DE0979 : Pore Pressure and Well Control

Course Description

This practical and highly-interactive course includes real-life case studies and exercises where participants will be engaged in a series of interactive small groups and class workshops.A predrill estimate of formation pore pressure is a key requirement for successful exploration and drilling. During the exploration phase, knowledge of the spatial distribution of formation pressures can be used to develop fluid migration models, to study the effectiveness of seals, and to rank prospects. During the drilling phase, a pre-drill pore pressure estimate allows the appropriate mud weight to be selected and the casing program to be optimized, thus enabling safe and economic drilling. Accurate pore pressure prediction is vital for several aspects of well planning, such as casing and cementing design, as well as the prevention of potentially disastrous kicks, losses and blowouts. Furthermore, wellbore instability and associated events, such as pack?offs and stuck pipe, are regarded as the largest cause of non-productive time in expensive drilling operations. Thus, wellbore stability, pore pressure and fracture gradient analysis represents a key part in reducing drilling costs and optimizing drilling, both in the planning and operational stages of drilling a well. This course will teach the participants the basics of formation pore pressure including techniques for predicting formation pressure, analyzing pore pressure data, detecting and collecting pressure data and understanding normal, over and underpressured environments. Participants will perform practical analysis during the course.The course will cover the fundamental principles of pore pressure modeling and application to oil field problems. The basic concepts used in pore pressure prediction will be presented, and methods for estimating pore pressure using log and seismic data will be explained and discussed. The discussion will focus on deriving a calibrated pore pressure model from seismic velocities. This implies calibration with offset well data in order to derive a calibrated velocity-to-pore pressure transform. The different data types used for optimal model calibration will be presented in the course. The rock physics basis underlying such transforms is discussed, and their application to pore pressure modelling is illustrated using several examples. By understanding how the pre-drill pore pressure model is built, and what kind of calibration data is necessary, the course participant will get a sense of how to update and re-calibrate the model in real time while drilling. The following topics will be addressed: processes responsible for abnormal pressure, methods of pore pressure prediction and detection, data requirements and how to deal with data gaps, model calibration, advantages and disadvantages of seismic and resistivity based pore pressure prediction, real time updating and uncertainty analysis.

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

This interactive training course includes the following training methodologies:

30 % Lectures
20 % Practical Workshops & Work Presentations
30 % Hands-on Practical Exercises & Case Studies
20 % Simulators (Hardware & Software) & Videos

In an unlikely event, the course instructor may modify the above training methodology for technical reasons.

VIRTUAL TRAINING (IF APPLICABLE)

If this course is delivered online as a Virtual Training, the following limitations will be applicable:

Certificates	:	Only soft copy certificates will be issued
Training Materials	:	Only soft copy materials will be issued
Training Methodology	:	80% theory, 20% practical
Training Program	:	4 hours per day, from 09:30 to 13:30