Integrated Approach for Pre-drill Pore Pressure Prediction in Data-limited Exploration Area—A Case Study from Offshore Myanmar

Summary In Basement-high Area, Gulf of Moattama Basin, Myanmar, the geological setting is complex. A significant change in tectonostratigraphy setting across the area leads to different sedimentation and thermal maturation of the source rock, thereby highly variable subsurface pore pressure with undetermined mechanism occurred. Even though drillability of exploration wells depends crucially on a precise pore pressure prediction, the estimation of such pressure is problematic due to the lack of primary dataset. To ensure reliability, the assessment of pre-drill pore pressure and fracture gradient illustrated herein is performed by an integrated approach. Interval velocity from broadband seismic, borehole geophysical dataset, 3-D heat-flow model, and basin history analysis were taken into account during the course of the model construction. Additionally, to handle the prediction in this complicated geology setting, comprehensive geological interpretation was included and has shown the usefulness for validating the output and quantifying the sensible range of uncertainty.