Research on the Calculation Method of Dynamic Effective Stress Coefficient Based on P-Wave Velocity

The Zhu I Depression in the Pearl River Estuary Basin is a major oil and gas enrichment area, with complex lithology, mainly mudstone, fine sandstone and siltstone, strong heterogeneity, and extensive development of abnormal high pressure, making it difficult to predict formation pressure. The effective stress coefficient (ESC) is an important parameter in formation pressure prediction and formation stress estimation, which is usually obtained by experiments and by the empirical function formulas of ESC and porosity. However, the calculation accuracy of these empirical formulas is often affected by lithology and critical porosity, and their application in the whole area or multi-lithology formations is limited. In addition, shear wave velocity data are limited by cost and technical conditions in practical logging applications. Therefore, based on the Gassmann equation and the approximation of P-wave modulus and volume modulus, this study realizes a multi-lithology ESC estimation method using P-wave velocity, density, and porosity, and applies it to the logging of the study block. The dynamic ESC along the wellbore direction is obtained and the logging dynamic ESC estimation model is corrected to verify the reliability of the method. The results show that the logging-derived ESC is mainly distributed in the range of 0.3~0.8, while the average ESC measured in the laboratory is between 0.5 and 0.6. The ESC of the sandstone layers with high porosity is relatively large and that of the mudstone layers with low porosity is small. In the absence of shear wave velocity, this method can effectively estimate the ESC and further predict formation pressure, which plays an important role in oil exploration and development.