Application of Full Wavefield Inversion to 4D Seismic Data - Workflow and Field Data Examples

Advances in full wavefield inversion (FWI), 4D seismic technology, and depth migration of seismic data have led to the application of FWI to 4D seismic data in which time lapse changes of velocity model can be directly obtained from the data. It has been shown that correcting for velocity changes due to production in depth migration improves 4D imaging repeatability. In this paper, we present a detailed workflow to correct for large acoustic velocity changes due to production using the FWI 4D results. Through FWI 4D application, we achieved seismic processing cycle time reduction in a recent 4D seismic project. We have also tested the FWI 4D methodology in areas of poor seismic repeatability due to production facility obstruction to seismic data acquisition.