Surgical Mapping of Subtle Carbonate Trap Plays at a Jurassic Intrashelf Basin Margin Using Seismic Chronostratigraphy and Semi-Automatic Techniques

The search for elusive and subtle carbonate stratigraphic traps on the Arabian carbonate platform in the Middle East continues apace to bolster oil and gas exploration in the supply of energy to the world. To support this search for exploration plays within basin-wide intrashelf basins that transcend international boundaries, significant strides are made applying innovative technologies during exploration phases. A surgical mapping procedure is presented to investigate subtle, grainstone-dominated, stratigraphic traps and associated geobodies across prograding systems of a section of a wider Arabian Platform intrashelf basin. The aim is to apply innovative, integrated, seismic and well log analytical techniques, utilizing Machine Learning algorithms and sequence stratigraphy principles, to locate subtle, grainstone-dominated reservoir sequences that trend across a platform margin, to deeper water settings. A reprocessed, post-stack, 3D seismic volume is integrated with core and biostratigraphy data targeting stacked, composite sequences. Key regional unconformities, well cores, biostratigraphy and electrofacies log data from seven wells, are tied to seismic data to deconstruct the architecture of key depositional sequences. A seismic chronostratigraphy cube is generated from dense sets of horizons throughout the seismic. Selected horizons in Relative Geological Time (RGT) are targeted within the seismic chronostratigraphy cube for detailed assessment using Unsupervised Seismic facies, Spectral Decomposition and Curvature seismic attribute analyses tied to electrofacies well log data.