Subsalt Geomechanics and Pore Pressure Prediction

Colin Sayers, Richard Birchwood, Don Lee, Patrick Hooyman, Scott Leaney, Allan Campbell and Les Nutt,
Schlumberger
An accurate estimate of formation pore pressure is a key requirement for safe and economic drilling in
overpressured sediments, particularly in sub-salt wells. Since salt is impermeable, high pore pressure may
be trapped below the salt. Due to the isotropic nature of the stress field in salt, and the generally nonisotropic stress field around salt, stress contrasts occur at the edge of salt which can lead to drilling
problems. The horizontal stress may be reduced below the salt, leading to a reduced fracture stress. The
difference between the pore pressure and fracture stress (the allowable mud weight window) may therefore
be small below salt, and it is essential that the pore pressure be predicted as accurately as possible. If the
mud weight is too low, formation fluids may enter the wellbore that, in the worst case, could lead to loss of
the well. A mud weight that is too high could result in a low rate of penetration and fracturing of the
formation.
A pre-drill estimate of formation pore pressures can be made using a seismic velocity to pore pressure
transform, together with seismic velocities at the proposed well location [1]. Examples of such transforms
include those of Eaton [2] and Bowers [3]. These predictions can be updated while drilling the well, using
Measurements While Drilling (MWD), Logging While Drilling (LWD), or other drilling data. While pore
pressure techniques using seismic velocities are gaining wide industry acceptance, these methods often use
only the vertical component of stress to predict pore pressure, and neglect the tensorial nature of the total
stress. This assumption may not be appropriate below salt, since salt can perturb the total stress field,
leading to a minimum total horizontal stress that is significantly lower than total vertical stress see figure
1 [4].
For accurate predictions near salt, numerical techniques are used to compute the spatial variation in stresses
above, below and around the salt. This stress field analysis is combined with a velocity to pore pressure
transform that takes into account the full tensorial nature of the stresses below salt and exploits the
difference in sensitivity of P- and S-wave velocities to variations in vertical and horizontal stresses. The Pand S-wave velocities are transformed to pore pressure using a velocity to pore pressure transform that
postulates that the P- and S-wave velocities are functions of the effective stress tensor ij, which is defined
to be the difference between the total stress tensor, Sij, and the pore pressure, p,

ij = Sij p ij.

(1)

where ij=1 if i=j and 0 otherwise, and is a poroelastic constant.

This transformation is based on the fact that while vertically propagating P-waves are mostly sensitive to
changes in the component of the effective stress acting parallel to the direction of propagation, S-waves are
sensitive to changes in both the component of the effective stress acting parallel to the direction of
propagation and the component of the effective stress acting parallel to the direction of polarization. The
measurement of the P-wave and S-wave velocities allows both the vertical and minimum horizontal
effective stress components to be constrained, thus allowing a determination of the pore pressure and total
minimum stress (and, therefore, the fracture gradient) by combining the effective stress components with
the pore pressure according to equation (1). These transforms contain parameters which can be determined
using P- and S-wave velocities measured with sonic logs, ultrasonic measurements in the laboratory, or
borehole seismic measurements on the same or similar formations in offset wells.
Seismic velocities are often of poor quality below salt. When drilling within the salt, estimates of P- and Swave velocities below the salt can be significantly improved using look-ahead walkaway VSP methods [5,
6]. The idea is to acquire a walkaway survey with an array of three component receivers clamped in the salt
just above the base-of-salt interface. These data are then processed with a true amplitude sequence, the
base-of-salt P-p and P-s reflections are picked, amplitudes are extracted and these are then indexed by angle
of incidence derived from measured polarizations before inverting for sub-salt elastic parameters. The

AVA inversion is Bayesian and Monte Carlo, providing posterior uncertainty estimates in parameters:
compressional and shear wave impedance (Ip, Is) (or their ratio: Vp/Vs) and dip. Given a prior estimate of
sub-salt density (with uncertainty) inverted impedances are transformed to velocities. These velocities can
then be converted to pore pressure using the techniques described above. In this way accurate detection and
evaluation of subsalt overpressures can be done prior to exiting the salt.

Figure 1: Modeling results around a salt diapir [4]. A zone of high stress hugs the bottom of the salt diapir
(dark purple and orange zones [top]), and the fracture pressure is also low in this area (light and dark purple
zones [bottom]). A well trajectory (green) was selected to avoid this problem area.
References
[1] Sayers, C.M., Johnson, G.M. and Denyer, G., 2002, Predrill pore pressure prediction using seismic data:
Geophysics, 67, 1286-1292.
[2] Bowers, G.L., 1995, Pore pressure estimation from velocity data: Accounting for pore pressure
mechanisms besides undercompaction, SPE Drilling and Completion (June) 89-95.
[3] Eaton, B.A., 1975, The equation for geopressure prediction from well logs: Paper SPE 5544, Society of
Petroleum Engineers.
[4] Ali A.H.A., Brown T., Delgado R., Lee D., Plumb D., Smirnov N., Marsden J.R., Prado-Velarde E.,
Ramsay L., Spooner D., Stone T., Stouffer T., 2003, Watching rocks change - Mechanical earth modelling;
Oilfield Review, Summer 2003, Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 22-39
[5] Leaney, W.S, Hornby, B., Campbell, A.J., Viceer, S., Albertin, M., Malinverno, A., 2004, Sub-salt
velocity prediction with a look-ahead AVO walkaway, 74th Ann. Internat. Mtg.: Soc. of Expl. Geophys.
2474-2476
[6] Leaney, W.S., and Hornby, B., 2006, Subsalt elastic velocity prediction with a look-ahead AVA
walkaway, OTC 17857, presented at the 2006 Offshore Technology Conference held in Houston, 1 - 4 May
2006.