Fracture permeability modeling of fractured tight clastic reservoir through 3D seismic attribute and well-test data

Abstract

Evaluating fracture permeability in fractured tight reservoirs without hydraulic testing remains a significant challenge. Conventional workflows typically rely on equivalent permeability modeling through constructing discrete fracture networks, which inherently introduce significant uncertainties due to assumptions of fracture geometry, stochastic simulation processes, and subjective manual operations. To reduce these uncertainties, we propose a novel and practical approach for estimating fracture permeability by integrating 3D seismic attributes with well-test data analysis in tight fractured reservoirs. A strong correlation is established between the fracture indicator derived from seismic attenuation attributes and reservoir permeability interpreted from well-test data, enabling the fracture indicator to be transformed into fracture permeability. The resulting permeability volume is subsequently converted into spatial corner-point grids for reservoir fracture permeability modeling. The proposed method eliminates the need for stochastic simulation, thereby confining uncertainty primarily to the quality of the input data. Because the low-frequency-dominated 3D seismic data used in this study exhibit limited resolution, the method’s minimal data-quality requirements facilitate its integration into reservoir simulation and fluid-flow modeling workflows for similar fractured reservoirs.