Indirect Monitoring of Hydrocarbon Reservoir Deformations by Measuring Ground Surface Movements

摘要

Subsurface pressure changes generated during hydrocarbon production, waste/water reinjection will induce surface movements. It is important to predict these induced surface deformations. On the other hand, surface deformation monitoring can be applied to indirectly monitor subsurface deformations. Two numerical models were developed in this study based on the unidirectional deformation technique: 1) direct model: predicts induced surface deformations due to reservoir volumetric changes; 2) inverse model: simulates subsurface volume changes using surface deformation measurements. In order to solve the inverse ill-posed problem, a regularization technique was developed in this study. A detailed sensitivity analysis was also performed to determine the most suitable surface deformation measurement resulting in the best inverse simulation. Tilt measurements we found to be better input than vertical displacements for modeling subsurface deformations.