Global Pore Pressure Prediction …. Some Best Practices

This presentation will discuss some of the ways to reduce drilling costs and prevent “flat time” by making better applications of available technology. Pore pressure and fracture gra­dient predictions are the most critical parts of every well plan. Managed pressure drill­ing me­thods require an even more precise pore pressure pro­file than do wildcat wells. Ex­tended reach wells also must ac­cur­a­tely know the pore pressures in order to properly cal­cu­late bore­hole stability. There are very few types of wells where having a better pore pressure pre­dic­tion will not result in planning and drilling a better well.

With­out knowing the specific cause(s) of the geo-pressures at a proposed drilling location in advance, it is impossible to cor­rectly calculate their magnitude. Most predictions do not make any provision for this fact. Largely as a result of this, operators are experiencing drilling pro­blems that could have been avoided with better pore pressure predictions. Mere­ly trying to apply the most commonly used method does not assure that an estimate is anywhere close to being right. Come and see what some companies have discovered constitutes the best prac­tices in pore pressure prediction technology.