Construction of Mechanical Earth Model (MEM) to determine the goemechanical properties of reservouirs: a case study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 RMIT Univ, Melbourne, Australia

2 Swinburne Univ Technol, Fac Sci Engn & Technol, Melbourne, Vic 3122, Australia

Abstract

The mechanical earth model (MEM) has recently been considered in the oil and gas industry due to its importance in predicting the safe and stable range of drilling mud, better understanding the effective parameters in wellbore instability, safe drilling and reduce exorbitant costs on the industry and understanding the geomechanical properties of the reservoir. The MEM includes a logical set of information related to geology, stress field, mechanical properties of rock (elastic modulus and rock failure properties) and pore pressure which can be employed as a tool to quickly update information for use in drilling and reservoir management. In this paper, a MEM was constructed using well logging data for a well in one of the oil-fields as a case study and calibrated using laboratory results and drilling reports. According to the results obtained from the minimum horizontal stress values and the maximum horizontal stress range, as well as the occurrence of tensile failures in the wellbore, it was found that the stress regime prevailing in the study field is a strike-slip fault regime. The results also show that shear failure occurs in the direction of minimum horizontal stress and tensile failure occurs in the direction of maximum horizontal stress.

Keywords