MBDCI

Geomechanical Sources of Risk

and Risk Mitigation
7-A Geomechanical Risks

Maurice Dusseault
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Risk and Expectations

The known knowns
 Corporate knowledge, expected, manageable

The known unknowns
 Monitoring to quantify them (subsidence, sanding)
 Analysis to evaluate risks, prepare for them

 Cost-benefit analyses
7-A Geomechanical Risks

The unknown unknowns

 Unforeseenevents, totally unexpected
 Design must be somewhat flexible, safety factor...

Expect the unexpected vigilance, care

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Some Risks can be Evaluated

Deterministic approach
 Get the mechanisms right
 Develop an analysis process

 Make predictions

 Test on field data (monitoring)

Purely probabilistic approach

7-A Geomechanical Risks

 Collect cases (perhaps many fields)

 Use methods of analogy to apply to other fields

 Correlate to logs, other data, and processes used

 Establish a risk envelope of first-order processes

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Breakouts

Severe breakouts, well hydrau-

Differential
lics designed to cope with this
stresses

damage

normal breakouts Severe breakouts

7-A Geomechanical Risks

Extremely severe breakouts

Deep Borehole (high stresses) unexpected?
Stability
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Some Known Unknowns

Exact effect of depletion on pF

Hydraulic fracture propagation details
 Extent, rise rate, wing length and anisotropy

Onset of casing shearing

Amount of subsidence
Sanding initiation with drawdown pressure
7-A Geomechanical Risks

Onset of significant fault reactivation

Generally, we design to account for these

But there is a cost involved
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Risk and Cost-Benefit Analysis

Safety is a separate issue (e.g. blowouts)

Regulatory mandated issues such as LOT,
injection pressures, environmental issues

Other risks
 How much will proactive design cost compared to
the potential losses?
7-A Geomechanical Risks

 Is it best to simply be ready to solve the problem?

 Is the risk lost time or lost production? Lost RF?

 The fallacy of sunk costs. (Im going to save that

borehole because it has been so costly already.)
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North Sea Case, Shallow Depth

Well A
1a

Shallow Gas
7-A Geomechanical Risks

2000 m

Gas Pull Down

Courtesy Geomec a.s.

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Above a Deep Diapir, North Sea

Normal faulting above the top of the diapir,
likely zones of large mud losses (low hmin)

Beds are distorted, likely shearing has
occurred along the bedding planes (weaker)

Free gas zones are found in overlying strata,
and these will increase gas cuts massively
7-A Geomechanical Risks

Is it better to reduce risks with a different

trajectory, with additional costs?
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Deeper, Around the Diapir

This region avoided
Well A
1b
Gas Pull Down

2000 m

Mid-Miocene regional pressure boundary

Top Balder
7-A Geomechanical Risks

Top Chalk
Intra Hod/Salt

3000 m

Courtesy Geomec a.s.

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Risk Management

Change or modify equipment (e.g. sanding)

Establish realistic reaction protocol to events

Analyze, study analogous cases, purchase
offset well information

Develop a good Earth Model
Specify worst expected case and probability
7-A Geomechanical Risks

Estimate the costs of events

Monitor to manage risk

Update your information

and so on