Geopressure prediction using seismic data: Current status and the road ahead

TLDR

Seismic detection of high‑pressure formations is critical for cost‑effective, safe exploration in frontier areas, relying on rock physics and seismic attributes, yet the field has historically leaned on empiricism, obscuring fundamental limitations. This review aims to capture and document best practices in seismic pressure prediction while highlighting the need to bridge communication gaps among seismologists, rock physicists, and drilling teams. The authors review and synthesize existing methodologies to establish best‑practice guidelines for seismic pressure prediction. Successful seismic pressure prediction integrates detailed rock‑property knowledge with rock‑physics‑based velocity analysis, and modern digital computing now enables more confident, higher‑resolution detection of pressured formations.

Abstract

The subject of seismic detection of abnormally high‐pressured formations has received a great deal of attention in exploration and production geophysics because of increasing exploration and production activities in frontier areas (such as the deepwater) and a need to lower cost without compromising safety and environment, and manage risk and uncertainty associated with very expensive drilling. The purpose of this review is to capture the “best practice” in this highly specialized discipline and document it. Pressure prediction from seismic data is based on fundamentals of science, especially those of rock physics and seismic attribute analysis. Nonetheless, since the first seismic application in the 1960s, practitioners of the technology have relied increasingly on empiricism, and the fundamental limitations of the tools applied to detect such hazardous formations were lost. The most successful approach to seismic pressure prediction is one that combines a good understanding of rock properties of subsurface formations with the best practice for seismic velocity analysis appropriate for rock physics applications, not for stacking purposes. With the step change that the industry has seen in the application of the modern digital computing technology to solving large‐scale exploration and production problems using seismic data, the detection of pressured formations can now be made with more confidence and better resolution. The challenge of the future is to break the communication and the “language barrier” that still exists between the seismologists, the rock physicists, and the drilling community.