Precise prediction of pore pressure and fracture pressure
is a
crucial aspect of petroleum engineering. The awareness of both fracture
pressure and pore pressure is essential to control the well. It helps
in the elimination of the problems related to drilling, waterflooding
project, and hydraulic fracturing job such as fluid loss, kick, differential
sticking, and blowout. Avoiding these problems enhances the performance
and reduces the cost of operation. Several researchers proposed many
models for predicting pore and fracture pressures using well log information,
rock strength properties, or drilling data. However, some of these
models are limited to one type of lithology such as clean and compacted
shale formation, applicable only for the pressure generated by under
compaction, and some of them cannot be used in unloading formations.
Recently, artificial intelligence techniques showed a great performance
in petroleum engineering applications. Hence, in this paper, two artificial
neural network models are developed to estimate both pore pressure
and fracture pressure through the use of 2820 data sets obtained from
drilling data in mixed lithologies of sandstone, carbonate, and shale.
The proposed artificial neural network (ANN) models achieved accurate
estimation of pore and fracture pressures, where the coefficients
of determination (
R
2
) for pore and fracture
pressures are 0.974 and 0.998, respectively. Another data set from
the Middle East was used to validate the developed models. The models
estimated the pore and fracture pressures with high
R
2
values of 0.90 and 0.99, respectively. This work demonstrates
the validity and reliability of the developed models to calculate
pore and fracture pressures from real-time surface drilling parameters
by considering the formation type to overcome the limitation of previous
models.