CO2 characterization at the Sleipner field with full waveform inversion: application to synthetic and real data

In this work, we evaluate the effectiveness of using a Full Waveform Inversion (FWD algorithm to image CO2 accumulated in thin layers at the Sleipner field. In a first stage, a feasibility study is carried out on synthetic data to assess the capability of FWI to resolve thin CO2 layers. The results suggest that the method can be useful to improve the resolution of the velocity model and help in better characterizing both velocities and thicknesses of the CO2 bearing layers. In a second stage, the method is applied to the Sleipner real data. The results derived from FWI, using frequencies up to 40 Hz, provide clear indications about the geometry and the lateral extent of the CO2 plume. In a third stage, the inversion results are used to perform pre-stack depth migration. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).