T: E: W:

+44 191 383 7360 info@ikonscience.com www.ikonscience.com September 2012

AAPG ICE | 16-19 September 2012 Theme 2: Trap, Source, Reservoir and Seal Denition Hydraulic top seal failure the determination of seal capacities for undrilled prospects Wednesday 19th - morning poster session - Exhibition Hall 10:00-13:00 Stephen A. OConnor*, Richard E. Swarbrick, Richard W. Lahann - Ikon GeoPressure
ABSTRACT Where the drilling window (pore pressure/mud-weight minus fracture pressure) is narrow, borehole stability problems are commonly encountered. For instance, in the Malay Basin, wells such as Bergading Deep and Sepat Deep-1 encountered High Pressure/ High Temperature conditions, causing severe mud losses, well kicks and other operational difculties such as stuck pipes, hole stability and hole cavings. In addition to this elevated drilling risk in such wells, the close proximity of the pore pressure to fracture strength of the rock (or seal capacity) increases the risk of hydraulic failure of the top-seal, allowing hydrocarbons to escape. Small seal capacity magnitudes are not limited to strictly HP/HT conditions, however, and shallower wells in the Malay Basin such as Inas Deep-1 have pore pressures very close to Leak-Off Test data, an estimate of rock strength at depths of only 2km TVDss. In other areas of SE Asia, such as Sabah, Miocene carbonate reservoirs are the targets of many drilling programs, and many of these are associated with uid escape phenomena indicative of seal breach. Part of the exploration strategy for prospects in SE Asia, in those basins where drilling windows are likely to be narrow, therefore, is an assessment of seal breach risk. In this paper we present a workow that discusses the methodology to more accurately predict the seal capacity in undrilled prospects, based on a combination of regional mapping, understanding of pore pressure generation mechanisms and rock properties. Some conclusions include (a) trap failure occurs not at Top Reservoir but at the crest of the associated overpressure cell, (b) accurate derivation of a predictive fracture pressure algorithm should include a pore pressure/stress coupling ratio term (which relates pore uid pressure to horizontal stress magnitude through poro-elastic uid-stress interaction) and (c) in some basins data show that the overburden can be the least stress, suggesting a near-isotropic stress state at depth. Interestingly, not all basins show a relationship between small seal capacities and hydrocarbon preservation.
Pressure-Depth Plot showing data from selected wells, Malay Basin (re-drawn from Mohamed et al, 2007).

Several wells such as Gluing Deep-1 and Bergading Deep-2 have pore pressures (green and red) triangles close to Leak-Off (black squares). The Leak-Off are undifferentiated in the source however using the minimum-bound trend as the authors have to separate pore from fracture pressure suggests that the reservoirs in these wells are close to breach (i.e. have a low seal capacity). In reality, for correct assessment of seal capacity the Leak-off data from these individual wells should be used, not a trend based on the lowest data of a regional cloud. The rationale for this is discussed in this poster.

OPTIMISE SUCCESS THROUGH SCIENCE

Registered in England No.03359723