Face-to Face Course

September 16 to 20, 2024

Duration : 5 days

Level : Advanced

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Drillers, drilling engineers, operation geologists, geophysicists and petroleum engineers who want to expand their knowledge of how geomechanical rock properties and stresses affect the stability and integrity of wellbores from the design phase to the drilling and production phases of well construction.

OBJECTIVES: This workshop presents field examples and laboratory experiments at an advanced level to illustrate the concepts and practical applications of geomechanical theory to well construction and production challenges.  The course is liberally interspersed with case studies and student exercises to demonstrate geomechanical theory and consolidate learning

BENEFITS:

You will learn how to use geomechanics theory to understand the effects of drilling practice on wellbore stability and how to treat instability during well construction.

You will be able to estimate the well pressure limits to design drilling programmes and avoid wellbore instability – breakout, breakdown and other hazards and unconventional failures.

You will learn of advanced techniques to optimize drilling performance and mitigate against drilling hazards in unconventional situations.

Course content includes:

• Essential rock mechanics, earth stresses and pore pressures – including Mohr’s Circle analyses
• Designing laboratory measurements to obtain the rock properties required for well construction and reservoir management
• The principles of pore pressure prediction from seismic, logging and drilling data
• Construction of a rock mechanical earth model for the prediction of wellbore instability, accounting for anisotropic shales and earth stresses – understanding Leak-off tests
• Evaluating limits to wellbore stability for specific well trajectories and the selection of mud weights – exercise to evaluate preferred well trajectory
• Planning for wellbore stability – building a drilling plan and case studies illustrating the use of formation evaluation data to manage common wellbore instabilities
• Reservoir geomechanics – instability in reservoir and overburden generated by pore pressure depletion, temperature changes and injection of CO₂
• The geomechanics of drill bit design and using mechanical specific energy (MSE) to optimize drilling performance
• Understanding and mitigating against the causes of lost circulation while drilling and cementing – exercise using real drilling and LWD log data to identify and treat a lost circulation problem
• The geomechanical implications of drilling naturally fractured intervals and the creation of induced fractures
• The principles of wellbore strengthening techniques for drilling depleted intervals