Pore Pressure Imaging & Analysis Services

Estimate pore pressure before drilling

Anticipate changes in pore pressure

Sudden, unexpected changes in pore pressure can cause considerable damage while drilling. Accurate pore pressure estimates are crucial for casing design, column height estimation, seal integrity analysis, and overpressure compartmentalization. To estimate pore pressure accurately, an integration of petrophysical logs, drilling data, seismic velocity data, and a rock physics model that properly transfers seismic velocity to effective stress is needed.

Integrated workflows

Our pore pressure imaging experts use an integrated workflow with a proprietary rock physics model to constrain tomography, resulting in a fit-for-purpose vertical velocity model that can be accurately converted to a high-resolution pore pressure volume. The rock physics model accounts for both mechanical and non-mechanical compaction mechanisms including compaction disequilibrium, clay diagenesis, lateral transfer, burial history, and hydrocarbon buoyancy. It is fully calibrated at intermediate steps when wells logs are available but also operable in regions where no downhole information exists.

An extended larger scale seismic velocity model converted to overpressure (OP). The overpressure feature suggests that the slow- and fast-velocity trends derived by tomography are plausible features caused by fluid connection along geologic horizons.

High-fidelity seismic imaging and pore pressure prediction assist with well placement and mitigate drilling risk in petroleum prospecting.

Overlay of pore pressure on a subsalt surface legacy model

Overlay of pore pressure on a subsalt surface pore-pressure-constrained model

Overlay of pore pressure (in ppg) on a subsalt surface for the legacy model (left) and pore-pressure-constrained model (right). Note the high pore pressure on the crest of the pore-pressure-constrained model caused by transmission of overpressure updip.

Minimizes uncertainty in the velocity analysis

Because pore pressure imaging is based on mapping seismic velocity to pore pressure, any uncertainty in the velocity model impacts both pore pressure prediction and the calibration of the pore pressure model. It is therefore important to minimize the uncertainty in the velocity model, especially in overpressured formations such as deep below salt and areas with shallow water flow.

Our integrated tomography workflow simultaneously performs velocity and pore pressure analysis to produce a single velocity model with reduced model uncertainty.

Models that scale to meet your needs: regional, semiregional, prospect level, and wellbore.

Estimates rock properties

When compared with conventional velocity modeling workflows that result in large windows of uncertainty, our method produces a velocity model that is better suited to both predict high fidelity pore pressures and be used as a starting point for seismic inversions, including AVO analysis.