Prediction of surface subsidence due to oil- or gasfield development

RYSZARD HEJMANOWSKI
Department of Mine Surveying and Environmental Engineering, University of Mining and
Metallurgy, al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland

ABSTRACT
Compaction phenomenon caused by oil- or gasfield development can induce the considerable
surface deformations. Surface deformations above the oil- or gasfields were observed and
measured in Wilmington, Bolivar Coast and at last over the Ekofisk field.
When rocks, building the oil- or gas-reservoir have significant compaction coefficient, thickness
of the reservoir are big and the intensive pore pressure decline are prognosed the compaction
phenomenon, surface and ground deformations may occur.
The new method for prediction of surface subsidence, caused by planned oil- or gasfield
development is presented in the paper. The following factors were considered in the model:
characteristic of the reservoir rocks, pressure of overburden, relationship between compaction and
pressure gradient in the reservoir, pressure decline dynamic and its influence on the compaction
rate and the surface subsidence. In the presented method the stochastic model of the ground as
well as the relation between compaction and the pressure gradient in reservoir was applied.
Therefore the predicted characteristic of pore pressure decline is possible to consider. Influence of
the retardation of reservoir rocks and overburden on the propagation of ground deformations can
also be taken to account. Changes of geomechanic parameters in reservoir are possible to consider
in the model thanks reservoir discretisation. It enables to compaction / subsidence modeling above
any reservoir with sophistical space forms. The presented method is initially tested for
Gronningen reservoir using the accessible from literature data. The method, presented in the
paper, was a subject of author's doctor thesis in Clausthal Technical University, Germany.

INTRODUCTION
The porosity of reservoir rocks decreases under the conditions of a permanent pressure of
overburden and the internal reservoir pressure varying during exploitation. The increasing
compaction may sometimes lead to destruction of porous structure in case of weak reservoir rocks.
This compaction causes land subsidence, reaching even several meters down (Wilmington).
The subsidence troughs forming above the exploited oil or gas beds are in general big in
horizontal dimensions. This is due to such factors as:
Considerable exploitation depths (to 200 m in Wilmington, to 2900 m in Groningen and to
2900 m in Ekofisk),
2
2
2
Wide exploited areas (90 km in Wilmington, 900 km in Groningen, 200 km in Ekofisk).
The prevailing location of exploitation equipment in central areas of fields causes that the most
important factor - from the point of view of the land surface protection - are the vertical shifts of
the land (subsidence). The remaining components of the shift vector as well as deformations will

rather affect the objects located close to edges of exploited fields. Many works stressing the
harmful effect of land subsidence on the exploitation equipment have been published over the last
years. The hazards and costs caused by land subsidence and preventive means in the coastal
regions were also described (Van Kesteren, 1973; Sulak, 1991 among the others). Both the
qualitative and quantitative prediction of possible deformations of the land surface above the oil
and gas reservoirs already at the design of the reservoir exploitation is important in prevention.
Equally important is a permanent control (updating of predictions) during exploitation. The
known methods of predicting land subsidence above oil and gas beds are based mainly on
mechanics of continuous medium (Geertsma, 1973; Kosloff et al., 1980; De Waal & Smits, 1985).
In this paper another solution, based on the stochastic model of the ground, is presented. The
method presented is an extension and complement of the attempt to apply the stochastic model to
the oil-field (Sroka, 1988).

THEORETICAL MODEL
The movement of ground particles forced by compaction of the rocks of reservoir and by
gravitation is extremely difficult to describe. The main difficulty results from the lack of
knowledge on mechanical, mutual behavior of ground particles and the spatial variation of
mechanical properties of rocks. For these reasons the Author decided to apply the stochastic
model of the ground. Such model enables the statistical treatment of the ground movements and
has already been applied in Poland for description of the ground deformations in hard coal mines
(Litwiniszyn, 1956). Applications of this type of the model involve the assumption that the ground
will attain the most probable state of geomechanical equilibrium when the exploitation ends. In
consequence, the normal distribution function (the Gauss distribution function) is taken for the
function transforming the cause of the deformation - compaction due to pressure in the form of
subsidence trough (Fig.1). This function is also called the influence function.
elementary
subsidence
trough

KE
reservoir
element

Fig.1 Elementary relationship between compaction and subsidence

The basic relationship describing the subsidence of any point may be written as follows:
S(x, y, z) = Q( xQ , y Q , zQ ) F(x, y, z,x Q , y Q , z Q )d ,

(1)

where is the exploited area of a field, Q the distribution of reservoir compaction, F the
transforming function (the influence function), x, y, z are coordinates of the point, xQ, yQ, zQ are
coordinates of so called "reservoir element".
Not only the final subsidence but also the stage subsidence will be interesting for the long lasting
land subsidence courses, characteristic for oil and gas reservoirs. For this reason two time
relationships were taken into account in the method presented:
- Delay in the reservoir compaction,
- Retarding action of the ground.
Further considerations are devoted to so called reservoir element. The whole exploited reservoir
is divided into the fragments elementary, from the point of view of calculations (Fig.2).
Z
X

land surface
offshore platform

drilling
wells

gas reservoir
reservoir
element
Fig.2. Threedimensional picture of the reservoir (thickness) after its discretisation

Each reservoir element is characterized by its coordinates xQ, yQ, zQ, its local thickness Mi, its
primary pore pressure p0 and the change in pressure to the moment t. In this way all reservoir
elements are determined both geometrically and physically.

Course of compaction
The final axial compaction in the reservoir element may be written as the change in the thickness
of the element, caused by total change of pressure:
M E = K E M = cm ( p0 - p E ) M
(2)
M - primary reservoir thickness in the reservoir element,
E
K - relative final compaction,
cm - uni-axial compaction coefficient,
p0 - primary pressure
pE - final pressure (at the end of exploitation).
The value of the predicted compaction at the time t of exploitation is of some interest:
M E (t) = K E (t) M = c m ( p0 - p(t)) M

(3)

Because of some delay in reaction of the reservoir rocks on the drop in pore pressure the actual

value of compaction at the time t will be somewhat lower than the value resulting from eq. (3). As
this value is responsible for the movements in the ground its determination is necessary. For this
reason the following differential equation was used:
K(t)
= [K E (t) - K(t)] ,
t

(4)

where is the time coefficient for the reservoir - relative velocity of the rocks compaction
[1/year]. It is the model parameter, dependent on mechanical properties of the reservoir rocks, on
the overburden pressure (depth) and on exploitation rate.
Eq.(4) may be solved only when the pressure gradient in reservoir is known. The pressure
gradient may be estimated from the exploitation design and known exploitation conditions. This
value will be varying and will dependent on the velocity of exploitation for this particular part of
reservoir. In further presentation the example of linear changes in pore pressure was taken into
account (Fig.3).
p(t) = -b t + p0
pore
press. p(t) = p
E

t T
t>T
p -p
b= 0 E
T-t
0

exploitation
t =0
0

time

Fig.3. The assumed model of linear changes in reservoir pressure

In this model it was assumed that porosity changes may be approximated with a line
section over small intervals of pressure changes. Eq.(4) was solved for this linear model, giving
the volume compaction V(t). The volume compaction is the product of axial compaction, K(t) and
volume of the reservoir element V. The following formulae were obtained for both sections from
Fig.3:
for the moment t: t0 < t T, t0=0:
E

1
E
[1 - exp(- t )] ,
V K (t) = K(t) V = V K (t) - K
T

(5)

for the moment t: t> T:

E
V K (t) = V K (T) + [V K - V K (T)] [1 - exp(- (t - T ))]

(6)

Then, the volume of the elementary land subsidence, forming at the surface due to the volume
compaction of the reservoir, was determined as:
V M (t)
= c [a V K (t) - V M (t)]
t

(7)

a - volume coefficient; 0.9 < a < 1.0

c - time coefficient for overburden.
Solution of eq. (7) lead to the equations enabling calculation of the volume for the elementary land

subsidence, at any stages of exploitation:

for the moment t: t0 < t T, t0=0:

1 1
1
[exp(- t ) - exp(- c t )]
1 - exp(- c t ) V M (t) = a V K (t) - V K E
T c
c -

(8)

for the moment t: t> T:

V

(t) = V

(T)

[a

+ a V K

- V

(T)
(T)
-

- V

(T)

{1 +
c

] {1

c -

exp

c -

- exp

[- c (t

- T

)]} +

exp

[- c (t

- T

)]

[- (t

- T

(9)

)]}

The graphical interpretation of the presented solution of eq. (9) facilitates understanding the
meaning of both time parameters - for reservoir and c - for overburden (Fig.4).
E

K (t) V
E
K V

V ( t)

VK(t)

1
c

Time

Fig.4. The meaning of time coefficients assumed course of compaction

The influence function

As it was mentioned in the introduction, the influence function (see eq.(1)) is the appropriate
parametric function of the normal distribution (Knothe, 1953):
d2
1
F = 2 exp - 2
(10)
R
R
R - so called radius of scattering of main influences, R=H ctg ,
d - the horizontal distance between the calculated point and the reservoir element,
H - exploitation depth.
The radius of scattering of main influences is functionally related to so called angle of the range of
influences (), which is the ground parameter, characterizing the rigidity of rocks of the
overburden.

CALCULATIONS OF SUBSIDENCE
The way of computing the subsidence of any point results from eq. (1) and the notes concerning
the reservoir discretization. It is the sum of subsidence values for this point, caused by compaction
of particular reservoir elements:
N

S(x, y, z) = V M i ( xQ , yQ , zQ ) F(x, y, z,xQ , yQ , zQ )

(11)

i=1

N - number of reservoir elements.

EXAMPLE OF COMPUTATIONS
The computational method presented in this paper was pre-tested for the example of the natural
gas field. The necessary data were taken from the literature on the subject. To some approximation
they correspond to the data on the field in Groningen (Teeuw, 1973; Van Kesteren, 1973 and the
others). The prediction of land subsidence was computed for three periods: 1965-1975, 1975-1987
and 1987-2030.
As the Author knew only the total drop in the reservoir pressure, reaching 30 MPa at maximum,
he assumed the following simulation of pressure drops during exploitation:
1965
- the initial state (pore pressure in the whole reservoir equal to about 35 MPa),
1965-1975
- the maximal change of pressure equal to 11 MPa (exploitation shifts from the
South to the North),
1975-1987
- the maximal change of pressure equal to 6 MPa,
1987-2030
- the maximal change of pressure equal to 13 MPa,
2030
- the final state (pore pressure equal throughout the field, of about 5 Mpa).
Next discretization of the exploited field into 132 elements was carried out.
The following parameters of the computational model were assumed:
-1
cm
= 1.45 E-04 MPa ,
a
= 1.0,
-1
= 0.1 year ,

-1
c
= 5.5 year .
The predicted values of land subsidence above the exploited natural gas reservoir are presented in
Figs. 5 - 8.

Fig.5. Estimated surface subsidence in year 1975.

Fig.6. Estimated surface subsidence in year 1987.

Fig.7. Estimated surface subsidence in year 2030.

Fig.8. Estimated surface subsidence in year 2050.

SUMMARY
In opposite to the models applied up to now, the presented method of calculations is based on the
stochastic model of ground. It makes some use of experience gained in the hard coal and salt
mining. The parameters of the theoretical model are relatively easy to determine. The course of
compaction and movements in overburden were treated as time dependent, which made possible
predicting the land subsidence at any time of exploitation. The algorithm of calculations enables
prediction of land subsidence for exploitation fields of any shape. The computations were carried
out for the spatial model. The method presented may be applied also for computing the horizontal
shifts and deformations (Hejmanowski, 1993). The results of computations may be used as a basis
for design of necessary protections (emergency stands or additional drilling platforms).

REFERENCES
De Waal, J.A. & Smits, R.M.M. (1985) Prediction of reservoir compaction and surface
subsidence: Field application of new model. SPE 14214, 1-11.
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case. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Nederlands geologisch mijnbouwkundig
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exploitation). PhD Thesis Clausthal Technical Univ., Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany.
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Hutnictwa, Vol.1, Zeszyt 1, Warsaw 1953, Poland.
Kosloff, D., Scott, R.F. & Scraton, J. (1980) Finite element simulation of Wilmington oil field
subsidence: linear and nonlinear modeling. Tectonophysics, 65 and 70.

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