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Pore pressure prediction and direct hydrocarbon indicator: insight from the southern pletmos basin, offshore South Africa

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / An accurate prediction of pore pressure is an essential in reducing the risk involved in a well or field life cycle. This has formed an integral part of routine work for exploration, development and exploitation team in the oil and gas industries. Several factors such as sediment compaction, overburden, lithology characteristic, hydrocarbon pressure and capillary entry pressure contribute significantly to the cause of overpressure. Hence, understanding the dynamics associated with the above factors will certainly reduce the risk involved in drilling and production. This study examined three deep water drilled wells GA-W1, GA-N1, and GA-AA1 of lower cretaceous Hauterivian to early Aptian age between 112 to 117.5 (MA) Southern Pletmos sub-basin, Bredasdorp basin offshore South Africa. The study aimed to determine the pore pressure prediction of the reservoir formation of the wells. Eaton’s resistivity and Sonic method are adopted using depth dependent normal compaction trendline (NCT) has been carried out for this study. The variation of the overburden gradient (OBG), the Effective stress, Fracture gradient (FG), Fracture pressure (FP), Pore pressure gradient (PPG) and the predicted pore pressure (PPP) have been studied for the selected wells. The overburden changes slightly as follow: 2.09g/cm3, 2.23g/cm3 and 2.24g/cm3 across the selected intervals depth of wells. The predicted pore pressure calculated for the intervals depth of selected wells GA-W1, GA-N1 and GA-AA1 also varies slightly down the depths as follow: 3,405 psi, 4,110 psi, 5,062 psi respectively. The overpressure zone and normal pressure zone were encountered in well GA-W1, while a normal pressure zone was experienced in both well GA-N1 and GA-AA1. In addition, the direct hydrocarbon indicator (DHI) was carried out by method of post-stack amplitude analysis seismic reflectors surface which was used to determine the hydrocarbon prospect zone of the wells from the seismic section. It majorly indicate the zones of thick hydrocarbon sand from the amplitude extraction grid map horizon reflectors at 13AT1 & 8AT1 and 8AT1 & 1AT1 of the well GA-W1, GA-N1 and GA-AA1 respectively. These are suggested to be the hydrocarbon prospect locations (wet-gas to Oil prone source) on the seismic section with fault trending along the horizons. No bright spot, flat spot and dim spot was observed except for some related pitfalls anomalies

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/4255
Date January 2014
CreatorsLasisi, Ayodele Oluwatoyin
ContributorsOpuwari, Mimonitu, Van Bever Donker, Jan
PublisherUniversity of the Western Cape
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
RightsUniversity of the Western Cape

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