Effects of pore fluid pressure on the seismic response of a fractured carbonate reservoir

摘要

An effective medium model for the stress-dependent seismic properties of fractured reservoirs is developed here on the basis of a combination of a general theory of viscoelastic waves in rock-like composites with recently published formulae for deformation of communicating and interacting cavities (interconnected pores/cracks and fractures at finite concentration) under drained loading. The inclusion-based model operates with spheroidal cavities at two different length scales; namely, the microscopic scale of the pores and (grain-boundary) cracks, and the mesoscopic scale of the fractures (controlling the flow of fluid). The different cavity types can in principle have any orientation and aspect ratio, but the microscopic pores/cracks and mesoscopic fractures were here assumed to be randomly and vertically oriented, respectively. By using three different aspect ratios for the relatively round pores (representing the stiff part of the pore space) and a distribution of aspect ratios for the relatively flat cracks (representing the compliant part of the pore space), we obtained a good fit between theoretical predictions and ultrasonic laboratory measurements on an unfractured rock sample under dry conditions. By using a single aspect ratio for the mesoscopic fractures, we arrived at a higher-order microstructural model of fractured porous media which represents a generalization of the first-order model developed by Chapman et al. (2002,2003). The effect of cavity size was here modelled under the assumption that the characteristic time for wave-induced (squirt) flow at the scale of a particular cavity (pore/crack vs. fracture) is proportional with the relevant scale-size. In the modelling, we investigate the effect of a decreasing pore pressure with constant confining pressure (fixed depth), and hence, increasing effective pressure. The analysis shows that the attenuation-peak due to the mesoscopic fractures in the reservoir will move downward in frequency as the effective pressure increases. In the range of seismic frequencies, our modelling indicates that the P-wave velocities may change by more than 20% perpendicular to the fractures and close to 10% parallel to the fractures. In comparison, the vertical S-wave velocities change by only about 5% for both polarization directions (perpendicular and parallel to the fractures) when the effective pressure increases from 0 to 15 MPa. This change is mainly due to the overall change in porosity with pressure. The weak pressure dependence is a consequence of the fact that the S waves will only sense if the fractures are open or not, and since all the fractures have the same aspect ratio, they will close at the same effective pressure (which is outside the analysed interval).