Analysis of rock physics response of gas-bearing volcanic reservoir based on three-phase poroelastic theory

Abstract

Unlike previous theories with velocity and/or elastic modulus averaging, we use a three-phase porous rock physics model developed by Santos for analyzing the seismic response of two immiscible fluids in saturated porous media. Considering reservoir reference pressure and coupling drag of two fluids in pores, the effects of frequency, porosity, and gas saturation on the phase velocities of the P- and S-waves are discussed in detail under field conditions. The effects of porosity and gas saturation on Vp/Vs are also provided. The data for our numerical experiments are from a sample of deep volcanic rock from Daqing. The numerical results show that the frequency dispersion effect can be ignored for deep volcanic rocks with low porosity and low permeability. It is concluded that for deep volcanic rocks the effect of gas content in pores on Vp/Vs is negligible but the effect of porosity is significant when there is a certain amount of water contained in the pores. The accurate estimate of lithology and porosity in this case is relatively more important.