APPLIED DRIlIING ENGINEBRING
276
SHALE
satisfactory presentation of the mud gas content. As
discussed in Chap 4, Sec'. 3, the effect of gas-cut mud
on hydrostatic pressure in the well is quite small.
6.2.3 Verification of Formation Pressure
Using Well Logs
The decision of when to stop drilling temporarily and
ce-ment casing in the well before proceeding with
deeper drilling operations is a key decision in both the
technical and economic success of a drilling venture, If
casing is set too high, an unplanned additional casing
string will be required to reach the depth objective,
resulting in much higher well costs and a greatly
reduced final well size. If casing is not set when
it is needed, an underground blowout may occur,
doming most of the borehole. An accurate knowledge of
formation pressure is necessary to select the best casing-
seuing depth.
The open borehole generally is logged with conven-
tional wireline devices to provide permanent records of
the formations penetrated prior to running casing. Em-
pirical methods have been developed for estimating for-
mation pressure from some of the porosity-dependent
parameters measured by the well-logging sonde. The
pressure estimates made in this manner allow verifica-
tion of the previous pressure estimates made during well
planning and drilling. These pressure estimates are also
extremely valuable in planning future wells in the area.
The porosity-dependent formation parameters usually
obtained from well logs for the estimation of formation
pore pressure are either CI) interval transit time, 4, or (2)
 -

which can be very costly to stop and could necessitate

plugging and aban-
 277

~ RE

5400
tab , C IO-6 5 / ff ) '

Fig. 6.33-Interval transit time in normally pressured Miocene

and Oligocene shales of the Texas and Louisiana
gulf coast area.2o

conductivity, Co. Nuclear density logs also have been

used, but to a much lesser extent. The acoustic travel
time is less affected by other variables and is thought to
give the most accurate results.
Pore pressure plots constructed using porosity.`
dependent formation parameters obtained from logging
data include only points obtained in " pure" shales.
Criteria that can be applied in selecting the more pure
shales from the logging data include the following.
l , Minimal base line values of spontaneous potentials
with essentially no fluctuations.
2. Maximum values of gamma my counts.
3, Maximum conductivity (minimum resistivity)
values with a small and constant separation between the
shallow and deep radius-of-investigation devices.
4, Maximum values of interval transit time.
5. Use of values obtained in shales having a thickness
of 20 ft or more.
It is often difficult to find a sufficient number of shale
points in the shallow normally pressured formations to
establish the normal pressure trend line with data from a
single well. Published average normal trend lines for
areas of active drilling obtained from a large number of
wells provide a useful guide in interpreting the small
amount of normal pressure data available in pure shale
on a given well.
Interval Transit Time. The procedure for estimation of
formation pressure from log'derived interval transit time
data is essentially the same as the procedure discussed
FIg. 6.34-Acoustic log composite shewing effect Of shale
hydratiOn on interval transit time 21|
The primary difference is that when one uses well log
data, only the shale formations are included in the
analysis. The lithology cannot be determined accurately
enough for this to be done with only seismic data;
therefore average interval travel times for all formations
present must be used.
A considerable amount of well log data may be
necessary to establish a mathematical model of the nor-
mal compaction trend for interval transit time in shale.
An example plot of interval transit time in shale for the
Miocene and Oligocene shales of the Texas and Loui-
siana gulf coast area is shown in Fig. 6.33. Using the
procedure described in Example 6.5, a good fit of these
data is obtained using the following relation for the
matrix travel time in pure shale, tmo .
tma =62 + 202f. , . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . , . . , . .
(6.24)
Substituting this equation for matrix travel time into Eq.
FO~RMATfON PORE PRESSU- ANO FRACTURE RESISTANCE

in Sec. 6.2. I for seismic-derived interval transit time

data. o

2000

470

,oooo

SHALE INTERVAL TRANSIT TIME,

278

s socIlosiM#f!i8 BB 81;;;/1 L If If

l
Assumption, LAf I

Offshore Vermilion, LA 2

Offshore Terrebonne, I A 3
East Baton Rouge, LA 4
St. Martin, I A 5
Offshore St. Mary, I A 6
Calcasieu, LA 7
Offshore St. Mary, LA ~8
Offshore St. Mary, I A 9
Offshore Plaquemines, LA 10
Cameron, LA l 11
Camoron, -LA 12
Jefferson, TX 13
Terrebonne, LA 14
Offshore Galveston, TX 18
Chambers, TX 16
17
.Formatson fluid !pressure gradient. 18

substituting Eq. 6.4 for f yields the following equation

for the normal pressure trend line.

4shn - 62 +409foe -KD -202fo 2e -2KD . .... (6.25)

An excellent fit of the data shown in Fig. 6.33 is ob-

tained using values of 0.33 and 0.0001 for surface
porosity, fo, and compaction constant, K, respectively.
A good fit of the data shown also could be obtained with
a simple straight-line relationship over the depth interval
shown. However, Eq. 6.25 yields much mom accurate
results at greater depth, while a straight line extrapola-
tion would yield values of interval transit time less than

The geologic age of the shale sediments has been

found to affect the normal pressure relationship between
interval travel time and depth. Older sediments that have
had a longer time for compaction to occur result in a up-
ward shin in the normal pressure trend line. Similarly,
younger sediments result in a downward shin in the nor-
mal pressure trend line, In practice, this can be handled
by changing the surface porosity constant, fo, in the
mathematical model so that the model is brought into
agreement with the available data in normally pressured
formations in the well of internst.
The shape of the normal trend line observed on agiven
l f

SHALE INTERVAI T- RAN~SIT T~IME~

DIFFERENTIAL ( tsfl - !aha ) s f IO- 6 S/ FT )

Fig 6.3S-Hoffman and Johnson relationship between forma-

tion pore pressure and shale interval transit time,so

l f

When the shale interval transit time falls significantly

above the normal pressure trend line near the formation
of interest, abnormal formation pressure is indicated.
The magnitude of the abnormal pressure can be com-
puted by either of the two basic approaches discussed
for