Modeling of Shales in Salt-Hydrocarbon Systems

Abstract

We model the stress–strain response of shale wall rocks to large deformations associated with the emplacement of salt bodies. We further identify the implications of these stress changes for hydrocarbon exploration. We model the mudrocks as porous elastoplastic materials. We employ both static and evolutionary approach for the modeling of salt systems and show that while the static one can model actual geologic geometries, only the evolutionary approach can provide a detailed description of the stress changes associated with the emplacement of salt. Hence, the evolutionary approach can register the overall stress history of the shale wall rocks, which is essential for predicting the present-day state of stress, porosity, and pore pressure. More generally, the evolutionary approach can provide useful insights for understanding Earth processes related to salt-hydrocarbon systems.