Reservoir characterization using oil-production-induced microseismicity, Clinton County, Kentucky

Abstract Microseismic monitoring tests were conducted from 1993 to 1995 in the Seventy-Six oil field, Clinton County, Kentucky. Oil is produced from low-porosity, fractured carbonate rocks at 3 ; no injection operations were conducted. Gross changes in production rate correlate with event rate: event rate lags changes in production rate by 2 to 3 weeks. Hypocenters and first-motion data have revealed previously undetected, low-angle thrust faults above and below the currently drained depth intervals. Production history, well logs and drill tests indicate that the seismically active faults or fractures are previously drained intervals that have subsequently recovered to hydrostatic pressure via brine invasion. Storage capacity computed for one of these drained fractures implies that total oil production represents about 20% of total pore volume. Correlation of older production intervals and well-log porosity anomalies with the seismically active faults indicate that the oil reservoir in the study area is primarily a set of compartmentalized, low-angle thrust faults. Although low-angle fracture sets have not previously been considered in the exploration and development of the area, the mapped thrust faults are consistent with other investigators' interpretations of oil associated with secondary fracture sets occurring along deeper-seated, wrench-fault structures. Stress determined from composite focal mechanisms indicates a near-surface (

[1]  W. S. Phillips,et al.  Joint structures determined by clustering microearthquakes using waveform amplitude ratios , 1996 .

[2]  George Asquith,et al.  Basic Well Log Analysis for Geologists , 1982 .

[3]  T. P. Harding.  Identification of Wrench Faults Using Subsurface Structural Data: Criteria and Pitfalls (1) , 1991 .

[4]  J. E. Fix,et al.  Microseismic Mapping of Hydraulic Fractures Using Multi-Level Wireline Receivers , 1995 .

[5]  Jian Lin,et al.  Change in Failure Stress on the Southern San Andreas Fault System Caused by the 1992 Magnitude = 7.4 Landers Earthquake , 1992, Science.

[6]  Failure of Chalk During Waterflooding of the Ekofisk Field , 1992 .

[7]  T. P. Harding.  Petroleum Traps Associated with Wrench Faults , 1974 .

[8]  R. Plumb,et al.  Stress directions in eastern North America determined to 4.5 km from borehole elongation measurements , 1987 .

[9]  E. A. Flinn.  Signal analysis using rectilinearity and direction of particle motion , 1965 .

[10]  Chuen Hon Arthur Cheng,et al.  Seismic imaging using microearthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing , 1994 .

[11]  J. Brune.  Tectonic stress and the spectra of seismic shear waves from earthquakes , 1970 .

[12]  Paul Segall,et al.  Earthquakes triggered by fluid extraction , 1989 .

[13]  M. Zoback,et al.  Fluid flow along potentially active faults in crystalline rock: Geology , 1995 .

[14]  J. A. Drahovzal,et al.  High-Volume Oil Discovery in Clinton County, Kentucky , 1990 .

[15]  J. White,et al.  Quantitative Seismology, Theory and Methods Volume I and Volume II by Keiiti Aki and Paul G. Richards , 1980 .

[16]  David Oppenheimer,et al.  Induced seismicity in The Geysers Geothermal Area, California , 1984 .

[17]  H. Kanamori,et al.  A moment magnitude scale , 1979 .

[18]  J. C. Woerpel,et al.  Active and Passive Seismic Imaging of a Hydraulic Fracture in Diatomite , 1992 .

[19]  John W. Gephart,et al.  FMSI: a FORTRAN program for inverting fault/slickenside and earthquake focal mechanism data to obtain the regional stress tensor , 1990 .

[20]  James N. Albright,et al.  Acoustic Emissions as a Tool for Hydraulic Fracture Location: Experience at the Fenton Hill Hot Dry Rock Site , 1982 .

[21]  W. D. Pennington,et al.  The evolution of seismic barriers and asperities caused by the depressuring of fault planes in oil and gas fields of South Texas , 1986 .

[22]  G. Pavlis,et al.  The mixed discrete‐continuous inverse problem: Application to the simultaneous determination of earthquake hypocenters and velocity structure , 1980 .

[23]  John W. Gephart,et al.  An improved method for determining the regional stress tensor using earthquake focal mechanism data: Application to the San Fernando Earthquake Sequence , 1984 .

[24]  Paul G. Richards,et al.  Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods , 1980 .

[25]  R. E. Thaden,et al.  Geologic map of the Cumberland City quadrangle, southern Kentucky , 1965 .

[26]  F. Cornet,et al.  Analysis of induced seismicity for stress field determination and pore pressure mapping , 1995 .

[27]  Mark D. Zoback,et al.  State of stress in the conterminous United States , 1980 .

[28]  David Oppenheimer,et al.  FPFIT, FPPLOT and FPPAGE; Fortran computer programs for calculating and displaying earthquake fault-plane solutions , 1985 .

[29]  R. Castle,et al.  Seismicity and faulting attributable to fluid extraction , 1976 .

[30]  P. Segall,et al.  Poroelastic stressing and induced seismicity near the Lacq gas field, southwestern France , 1994 .

[31]  Roy Baria,et al.  Monitoring the effects of hydraulic stimulation by microseismic event location: A case study , 1983 .

[32]  R. G. Keck,et al.  A Field Demonstration of Hydraulic Fracturing for Solids Waste Injection With Real-Time Passive Seismic Monitoring , 1994 .

[33]  James T. Rutledge,et al.  Induced microearthquake patterns and oil-producing fracture systems in the Austin chalk , 1998 .

[34]  James N. Albright,et al.  Subsurface Fracture Mapping Using Microearthquakes Detected During Primary Oil Production, Clinton County, Kentucky , 1994 .

[35]  A. Sinha.  Basement Tectonics 13 , 1999 .

[36]  P. Reasenberg,et al.  Response of Regional Seismicity to the Static Stress Change Produced by the Loma Prieta Earthquake , 1992, Science.

[37]  K. Evans.  Appalachian Stress Study: 3. Regional scale stress variations and their relation to structure and contemporary tectonics , 1989 .

[38]  Paul Segall,et al.  Induced stresses due to fluid extraction from axisymmetric reservoirs , 1992 .

[39]  M. Baker,et al.  Seismicity in the War-Wink gas field, Delaware Basin, west Texas, and its relationship to petroleum production , 1991 .

[40]  Lawrence W. Teufel,et al.  Effect of Reservoir Depletion And Pore Pressure Drawdown On In Situ Stress And Deformation In the Ekofisk Field, North Sea , 1991 .

[41]  Leigh House,et al.  Locating microearthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing in crystalline rock , 1987 .

[42]  J. grasso.  Mechanics of seismic instabilities induced by the recovery of hydrocarbons , 1992 .

[43]  C. V. Theis.  The relation between the lowering of the Piezometric surface and the rate and duration of discharge of a well using ground‐water storage , 1935 .

[44]  L. House,et al.  Microearthquakes induced by a hydraulic injection in sedimentary rock, East Texas , 1996 .

[45]  J. grasso,et al.  Ten years of seismic monitoring over a gas field , 1990 .

[46]  A. Holmes,et al.  Physics of the Earth , 1940, Nature.

[47]  Shaun D. Fitzgerald,et al.  A note on induced stress changes in hydrocarbon and geothermal reservoirs , 1998 .

[48]  Wayne D. Pennington,et al.  Induced seismic deformation in the Cogdell oil field of west Texas , 1989 .

[49]  M. Zoback,et al.  Stress field constraints on intraplate seismicity in eastern North America , 1992 .