SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project concerns the development and implementation of geophysical inverse techniques and computer algorithms to image subsurface fluid-flow properties from time-lapse seismic data. In recent years, there has been exponential growth in time-lapse seismology project activity. These projects have produced seismic difference anomalies that arise from monitoring time-variant changes in the earth's subsurface. However, these anomalies, even when determined to be real signal, have so far been only indirectly useful and often ambiguous - what causes the anomalies, and what do they mean? The proposed innovation will estimate the 3D distribution of subsurface fluid pressure, multi-phase fluid saturation, or temperature change that causes the seismic anomalies, by using wave-equation seismic imaging techniques coupled with rock physics analysis. The research consists of three parts: amplitude preserved seismic imaging and impedance estimation, robust rock physics inversion, and optimized software and computational design. Uncertainty estimates will be quantified in each step of the process and propagated to the final pressure, saturation and temperature change estimates. This software will be valuable to help oil companies target new wells and optimize reservoir management decisions in the 50+ field areas world-wide that are current active seismic monitoring projects. Potential applications of this project include petroleum industry mapping of bypassed oil, monitoring of costly injected fluids, and imaging flow compartmentalization and the hydraulic properties of faults and fractures. Non-petroleum applications include monitoring groundwater reserves, subsurface monitoring of contaminant plumes and environmental clean-up projects, and applications in geothermal and hydroelectric energy. Academic applications include improvements to earthquake prediction, and the monitoring of methane hydrate deposits to determine their role in global climate change.

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project concerns the development and implementation of seismic imaging and inversion methods and parallel computer algorithms to estimate subsurface fluid-flow properties from time-lapse seismic data. In recent years, there has been exponential growth in time-lapse seismology project activity. These projects have yielded seismic difference anomalies that result from monitoring time-variant changes in the earth's subsurface related to fluid flow. However, such anomalies are often qualitative and ambiguous--what causes the anomalies, and what do they mean? The proposed Phase II research will enable the capability to make quantitative estimates of the 3D distribution of subsurface fluid pressure and fluid saturation changes that cause the seismic anomalies, using wave-equation seismic imaging and inversion techniques, coupled with rock physics analysis. The research consists of three parts: optimized parallel software and computational design, amplitude preserved seismic imaging and impedance inversion, and robust rock physics inversion to estimate pressure and saturation. The software and services generated by this Phase II research will be invaluable to help guide new wells and optimize reservoir management decisions in the 70+ oilfields world-wide that are being actively monitored with time-lapse seismic data. Near-term commercial applications of the proposed research include petroleum industry mapping and monitoring of commercial oil reserves, monitoring of costly injected fluids (water, steam, CO2, miscible gas), and imaging pressure compartmentalization and the leaking or sealing properties of faults and fractures. Non-petroleum applications may include monitoring groundwater reserves, near-surface monitoring of contaminant plumes and environmental clean-up projects. Potential far-market applications may include sub-sea acoustic imaging, synthetic aperture radar satellite imaging, and medical imaging.