SPE 28034

Basin scale rock mechanics: Logs and core measurements

A.RMarsala, G.Ragazzini, O.Meazza, M.Brignoli & RISantarelli, Agip, San Donato, Italy
Copyright 1994. Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 1994 Eurock SPE/ISRM Rock Mechanics in
Petroleum Engineering Conference held in Delft, The Netherlands, 29-31 August 1994.
ABSTRACT: The Northern Adriatic basin contains a great number of developed fields at depth ranging
between 1000 and 4000 meters, and a comprehensive geophysical, petrophysical and mechanical
characterization of these weakly consolidated formations was carried out. For 15 wells cored in the pay
zones, a systematic campaign of core measurements was undertaken and comparison between logs and cores
made. Typical log programmes contained porosity, gamma ray, resistivity and sonic, including full
waveforms and dipole. In the laboratory typical core measurements consisted of density, porosity,
permeability, residual oil saturation, formation resistivity factor, granulometry, clay content, ultrasonic
velocity measurements along with triaxial and oedometric tests. Empirical correlations and statistical analysis
of this entire database at the scale of a geological unit is presented.
1. INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND
A major problem encountered by rock mechanics in
all of its industrial applications, including
tunnelling, mining, surface civil engineering, etc., is
the scarcity of relevant experimental observations at
the level of both the field and the laboratory. A
direct consequence is that the needed integration of
rock mechanics into day to day design engineering
remains largely underdeveloped. Such an
unfortunate state of affairs is nowhere more acute
than in the field of petroleum engineering for
obvious reasons.
i. The rock of interest is usually burled at depth of
several thousands of meters making any direct
observation extremely difficult if not
impossible. The rock mechanics characterization
of formations is therefore based on the
converging interpretation of a series of indirect
observations such as drilling performance,
cuttings characterization, logs, core
measurements, etc. [1].
ii. The activities of a given company are often
spread out allover the world, in vastly different
geological and operational environments. This
further contributes to the dilution of the already
scarce information which could be useful to
apply rock mechanics to solve specific
problems.
iii. In most corporations, rock mechanics is being
handled by a small team of specialists based in
central office, because it cannot be attached to
any specific branch of petroleum engineering
such as drilling, reservoir, production, etc., and
is therefore not thought after by operating
branches. This lack of awareness at the level of
operations often means that rock mechanics
related problems remain unheard of by those
who could solve them.
105
This paper presents a pilot study aimed at
addressing the problems raised in points ii. and iii.,
in order to provide rock mechanics based
operational guidelines within a minimum time-
frame to engineers without any specific formation in
the field of rock mechanics. The idea was to
concentrate all direct and indirect available rock
mechanics information at a scale which would have
both an industrial and a technical relevance. The
criteria used during the selection of such a scale
-i.e. a geological basin- will be presented in Section
2. Section 3 will present the geological background
of the Northern Adriatic basin upon which this pilot
approach was performed. Section 4 will introduce
the most relevant rock mechanics and petrophysical
measurements performed on cores. Finally, Section
5 will analyse the data and it will be shown how the
adopted scale -i.e. a well known consistent
geological environment- can be used as a frame to
interpret all empirical correlations. The practical
application of such an approach, in the case of sand
production prediction, is illustrated in a twin paper
presented at the same conference [2].
2. SELECTION OF THE SCALE
As implied by the previous section, a scale at which
data would be gathered and analysed had to be
chosen with the idea of optimizing the operational
return derived from such an exercise. When
analyzing the literature four such scales appear
clearly:
i. numerous in depth studies have been performed
at the scale of a single well where operational
problems such as wellbore stability, sand
production, etc. had occurred in order to be able
to identify the mechanisms at the origin of the
problems such as to cure them on subsequent
similar wells [3-5];
ii. studies can also be performed at the scale of an
entire reservoir because it is anticipated that its
development and production will trigger
problems such as wellbore instabilities,
subsidence, etc.; in that respect, the North Sea
Field of Ekoftsk is exemplary and may be the
most widely published reservoir of the entire
industry -e.g. [6-8];
iii. data can also be gathered in a world wide
database such as in the case of stress mapping
over entire continents -e.g. [9]- or when an
operator tries to identify within its own datasets
correlations between rock properties -e.g. [10]
in the domain of sand production- or when
published data are used [11];
iv. ftnally, the domain of in situ stresses gives us an
interesting example where workers -e.g. [12-
14]- try to gather data at the scale of a coherent
geological unit and to establish the link between
such stresses and geological features such as to
derive some sort of logical pattern.
The ftrst two scales (single well or reservoir) were
rejected because, whilst they are the most adapted to
the study of speciftc problems, they are too limited
for a general exercise such as the one described
here. The third scale (worldwide) usually reveals
obvious general trends which have limited
operational impacts. The last scale (a coherent
geological unit or "geological basin") immediately
appeared as the most attractive for several reasons:
i. From an industrial point of view, successful
exploration is often linked with the
understanding of the internal geological logic of
a basin which, in turn, results in a concentration
of operations in such a unit when the ftelds are
brought into production.
ii. Such concentrated operations results in a pre-
concentration of data making the gathering
much easier.
iii. Furthermore, a concentration of operations also
results in a concentration of rock mechanics
related problems and an increased need to
provide satisfactory solutions to them.
IV. Finally, the example of in situ stress
measurements often reveals a link with
geological features and it was hoped that such a
pattern would repeat itself for other data -e.g.
tectonic, consolidation, diagenesis, etc.
3. GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE
SELECTED BASIN
For many years now, Agip has developed a series of
gas reservoirs in the Northern and Central parts of
the Adriatic Sea and it has long been recognised that
they all corresponded to a single geological unit
which will be named in this paper the Northern
Adriatic Basin. Before describing the geology of the
basin let us present some industrial factors which
contributed to its choice for the pilot study
presented therein.
A large number of ftelds has been developed in the
basin at depths ranging from 1000 to 4500 m. Long
106
term experience has revealed many important rock
mechanics related problems during field
development such as wellbore stability (oil based
mud is used on many wells with the need to ship all
cuttings onshore in a zero discharge area), sand
production [2] (many wells are equipped with sand
control after some dramatic sand production had
stopped production on entire platforms) and
subsidence [15] (of particular concern for the
coastal fields in the sensitive Ravenna area). As
more marginal fields are brought into production
[16], the need to optimize the technical solutions to
handle such problems appears every day more
crucial and so does a proper evaluation of the rock
mechanical environment which provokes them.

+.
0
K ..
150
.
Figure 1 - The Northern Adriatic basin [16].
The Adriatic basin -see map of Figure 1- is
considered to be an undeformed remnant of the
African promontory (Apulia plate) which acted as a
foreland for both the Apennine and Dinaride thrust
belts -see the geological cross section of Figure 2
[16]. The sedimentary sequence consists of
Mesozoic carbonates and Tertiary terrigenous
deposits. The basin itself was deposited during the
Pliocene, Pleistocene and Quaternary periods in a
turbiditic deltaic environment by the Po river; the
hydrocarbons that are trapped, consist of pure and
isotropically-light dry methane.
Moreover after the sedimentation process, the basin
does not seem to have been uplifted nor to have
been affected by any kind of relevant tectonic event;
the most characteristic geological factors for this
area could be summarized as follows:
Turbiditic sedimentation.
No tectonized environment
Cold thermal regime
A typical feature of this basin is that the gas
accumulations occur in mUlti-pay zone reservoirs;
the pay layers consist of sandy formations without
any kind of cementative materials (neither of
calcareous nor of siliceous type), the coherence of
this rock being due essentially to compaction. The
seal above the reservoirs consist of thin beds of
shale often less than 1m thick.
ADRIATIC FORELAND
COAST
!.WE
Figure 2 - A typical geological cross section of the
Northern Adriatic basin [16].
The mineralogy of the reservoir rocks show a
mixture of sands, silts, shaley sands and silty shales.
In particular the clay fraction typically contains
large proportions of smectite, illite and mixed
layers; nevertheless owing to the cold thermal
regime and to the insufficient in situ stress level,
typical smectite/illite transition seems to have
occurred before the sedimentary process. In this
way any kind of in-situ cementation phenomenon
related to such a transition effect has to be
excluded.
4. LOGS AND CORE MEASUREMENTS
In the Northern Adriatic basin more than 50 gas
reservoirs were developed at different depth, giving
a deep insight in the most extended italian off-shore
area, and providing a wealth of data to build upon to
construct the database described here. For this
purpose 15 wells were selected on which a complete
and systematic campaign of logs and core
measurements was conducted. The selection of the
wells was made in such a way so that to cover not
only the entire area of the basin, but also the
complete range of depth of the reservoirs.
A typical log campaign, usually consisted of a y-ray
(OR) along with a sonic (SLS) and a resistivity
(AIT) log. Moreover a deepmeter (SHDT) was often
included in the program. Cased holes were
systematically loged to check the cement bond
107
(CBLNDL). In the pay zones, density (LDL),
porosity (CNL) and electromagnetic propagation
logs (EPT) were run to complete the petrophysical
characterization of the reservoir formations.
Four inches cores were taken from the pay zones of
all the wells, sealed inside fibreglass tubes and
shipped to the laboratories. Here a 'Y-ray log was
recorded on each core, compared to the one
recorded downhole for the purpose of depth
correlation.
However, in these particular rock formations, clay
minerals may affect the results of this comparison,
so porosity data were also used to improve depth
determination on cores.
For reservoir study purposes, porosity
measurements were performed on plugs sampled
every 30 cm. Typical porosity values of the sandy
formations constituting the reservoirs ranged from
15% to 40%. To complete the routine petrophysical
characterization of the cores, permeability
measurements were conducted on plugs sampled
with the same frequency both parallel and
orthogonal to the core axis (typical permeability
values of the reservoir rocks range from 20 to 600
mD). Residual oil saturation and formation
resistivity factor were measured where it was
possible, while grain density was measured every 30
cm.
Because the reservoir sands are uncemented, and
may have to be produced with sand control
completions, systematic granulometry
measurements were performed by two different
methodologies: x-ray diffraction and laser
intereferometry. Clay content quantification was
therefore possible using data measured by the two
different methodologies, keeping in mind that laser
interferometry is only able to detect the radii of
dispersed particles whilst x-ray diffraction cannot
discriminate between dispersed and attached clay
particles.
In order to better characterize, from both
petrophysical and mechanical standpoints, the
poorly consolidated plugs and to calibrate and
interpret the sonic logs (SLS) recorded in the wells,
non traditional petrophysical measurements were
performed on several samples. Transit times for
both compressional and two shear waves were
measured on dry and brine saturated plugs which
had been brought back at first . to reserVoir
temperature (less than 80C) with a rate of one
degree per minute and then to reservoir pressures by
a stepwise increase of confining and pore pressures
(reservoir net pressure ranged from 5 to 30 MPa).
Extreme care was taken to prepare the
unconsolidated samples avoiding to damage them
and thus allowing the obtention of representative
results. For all measurements, a frequency of 1 MHz
was used. During the ultrasonic tests the volume of
the brine displaced by the stress increase from the
sample was measured and the corresponding
porosity reduction calculated. Typical values ranged
between 5 and 15% of the initial porosity. Such
data were not analyzed further in so far as the rock
compressibility does not usually play a role in the
recovery of gas; this would not stand for oil
reservoirs.
Consolidated drained triaxial tests were performed
on selected sand plugs saturated with formation
brine and the complete stress-strain curves were
drawn, for different confining stress conditions. For
each depth, four levels of confining pressure were
used: namely 0.5 MPa, ~ O ' h " O'h', MO'h' (where O'h'
is the minimum horizontal effective in situ stress).
Uniaxial compression tests were not included in the
programme because the reservoir sands were too
unconsolidated. Because of the intrinsic weakness
of the material, systematic unloading/reloading
cycles were performed at preset levels of deviatoric
stress in order to differentiate between reversible
and irreversible deformation. In some cases,
ultrasonic velocity measurements were conducted at
the same time of the triaxial tests to allow a direct
comparison between dynamic and static properties.
As already mentioned, subsidence estimation is an
important issue for many costal reservoirs and
oedometric tests were conducted in order to quantify
the compaction effect related to effective stress
increase provoked by reservoir depletion. In some
cases even the shaly formations of the cap-rock
were tested in order to quantify possible effects on
subsidence phenomena. Nevertheless in this paper
the data measured during such tests will not be
presented even though they have been integrated in
the global database.
In conclusion we can summarize that for each well
in the database are allowable the following
parameters: porosity, density and compressional and
shear wave velocities from both cores and logs;
grain size distribution., mineralogical analysis,
108
penneability and complete stress-strain curves from
cores.
5. DATA ANALYSIS
Figure 3 shows a typical result of a series of four
triaxial test on cores: the minimum effective in-situ
stress was 20 MPa and it is clear that the brittle to
ductile transition takes place when the confining
stress of the test overcomes this value. This almost
systematic transition at the level of the minimum
effective in-situ stress led to think that the basin was
nonnally consolidated.
w
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I :--,_<--".-.--- .. ---t-_ . -_- .. M=M'a==1l
I' " ,,'
20 .. CP: 10!\Fa _
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t i':'
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"'iii
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-- CP:40M'a _
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Axial SIrain, %
Figure 3 - Stress-strain curves at different confining
pressures (CP); brittle to ductile transition is
revealed.

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.
fi:,
:. .


o 1000 4000
Ver1icaI Depb, m
Figure 4 - Porosity versus vertical depth in the
Northern Adriatic basin.
Further indication of the nonnal consolidation of the
basin was revealed by the porosity vs. depth trend of
Figure 4 and the UCS vs. depth correlation (Figure
5): in both cases the direct dependence of the
petrophysical and mechanical properties upon
compaction is due not only to the deposition process
but also to the absence of any effect of cementation
phenomena.
ro
.
R<awesy: l00"/'
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90%<Reaney<I00"/'
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Ra:owIy<90%
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j
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o 1000 4000
Ver1icaI Depb, m
Figure 5 - Uniaxial Compressive Strength versus
depth; recovery factors are indicated.
However the UCS versus depth plot of Figure 5
shows two trends with some cores having a lower
value of uniaxial compressive strength with respect
to depth. Because of the relatively cold thennal
regime and because of the environmental conditions
any kind of in-situ chemical transition between
smectite and illite can be excluded, therefore the
two trends of Figure 5 can not be explained
assuming different quartzic cementating process
linked to clay minerals transitions. Moreover, the
lack of calcareous sediments in the basin, further
excludes the other major cementation process and
the double trend of Figure 5 must Imd another
explanation. Further analysis of the data of Figure 5
reveals that for the apparently weaker rocks, the
brittle to ductile transition occurs far below the
minimum effective in-situ stress or, in some cases
the rock may even show no transition at all and have
a ductile behaviour even at the lowest confining
pressures.
109
Checking the recovery factors of the cores
belonging to this lower trend and exhibiting this
type of abnonnally low brittle to ductile transition,
it was demonstrated that they were systematically
lower than the expected 100%. The two-fold trend
of Figure 5 is therefore the result of core damage,
which induced unreliable, apparently weaker, rock
strength data. Such an explanation was further
confinned when a study simulating core damage on
weak artificial sandstones tailored to mimic those of
the Adriatic showed similar losses of strength and
lower brittle to ductile transitions in case of
damaged cores [17].
Shear waves velocities (V s), measured on both dry
and brine saturated plugs, were not affected -as
expected- by the fluid presence. Their values
ranged from 1100 to 2000 mls. A small anisotropy
(a few percents) of the selected plugs was revealed
by the shear waves polarized in ortogonal
directions.
..!!!
E
1
...
oS
>-
4000
3000
2000
1000
IS
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.
~
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~

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.,

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g
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.. .

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35 4S
Porosity, %
Figure 6 - Compressional (Vp) and Shear (Vs)
ultrasonic wave velocities vs. Porosity (laboratory
measurements on fully saturated samples).
The compressional wave velocities (Vp) increased
by about 20% reaching the value of 3600 mls for the
plugs subjected to the higher net pressure -Le. these
cored in the deeper zone of the basin. VpNs ratio
ranged from about 1.6 in the higher part of the basin
to about 1.8 in the deeper one. The quite good
exponential trend with an high correlation
coefficient (r=0.7) observed between velocities
(compressional and shear) and porosity (see Figure
6) allowed their respective matrix values to be
extrapolated at zero porosity. These values (4900
mls and 2900 mls respectively) confirmed the
validity of the inverted Raymer equation applied to
the experimental data. The dynamic elastic moduli,
calculated at reservoir conditions, are representative
of typical unconsolidated formations (Shear
Modulus: 3-9 GPa, Bulk Modulus: 7-17 GPa,
Young Modulus: 7-22 GPa and Poisson Ratio:
0.27-0.35 going from 1000 to 4000 m of depth in
the Adriatic basin).
The good trend observed between plugs
permeability and elastic wave velocities (see Figure
7) and the non linear correlation between
compressional velocity and bulk density at reservoir
conditions permitted the petrophysical properties of
the plugs to be estimated from the dynamic moduli.
All these good correlations are likely to be due to
110
the simple geological history of the basin, i.e.
normal consolidations, lack of tectonics and of
diagenesis, as already mentioned.
4000
..!!!
3000
E
.;;
-
VpSllt
..
:e
c Vssat
...
Q '---,--
'il 2000
>
1('"
. 10
.'
.
. . ,
0
0
o on
100
~ , m
.
.
0
,
1000
Figure 7 - Compressional (Vp) and Shear (Vs)
ultrasonic wave velocities vs. Permeability
(laboratory measurements on fully saturated
samples).
The critical frequency values (below one KHz),
calculated according to the Biot theory considering
both the fluids and the petrophysical properties,
allowed to compare directly log and laboratory
velocities both belonging to the same frequency
limit.
The correlation coefficients between the main
petrophysical and mechanical parameters included
in the database are given in Table 1. The cross
correlation clearly shows the direct dependence of
the rock strength (UCS) upon porosity (r=0.87) and
the clear link between porosity and depth (r=0.86)
due to the normal consolidation of the basin.
Table 1 - Correlation coefficients.
Vert. Depth
UCS
Young's Mod.
Porosity lab
Porosity log
Clay cont lab
Clay cont log
Dtclog
Northern Adriatic Sea
Cross correlation
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1.00
0.75 1.00
0.57 0.79 1.00
0.86 0.87 0.77 1.00
0.58 0.40 0.26 0.73 1.00
0.10 0.20 0.20 0.33 0.26
0.10 0.17 0.14 0.17 0.49
0.85 0.54 0.33 0.69 0.64
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0.36
0.10
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1.00
0.64 1
However, when considering the log determined
porosities, the correlation coefficients become quite
poor (r=0.4 for the UCS - porosity log). Among
several explanations for this phenomenon, it is
believed that the main reason for this apparent
paradox is linked to the fact that the Adriatic
reservoirs are composed of thinly interbeded
formations. This heterogeneity results in:
the difficulty to correlate core depth and log
depth with high precision;
the fact that core and log measurements are
made at two widely different scales.
Systematic specific statistical data treatments are
currently being developed by Agip to overcome
these difficulties. From a rock mechanics point of
view, index test are currently being developed as
routine core measurements with a large sampling
frequency, thus allowing the above mentioned
statistical data treatment to be used.
6. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a pilot study to try to
elaborate and interpret a rock property database at
the scale of a coherent geological unit -namely the
Northern Adriatic basin. The main conclusions
which can be drawn from such a pilot study are the
following:
the geological logic of the selected basin can be
used as a screen to allow the interpretation of
the data within the database;
for example, in the case of the Northern Adriatic
basin, it has been demonstrated that depth and
compaction alone controlled both porosity and
strength of the rocks, thus leading to close
correlation of the two parameters;
specific trends valid for the entire region can be
established reliably -e.g. the porosity/sonic/
permeability trends- thus allowing a reduced
data acquisition campaign on future reservoirs;
when confronted with operational request
demanding urgent answers, the most significant
analogue can easily be identified and a complete
rock characterisation estall?lished within a few
minutes only thus allowing meaningful
engineering decision to be made in time;
such a database can further be used to check the
validity of models of various types -e.g. sand
production prediction models;
general engineering guidelines can be drawn
rather easily from such a database as
demonstrated by a twin paper presented at the
same conference [2].
This feasibility being proven in the case of a basin
with a simple history, it is intended to renew the
experience in other geographical sectors where Agip
has important operational activities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Agip S.p.A. for the
permission to publish this paper and to express their
sincere gratitude to all the colleagues that made this
work possible.
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111
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