Monitoring surface deformation over oilfield using MT-InSAR and production well data

Abstract: Surface displacements associated with the average subsidence due to hydrocarbon exploitation in southwest of Iran which has a long history in oil production, can lead to significant damages to surface and subsurface structures, and requires serious consideration. In this study, the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) approach, which is a multi-temporal Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) algorithm was employed to resolve ground deformation in the Marun region, Iran. A total of 22 interferograms were generated using 10 Envisat ASAR images. The mean velocity map obtained in the Line-Of-Sight (LOS) direction of satellite to the ground reveals the maximum subsidence on order of 13.5 mm per year over the field due to both tectonic and non-tectonic features. In order to assess the effect of non-tectonic features such as petroleum extraction on ground surface displacement, the results of InSAR have been compared with the oil production rate, which have shown a good agreement.