Reservoir Geomechanics

About this book

This interdisciplinary book encompasses the fields of rock mechanics, structural geology and petroleum engineering to address a wide range of geomechanical problems that arise during the exploitation of oil and gas reservoirs. It considers key practical issues such as prediction of pore pressure, estimation of hydrocarbon column heights and fault seal potential, determination of optimally stable well trajectories, casing set points and mud weights, changes in reservoir performance during depletion, and production-induced faulting and subsidence. Reservoir Geomechanics establishes the basic principles involved before introducing practical measurement and experimental techniques to improve recovery and reduce exploitation costs. It illustrates their successful application through case studies taken from oil and gas fields around the world. Reservoir Geomechanics is a practical reference for geoscientists and engineers in the petroleum and geothermal industries, and for research scientists interested in stress measurements and their application to problems of faulting and fluid flow in the crust.

Contents

Foreword

Part I. Basic Principles:
1. The tectonic stress field
2. Pore pressure at depth in sedimentary basins
3. Basic constitutive laws
4. Rock failure in compression, tension and shear
5. Fractures and faults in three dimensions

Part II. Measuring Stress Orientation and Magnitude:
6. Compressive and tensile failures in vertical wells
7. Determination of S3 from minifracs and extended leak-off tests and constraining the magnitude of SHmax from wellbore failures in vertical wells
8. Wellbore failure and stress determination in deviated wells
9. Stress fields – from tectonic plates to reservoirs around the world

Part III. Applications:
10. Minimizing wellbore instability
11. Critically stressed faults and fluid flow
12. Reservoir depletion

References
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Mark Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Earth Sciences and Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Geophysics at Stanford University.