Geological and geophysical analyses of the different reasons for DHI failure case in the Nile Delta Pliocene section

Abstract

© 2018, The Author(s). The shallow clastic section in the Nile Delta is characterized by mild velocity variations. The relationship between the expected velocity reduction in the gas reservoir rocks and the encompassing shale is responsible for acoustic impedance contrast, predictable to a particular AVO-class. In class-3AVO, the bright spot is a result of great reduction in velocity increase due to differences between high-velocity encompassing shale and relatively low-velocity reservoir sand. The class-3AVO characterizes a strong seismic amplitude appearance in the full stack section and with similar characteristic view of AVO analysis and interpretation. In addition to the strong amplitude, there are different DHI features related to the gas occurrence. These DHI features are analyzed to achieve and deliver a successful exploratory well. The DHI analysis of one of the unsuccessful cases using recent 3-D seismic data clarifies the importance of the workflow that works for exploring types of anomalies in the Nile Delta. The anomaly is drilled mainly based on an explicit high-amplitude anomaly with local flat spot, but without taking into consideration the extent of DHI characteristics, inherent to gas occurrence in the Nile Delta. Authors investigate all the features related to this unproven case in the form of a postmortem and compare it with proven existing discoveries, to know the possible reason of unsuccessful DHI anomalies in the Nile Delta.