Tomographic imaging in hydrocarbon reservoirs

Clastic reservoirs saturated with heavy oils have been observed to exhibit a marked relationship between velocity of propagation of acoustic waves and changes introduced by certain kinds of enhanced oil recovery procedures, including heating of the reservoir. This observation forms the basis for a method of monitoring the changes which occur in the reservoir when these enhanced oil recovery (EOR) procedures are used. New developments in diffraction tomographic imaging allow accurate, high‐resolution images to be obtained in hydrocarbon reservoirs, clearly delineating the zones affected by these enhanced oil recovery procedures. When both compressional and shear wave data can be obtained, additional physical parameters such as Poissons ratio can be reconstructed.