Application of CEEMD-based Attenuation Estimation and Wavelet-based Cepstrum Decomposition in Shale Gas Reservoir Characterization

Shale gas resources have increasingly played an important role in natural gas resources. Thus, the characterization of shale gas gains significance. Since the most conventional reservoir characterization methods lose their superiority in reflecting the weak seismic response in shale gas reservior, we attempt use two special adaptive high-resolution methods: CEEMD-based attenuation estimation and wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition to describe the characterization of shale formations from seismic data in a shale gas reservoir in the Sichuan Basin, China. We found the amplitude and attenuation are sensitive to the shale gas reservoir. We estimate the amplitude anomaly using wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition and the attenuation with CEEMD-based attenuation gradient technology. Shale gas reservoir prediction in Sichuan basin is conducted by the combination of evaluating the attenuation, the amplitude anomalies, total organic carbon content (TOC) and brittleness and the reservoir thickness. The results show that the application of CEEMD-based attenuation estimation and wavelet-based cepstrum decomposition methods can successfully give a better preliminary assessment of reservoir from seismic data.