Data Driven Approach for Predicting Pore Pressure of Oil and Gas Wells, Case Study of Iraq Southern Oilfields

Precise forecasting of pore pressures is crucial for efficiently planning and drilling oil and gas wells. It reduces expenses and saves time while preventing drilling complications. Since direct measurement of pore pressure in wellbores is costly and time-intensive, the ability to estimate it using empirical or machine learning models is beneficial. The present study aims to predict pore pressure using artificial neural network. The building and testing of artificial neural network are based on the data from five oil fields and several formations. The artificial neural network model is built using a measured dataset consisting of 77 data points of Pore pressure obtained from the modular formation dynamics tester. The input variables are vertical depth, bulk density, and acoustic compressional wave velocity, with the activation function of tangent sigmoid. The average percent error, absolute average percent error, mean square error, root mean square error, and correlation coefficient (R2) were applied for evaluation. The results revealed that the best artificial neural network structure was (3-8-1), with average percent error, absolute average percent error, mean square error, root mean square error, and correlation coefficient R2 of -0.52, 1.01, 3994, 63.2, and 0.995, respectively. A C++ computer program is provided with a calculation sample to simplify the implementation of the proposed artificial neural network. The dependency degree of pore pressure on each input parameter is investigated, revealing the highest impact of depth on pore pressure prediction. Furthermore, to check the validity of the artificial neural network against the different datasets, the artificial neural network performance was compared with 84 new data points and showed an advantage over the existing models. The very good performance of artificial neural network for different types of oil reservoirs and formations reveals an insignificant effect of lithology on the prediction of pore pressure.