Fracture Pressure Prediction Model for Deepwater Fields, Gulf of Guinea

Abstract

Abstract Following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Macondo well control incidence, increased emphasis has been placed on the safe delivery of wells. Fracture pressure prediction is a critical input to effective well planning and safe drilling especially in deepwater environments due to rising well costs and narrower drilling margins with increasing water depths. Therefore, accurate formation fracture and pore pressure prediction is crucial to minimize potential borehole stability concerns, lost circulation problems and optimize casing setting depths during drilling. Also, for fields where water flooding is used to enhance recovery or maintain reservoir pressure, proper estimate of fracture pressure is necessary to curtail implications such as loss of production, injectivity and reputational damage in the event that there is loss of containment and hydrocarbons migrate through to surface. This work establishes empirical correlations for fracture pressure prediction from field leak–off tests data; builds on existing foundations relating fracture pressure with overburden, in-situ effective stress ratio and pore pressure. The results indicate that the developed correlations can be suitably applied in offshore fields in the Gulf of Guinea deepwater environment.