The role and value of 'high-impact biostratigraphy' in reservoir appraisal and development

This paper is part of the special publication No.152, Biostratigraphy in production and development geology. (eds: R.W. Jones and M.D. Simmons). Over recent years change in the application of biostratigraphy in the reservoir appraisal and development arena have greatly increased the impact and value of the discipline, giving it a central role in integrated reservoir description. These changes include placing emphasis on local field-scale bioevents to erect a reservoir framework of time slices through which reservoir heterogeneity can be modelled and the application of biosteering to maximize reservoir penetration. In addition, palaeoenvironmentally diagnostic benthonic microfacies are used to model the lateral continuity of intra- reservoir mudstones in an attempt to understand their potential as baffles/barriers to fluid flow. The evolution of this cost-effective methodology is discussed by reference to three Palaeocene turbidite reservoirs from the North Sea UK continental shelf (UKCS); the Donan, Forties and Andrew fields.