Pore pressure prediction before drilling is of great significance for ensuring drilling safety

choosing reasonable drilling mud density

designing well configuration

reducing drilling cost and protecting reservoirs.The accuracy of pressure prediction usually is not sufficient for drilling requirement due to a lack of logging data and multi-interpretation of seismic data.This paper focuses on an oilfield A in southwest of Iraq.To tackle the problem of inadequate exploration well data of deep layers and complicated seismic responses

we combined seismic data with regional geology and shallow well logging data to study the mechanisms behind pressure.We found out that the study area was controlled by fluid charging caused by lateral tectonic extruding and deep faulting.An optimized method for pre-drilling pressure prediction was picked out and improvement on the precision of the pore pressure calculating parameters was achieved through overburden pressure prediction based on seismic-well-integration

seismic velocity analyses based on geological consistency

and variation rate of seismic velocity estimation.Pore pressure coefficient of exploratory well in deep Jurassic was predicted to range between 1.95 and 2.05.The prediction was verified by actual measurement with an error less than 3% only.