Pressure-velocity relations in reservoir rocks: Modified MacBeth's equation

The knowledge of the saturation and pressure effects on elastic properties is a key factor in reservoir monitoring. The relation between saturation changes and velocity variations is well known in rock physics and at seismic frequency it can be satisfactorily described by Gassmann's equations. The pressure effect still requires deeper investigations in order to be included in rock physics models for 4D studies. Theoretical models of velocity-pressure relations often do not match lab measurements, or contain empirical constants or theoretical parameters that are difficult to calibrate or do not have a precise physical meaning. In this work, I present a new model to describe the pressure sensitivity of elastic moduli for clastic rocks. The proposed model is an extension of MacBeth's relations. These equations are then integrated within a complete rock physics model to describe the relation between rock properties (porosity and clay content), dynamic attributes (saturation and pressure) and elastic properties. The proposed model is calibrated with laboratory measurements of dry samples over a wide range of pressure variations and then applied to well data to simulate different production scenarios. The complete rock physics model can then be used in time-lapse inversion to predict the distribution of dynamic property changes in the reservoir within an inversion workflow for reservoir monitoring.