Proceedings of the Second International Energy 2030 Conference,
November 4-5, 2008, Abu Dhabi, UAE

A Study of Permeability and Velocity Anisotropy in Carbonates

M. Saleh
The Petroleum Institute, UAE

M. Prasad
Colorado School of Mines, USA

S. Vega
The Petroleum Institute, UAE

R. Sharma
Colorado School of Mines, USA

Abstract
The ability to predict permeability anisotropy through seismic can assist engineers in having a deeper understanding of fluid flow dynamics and developing oil fields. However, carbonate rocks, which constitute important petroleum reservoirs in the Middle East, have complex textures and properties distribution due to their diagenetic processes. Indeed, relationships between seismic properties and permeability need to be better understood. Hence, this study investigates the relationship between permeability and seismic velocity anisotropy. An experimental procedure to measure this anisotropy on a set of samples from a carbonate reservoir is presented. The relationship between permeability and seismic velocity is complex. Compressional (P-wave) velocity response was found to be independent of permeability anisotropy. However, a trend was observed between the shear (S-wave) velocity and permeability at each measurement location in some samples. An inverse relationship was found between shear velocity and permeability when the velocity is measured perpendicular to the preferential permeability direction, whereas the relationship was proportional when the velocity is measured parallel to the preferential permeability direction. This could have important applications in application of seismic multicomponents integrated to reservoir simulation.