Evolution of the stress and strain field in the tyra field during the Post-Chalk Deposition and seismic inversion of fault zone using informed-proposal Monte Carlo

Abstract

When hydrocarbon reservoirs are used as a CO2 storage facility, an accurate uncertainty analysis and risk assessment is essential. An integration of information from geological knowledge, geological modelling, well log data, and geophysical data provides the basis for this analysis. Modelling the time development of stress/strain changes in the overburden provides prior knowledge about fault and fracture probability in the reservoir, which in turn is used in seismic inversion to constrain models of faulting and fracturing. One main problem in solving large scale seismic inverse problems is high computational cost and inefficiency. We use a newly introduced methodology - Informed-proposal Monte Carlo (IPMC) - to deal with this problem, and to carry out a conceptual study based on real data from the Danish North Sea. The result outlines a methodology for evaluating the risk of having sub-seismic faulting in the overburden that potentially compromises the CO2 storage of the reservoir.