Use of passive seismic to identify oil-bearing reservoirs in the Udmurt Republic, Russia

Abstract

Currently, the level of oil production in the Udmurt Republic is on a declining trend, due to the depletion of large and medium-sized oil fields that have been operated for a long time. Therefore the main challenge in this region is to stabilize & increase oil extraction by means of exploring more promising oil fields of small size. However, some issues cause difficulties. Firstly, 2D and 3D seismic data often do not provide the reliable mapping of small fields. Secondly, geological prospecting and exploration, along with exploratory drilling, make these works costly. Also, the reserves’ estimation for such deposits often contains errors. Passive seismic is proposed to solve these problems, reducing exploratory and exploitation drilling in cost, with the time required for geological exploration being diminished.