A new AVA attribute based on P-wave and S-wave reflectivities for overpressure prediction

Pore pressure prediction is a key step for safe well drilling operations and is usually performed by deriving a velocity-pressure relationship calibrated to a reference well. However, in the last few decades, other seismic-based methods, such as the Amplitude versus Angle (AVA) technique, have been extended to predict anomalous pressure values. Concerning AVA analysis, in this work, we show that the expected pressure effect on the elastic rock properties is very different from the fluid effect, thus making the classical AVA attributes used for fluid prediction ineffective at highlighting pressure anomalies. Therefore, we propose a new AVA attribute to evidence the decrease in P-wave and S-wave reflectivity that usually occurs when passing from an overlying formation to an underlying overpressured one. This attribute can be easily derived from the intercept and gradient values extracted from the recorded seismic pre-stack data by means of the Shuey equation. To demonstrate the applicability of this new attribute for pore pressure prediction we show examples on synthetic seismic data and three applications to different field datasets over already drilled prospects. In the case of overpressured layers, this attribute shows anomalous responses, thus demonstrating its effectiveness in highlighting anomalous pore pressure regimes. In contrast, no anomalous attribute values are observed in cases characterized by a hydrostatic pore pressure regime.