitted for the Philosophiae Doctor degree in Petroleum Geosciences at the Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen. Financial support for this study has been provided by the Research Council of Norway and Statoil through the PETROMAKS (Programme for the Optimal Management of Petroleum Resources) as a contribution to the project titled "Quantifying the Effects of Sediment Deposition, Compaction and Pore Fluid on Rock Properties and Seismic Signatures". This is a large project resulting from a meeting hosted by the Research Council of Norway in Washing DC on November 2, 2005. It has been a joint project between the University of Oslo, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Stanford University, Colorado School of Mines, Statoil and the University of Bergen. The work presented in this thesis was initiated during the summary 2007 under a four year PhD contract with the University of Bergen. The majority of it was conducted in Bergen and during a six months stay as a visiting researcher at Stanford University in California. Furthermore, I have had occasional visits to the University of Oslo and participated in a laboratory experiment at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. In parallel, I have joined international conferences and seminars. My principal supervisor for this study was Professor Tor Arne Johansen at the University of Bergen and my co-supervisor was Professor Leiv-J. Gelius at the University of Oslo. The thesis is organised as follows. The overall objective of the study is stated before giving a general introduction to the field. The introduction contains a brief review of the most relevant parameters and rock physics models for this study. Afterwards follows a brief presentation of the inverse rock physics modelling philosophy and examples of possible ways of implementing it. Finally, a summary and the main conclusions of the papers and overall conclusion of the thesis are presented. The five research papers constitute the main scientific contributions and they can be found in their entirety in the appendix.