A case history of time-lapse 3D seismic surveys at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada

Time-lapse 3D seismic surveys were acquired across a bitumen field at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, during a production cycle (1990) and a steam-injection cycle (1992) of a thermal-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) program. We observed changes in interval traveltime and amplitude distributions between the processed surveys. We interpret the increased traveltimes observed over most of the injection survey to be a result of lowered interval velocities in the reservoir, caused primarily by higher temperature and lower effective pressure. Reflection-strength variations within the reservoir are present in each data set and change spatially between the surveys. In general, we interpret the amplitude anomalies seen only on the production survey to be caused by local free gas and the amplitude anomalies seen only on the injection survey, which are close to the perforation depths, to be caused by thin, vertically restricted steamed zones.

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