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* Rock Physics Associates Ltd, 35a Hollybush Lane, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 4AY, UK;
E-mail: rob.simm@rock-physics.com.
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of K/K0 are soft, whereas those with high K/K0 values are tution effects with porosity will depend to a great extent on
relatively stiff. the nature of pore stiffness variation with porosity.
The fluid substitution results for two sands with different Figure 2 shows a crossplot with dry rock data from lab-
porosities and pore space stiffness characteristics are shown oratory studies. It is evident from the plot that the consoli-
in Figure 1a. Even though the magnitude of fluid modulus dated clean sands (red and blue points) appear to have a lin-
change is the same in each case, the lower porosity rock has ear trend which cross-cuts the normalized pore stiffness lines
a greater magnitude of bulk modulus change than the higher as porosity changes, whereas the consolidated shaley sands
porosity rock. Compressional velocity differences reflect the and less well consolidated shaley sands (green and light blue
changes in bulk modulus (Figure 1b). This is not to imply points, respectively) tend to follow the trend of the normal-
that low porosity rocks always have larger fluid substitution ized pore stiffness lines. The implication of Figure 2 is that
effects than high porosity rocks. The variation of fluid substi- the consolidated sands will show decreasing fluid substitu-
tion effects with decreasing porosity, whereas the relative-
ly unconsolidated shaley sands may show increasing fluid
substitution effects with decreasing porosity. Given that the
assumptions inherent in Gassmanns model may be violated
in shaley sands, this last observation must be questionable.
Further discussion on this issue will be made in relation to a
real data example.
The second important aspect of fluid substitution is the
effect of gas saturation. Generating a value for the fluid bulk
modulus to input into Gassmann requires that the bulk mod-
uli of water Kw and hydrocarbon Kh are mixed according to
the water saturation Sw in the pore space. For seismic appli-
cations the fluid bulk modulus is usually calculated using the
Reuss average:
(7)
Using this mixing law for substituting gas into a rock often
leads to the type of SwVp relationship shown in Figure 3. A
small amount of gas has a large effect on the rock bulk modu-
lus, producing a dramatic decrease in Vp. With increasing gas,
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(8)
(9)
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and the Reuss average is has a high shale volume. It also leads to unrealistically low
values of Poisson ratio . These effects are associated with
low values of normalized dry bulk modulus (Figure 5). The
(11) negative values of normalized modulus, below 10% porosity,
are quite erroneous. This is a common result when using an
effective porosity approach. The low values of normalized
Log data were used to derive the shale elastic moduli: modulus combine with low values of fluid modulus to give
large saturated bulk modulus changes at low gas saturations.
and (12) Most of the scatter in the results is evidence of the fact that
the input parameters are inconsistent with the assumptions
inherent in the Gassmann model.
(13) Some workers address the problem of exaggerated fluid
substitution effects on the Vp log in shaley intervals by impos-
The derived values for shale bulk modulus and shear modu- ing arbitrary porosity and other dry rock parameter thresholds
lus are 14.96 GPa and 6.1 GPa, respectively. or cut-offs. This is not an acceptable solution as it can create
3. The data were inverted for dry rock parameters using Equa- dramatic deviations in the Vp log, with saw tooth effects where
tions (5) and (6) with Kf = 2.76 GPa. the porosity varies around the cut-off porosity, but more
4. An empirical relationship giving saturation in terms of poros- importantly it does not address the possibility of hydrocarbon
ity was generated from data in nearby discovery wells: saturation in shaley intervals. Possible solutions are discussed
below, after applying Gassmann fluid substitution to the real
(14) data set using a total porosity approach.
5. Water and gas moduli were mixed using the Reuss average,
as given by Equation (7). (15)
6. Fluid substitution was performed using Equation (4) with
the dry rock parameters generated in step 3 and the fluid
modulus calculated in step 5. In the absence of any direct information concerning dry
clay density, cl, a value of 2.6 g cm-3 was used. The mineral
Figure 4 shows that this workflow generates large fluid sub- modulus was calculated by mixing quartz and dry clay using
stitution differences on the Vp log in low porosity rock that equations (9)-(11). Unfortunately, the elastic properties of dry
clay are highly variable (Wang et al., 2001) and it is not clear
which values to use. Initial values of clay bulk modulus and
shear modulus were taken from the data published by Wang et
al. (2001), namely Kcl = 37.5 GPa and cl = 18.7 GPa.
The saturation model was modified to account for the
water saturation as a proportion of the total pore space:
(16)
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Conclusions
A key conclusion of this work is the need to evaluate the
dry rock parameters that are inherent in the application
Figure 8 Dry rock data from Figure 5 with a dry rock model of Gassmanns model to log data. The normalized dry
(dashed line) superimposed. Data points are coloured by bulk modulus parameter in combination with porosity is a
shale volume, as indicated by the key on the right. good indicator of fluid substitution behaviour. As has been
shown, it is very easy to simply do fluid substitution with
available software and generate unrealistic effects. In prac-
tice there are numerous uncertainties in the application of
Gassmanns equation to log data, including:
n inapplicability of the Gassmann model to shales,
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the hours of
fruitful discussion with Michel Kemper and Roy White as
well as helpful manuscript reviews from John Chamberlain
and Mike Bacon.
References
Avseth, P., Mukerji, T., and Mavko, G. [2005] Quantitative
Seismic Interpretation. Cambridge University Press.
Figure 9 Shaley sand log example: effective porosity approach. Batzle, M.L. and Wang, Z. [1992] Seismic properties of
Fluid substitution to gas is made using dry rock model (blue pore fluids. Geophysics, 57, 1396-1408.
curves = wet, red curves = gas). (Depth marker spacing is 10 m.) Brie, A., Pampuri, F., Marsala, A.F. and Meazza, O. [1995]
66 2007 EAGE
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Shear sonic interpretation in gas bearing sands. Society of mud additives. With regard to oil-based muds (OBM), typi-
Petroleum Engineers, Paper 30595. cally up to 50% of OBM filtrate is water with the rest being
Dewan, J.T. [1983] Essentials of Modern Open-Hole Log refined oils and other additives. Filtrate densities are usual-
Interpretation. Pennwell, Tulsa. ly about 0.75-0.8 g cm-3. To calculate the fluid modulus of
Han, D-H. and Batzle, M.L. [2004] Gassmanns equa- OBM filtrate, a mix of diesel (~35API) with no dissolved gas
tion and fluid-saturation effects on seismic velocities. and water usually works well (J. Garnham, pers. Comm.).
Geophysics, 69, 398-405. Water-bearing sands drilled with water-based muds
Han, D-H., Nur, A. and Morgan, D. [1986] Effect of present the most straightforward scenario. There is more
porosity and clay content on wave velocity in sandstones. uncertainty in the fluid density calculation in situations
Geophysics, 51, 2093-2107. where the invaded fluid consists of two or more phases,
Hill, R. [1952] The elastic behaviour of a crystalline for example where water-based mud filtrate has displaced
aggregate. Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, gas. The analysis of such scenarios requires an estimate of
A65, 349-354. saturation in the invaded zone, Sx, as well as an assign-
Gassmann, F. [1951] Elastic waves through a packing of ment of end-member fluid parameters. Saturation inter-
spheres. Geophysics, 16, 673-685. pretations may be obtained from a resistitivity log suite
Mavko, G. and Mukerji, T. [1995]. Seismic pore space interpretation, a petrophysical rule of thumb or recon-
compressibility and Gassmans relation. Geophysics, 60, ciliation of core porosity (depth-shifted and compaction-
1743-1749. corrected), grain density and the density log. For exam-
Mavko, G., Mukerji, T., and Dvorkin, J. [1998] The ple, rules of thumb commonly used for invaded zone sat-
Handbook of Rock Physics. Cambridge University Press. uration are:
Skelt, C. [2004] Fluid substitution in laminated sands. The
Leading Edge, 23, 485-493. (17)
Smith, T.M., Sondergeld, C.H. and Rai, C.S. [2003]
Gassmann fluid substitutions: a tutorial. Geophysics, 68,
430-440. (Dewan 1983), and
Wang, Z. and Nur, A. [1992] Elastic wave velocities
in porous media: a theoretical recipe. In: Seismic and (18)
Acoustic Velocities in Reservoir Rocks Vol. 2, SEG
Geophysics Reprint Series, 10, 1-35.
Wang, Z., Wang, H. and Cates, M.E. [2001] Effective elas- (F. Whitehead pers. comm). In wells where there are multi-
tic properties of solid clays. Geophysics, 66, 428-440. ple fluid zones and limited variations in reservoir lithology,
Xu, S. and White, R.E. [1995] A new velocity model for comparison of results from the different zones may lead to
clay-sand mixtures. Geophysical Prospecting, 43, 91-118. a refinement of the fluid densities that are appropriate for
each zone.
Appendix: Borehole fluid issues While it is clear from Equation (1) that the density log
Owing to the fact that the zone of investigation of the den- invariably needs correcting for fluid substitution, it is less
sity log is very shallow, the key problem associated with clear whether a correction is required for the sonic logs. The
porosity estimation from the density log is the estimation initial step is to generate the Gassmann dry rock parameters
of the fluid parameters in the zone in which virgin fluids and evaluate whether the sand data are reasonable or not. In
have been displaced by mud filtrate (i.e. the invaded zone). this initial step the following parameter combinations might
The fluid density of the invaded zone depends on a number be tested:
of factors including the saturation in the invaded zone, the
fluid density of mud filtrate and the density of the virgin (a) Corrected density, Vp, Vs, Sw, fluid mixing using Reuss
formation fluids. average.
In many instances invaded zone fluid parameter estima- (b) Measured density, Vp, Vs, Sx, fluid mixing using Reuss
tion may involve a certain degree of trial and error. Core average.
porosities (total porosity calculated in the laboratory) can
be invaluable to help constrain effective fluid densities for If these approaches do not yield reasonable results then it
porosity estimation. could be that the Reuss mixing model is inappropriate at
Filtrate properties depend on the nature of the drill- logging frequencies. Brie et al. (1995) observed that sonic
ing mud. Where the saline component of the water-based logs often do not appear to show the effect of low gas satu-
mud (WBM) filtrate is sodium chloride (NaCl), the Batzle ration in clean sand sections as predicted by Gassmann (i.e.
and Wang (1992) equations may be used to calculate fluid the velocities are too high to be justified by Reuss average
density and modulus. Typical values for WBM filtrate are fluid mixing). They interpreted this as an effect of patchy
around 1 g cm-3 but can be higher depending on salinity and saturation (i.e. the saturation in the invaded zone is not the
2007 EAGE 67
same in each pore space). Consequently, the compressional
sonic finds the quickest way through the rock and biases the
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compressional velocity towards the high water saturation
patches. Fluid moduli inversions of various log datasets,
using a generalized dry rock model, led Brie et al. (1995) to First Break
formulate a relationship which effectively stiffens the fluid Near Surface Geophysics
modulus at low gas saturations: Geophysical Prospecting
(19)
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