Fracture characterization by seismic anisotropy analysis at Awali anticline structure, Bahrain: Case Study

The Amplitude Versus Azimuthal AVAZ analysis has proved to be an important tool for characterizing fracture distributions and orientations of hydrocarbon reservoirs. This paper is aiming at the application of this tool for characterizing the fractures in Bahrain field reservoirs. Better understanding of faults and fractures distribution is essential to optimize EOR strategy and reservoir management. Regional analysis is possible by looking at faults distribution characterized by structural attributes analysis validated by regional stress and geological information. The investigation at local scale is more cumbersome but an Amplitude Variation with Azimuth (AVAz) method based on azimuthal Fourier Coefficients (FCs) proves to be a simple and powerful tool to characterize fractures distribution validated by FMI data. The anisotropy information was then used to update and improve the reservoir model long production history matching.