Processing 3-C Heavy Oil Data for Shallow Shear-Wave Splitting Properties: Methods and Case Study

CSEG Recorder May 2012
Richard Bale, Tobin Marchand. Keith Wilkinson, Kurtis Wikel and Robert Kendall 

This paper describes several aspects of processing 3-C data to obtain anisotropy information from shear-wave splitting. This includes: analysis for unknown or uncertain field orientations of the receivers; a new method of splitting analysis which uses both radial and transverse component data to estimate the S1 direction, which is compared with a transverse only method; and some analysis of the difference between P-S1 and P-S2 imaging versus anisotropy-corrected “radial-prime” (R') imaging. Results of this splitting analysis to characterize changes in the reservoir of an active in-situ combustion project are provided as well. These results highlight the value of 3C data in thermal recovery projects.