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Estimation of the shear-wave velocity of shale-oil reservoirs: a case study of the Chang 7 member in the Ordos basin

ZHIJIAN FANG1 ,  JING BA1* ,  JOSÉ M. CARCIONE1,2 ,  WENSHAN LIU1 ,  CHANGSHENG WANG3
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1 School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, P.R. China.,
2 National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), Trieste, Italy.,
3 Exploration and Development Research Institute of PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, Shanxi, Xi’an 710018, P.R. China.,
JSE 2022, 31(1), 81–104;
Submitted: 9 June 2025 | Revised: 9 June 2025 | Accepted: 9 June 2025 | Published: 9 June 2025
© 2025 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Fang, Z.J., Ba, J., Carcione, J.M., Liu, W.S. and Wang, C.S., 2022. Estimation of the shear-wave velocity of shale-oil reservoirs: a case study of the Chang 7 member in the Ordos basin. Journal of Seismic Exploration, 31: 81-104. The absence of shear-wave (S-wave) log data restricts the geophysical characterization and fluid identification of Chang 7 shale-oil reservoirs in Ordos Basin, and we have to make use of suitable rock-physics theories to overcome this problem. We reformulate the Xu-White model by combining the critical-porosity and Maxwell-BISQ models to predict the S-wave velocity, where the BISQ model includes a non-Newtonian (Maxwell) fluid. The approach takes into account rock composition, pore structure, fluid properties and saturation. Three wells with S-wave log data are considered to verify the feasibility of the method. The results show that the proposed reformulated approach is suitable for S-wave velocity estimation.

Keywords
shale oil
S-wave velocity prediction
Maxwell fluid
Xu-White model
critical porosity model
BISQ model
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Electronic ISSN: 0963-0651 Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing
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