Exxonmobil Upstream Research Company

Xiaoxia Xu

Dominique Gillard

Max Deffenbaugh

Weichang Li

Ganglin Chen

Enru Liu

Yaping Zhu

Fuping Zhou

Kaushik Bandyopadhyay

A system and method to predict rock strength by directly inverting for petrophysical properties. In one embodiment, seismic data is received or obtained from a seismic survey (step). The seismic data are then conditioned (step) in order to prepare them for an inversion process (step). The inversion process has an embedded rock physics model that allows the inversion to be formulated based upon, and thereby outputting or calculating (step), petrophysical properties. Rock strength data may then be calculated from the petrophysical properties (step).

Method for predicting rock strength by inverting petrophysical properties

A hydrocarbon exploration method for determining subsurface properties from geophysical survey data. Rock physics trends are identified and for each trend a rock physics model is determined that relates the subsurface property to geophysical properties (). The uncertainty in the rock physics trends is also estimated (). A geophysical forward model is selected (), and its uncertainty is estimated (). These quantities are used in an optimization process () resulting in an estimate of the subsurface property and its uncertainty.

Method for estimating subsurface properties from geophysical survey data using physics-based inversion

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Xiaoxia Xu