Third EAGE Workshop on Pore Pressure Prediction

Date:	14-16 December 2020
Location:	ONLINE
Attendees:	60+
Organizer:	EAGE
Format:	Workshop

WORKSHOP BROCHURE

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Aims of the Workshop

Following the very successful Pore Pressure Workshops held in Pau in 2017 and Amsterdam in May 2019, the objective of this third workshop is to provide a forum to share technical practices, share challenges and present solutions.

We plan to discuss current and future research efforts to resolve some of the main technical challenges in the field. The audience involved in this domain is wide: i.e., Exploration Geologists for the basin / prospect scale knowledge, Operations Geologists for well planning and execution, Scientists in research positions who are advancing the theory of rock property evolution, Petroleum Systems Analysts for their basin modeling expertise, Geophysicists for seismic attributes knowledge, Geomechanical Engineers for rock failure analysis and Well Engineers directly involved in well design and execution.

Specialists in all of these disciplines are thus invited to this forum. Obviously pore pressure, fracture gradient and geomechanics specialists from all parts of the value chain are also key participants of this workshop given their role in combining the theory and data to make and communicate their predictions.

About the Workshop

Pore pressure and fracture gradient prediction and detection are key components of efficient exploration for hydrocarbons and their safe production. The impact of this area of science can influence all parts of the value chain from basin entry, prospect ranking, exploration planning and drilling, development, abandonment and, more recently, carbon capture and storage.

The direct application of pore pressure and fracture gradient in the assessment of a prospect can have a profound impact where structures with less window for trapping of hydrocarbons are discarded in favour of those with conventional or hydrodynamically enhanced traps. Often the effective stress history can provide inputs to the reservoir quality assessment and, in some cases, PPFG studies can fundamentally change the geological model in new basins. This work is especially important in times of lower oil price and less drilling activity and we hope to share examples of the value derived from this type of work.

The science of pore pressure and stress prediction has improved greatly over the last 20 years with ever-greater understanding of the different mechanisms that generate overpressure and the evolution of stresses. Academic research into rock properties and their evolution with time and effective stress is important and constantly evolving. Applying this new theory allows us to be more precise when making predictions in complex environments than more empirical methods derived in simpler geological environments. In addition to new theory, the ever greater ability to solve problems in 3D and to employ the power of AI and Machine Learning have the ability to increase the volume and the quality of our work compared to previous years.

While such approaches and new tools improve the accuracy of our pressure prediction and detection, they can make the communication of our results with our clients more complicated. It is important our community keeps focussed on the presentation of our results to non-specialists to ensure the message is received. With the business environment restricting travel and face-to-face interaction, it is more important than ever to rise to this challenge and to pass on, clearly, our identified risks and recommendations to those tasked with safe well planning and execution.