Current status of seismic and borehole measurements for HDR/HWR development

Abstract

Seismic and borehole measurements provide significant information about HDR/HWR reservoirs that is useful for reservoir development, reservoir characterization, and performance evaluation. Both techniques have been widely used during all HDR/HWR development projects. Seismic measurements have advanced from making passive surface measurements during hydraulic fracturing to making passive observations from multiple boreholes during all phases of HDR/HWR development, as well as active seismic measurements to probe regions of the reservoir deemed to be of interest. Seismic data provide information about reservoir extent, locations and orientations of significant fractures, and areas of thermal drawdown. Recent advances include the ability to examine structures within the seismically active zone using statistics-based techniques and methods such as seismic tomography. Seismic method is the only means to obtain direct information about reservoir characteristics away from boreholes. Borehole measurements provide high-resolution information about reservoir characteristics in the vicinity of the borehole. The ability to make borehole measurements has grown during the course of HDR/HWR development as high temperature tools have been developed. Temperature logging, televiewer logs, and electrical property measurements have been made and shown to provide useful information about locations of fractures intersecting wellbores, and regions where water leaves and enters injection and production wellbores, respectively.