Pore and Fracture Pressure Predictions: Improving Techniques for a more Integrated Workflow

Romain Courel¹, Francis Reverdy¹, Bernard Bénazet², Christine Brunel², and Maria Zweigert^3
1 TOTAL E&P Geoscience Division, Petroleum Systems Unit, Paris
² TOTAL E&P Subsurface Department, Pau Technical Center
³ TOTAL E&P R&D Division, Pau Technical Center

Pore and Frac pressure prediction has gained operational importance in recent years, due to an increased focus of exploration in deeply buried reservoirs: New technologies compete to tackle the difficulties associated with more uncertain targets.

Total’s answer to these new challenges is:

- An increased investment in the development of each individual technique involved in geopressure prediction: high resolution seismic velocity picking, basin modelling and geomechanics.

- To develop ways of integrating these different techniques because they are often used at the limit of their application domain.

Different examples of prognosis from deepwater or HP domains are presented and compared to drilling results in order to emphasize the validity, pitfalls and complementary nature of the techniques used.

AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa 2008 © AAPG Search and Discovery