SPE 2-Day Training Courses

Thursday, 23 September and Friday, 24 September

0900–1800

Production Optimization Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining

(Laptop required)

Instructor

Shahab D. Mohaghegh, West Virginia University & Intelligent Solutions, Inc.

Intended Audience

This course is designed for reservoir, completion, and production engineers of operating companies as well as service company personnel involved with planning, completion, and operating wells.

About the Course

This training course will start with the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and data mining (AI&DM), covering artificial neural networks, evolutionary computing, and fuzzy logic. The course is devoted to field application of this technology with focus on production optimization and recovery enhancement.

Artificial intelligence is a collection of several analytical tools that attempts to mimic life. This technology is used extensively in other industries such as automation and manufacturing, financial market and home land security. It has been predicted that use of AI technology will introduce a step change in how the E&P industry does business in the future.

This training course examines the successful application of AI&DM in the E&P industry over the past several years. These applications include modeling and optimization of stimulation designs and practices and identification of candidate wells, reservoir characterization, optimization of drilling operations, and new workflows for reservoir simulation and modeling that provide fast screening of the reservoir for identification of remaining reserves and optimum infill locations.

Risk and Uncertainty Analysis for Resources Plays

Instructor

James (Jim) Gouveia, Rose & Associates, LLP

Intended Audience

This course is designed for completion, production, and reservoir engineers of operating companies, as well as service company personnel involved with planning, completion, and operating wells and surface facilities.

About the Course

This 2-day course provides a comprehensive integrated treatment on the description, characterization, and valuation of tight gas, shale, and coal bed (seam) methane plays. 

Beginning with practical definitions and geoformational processes, R&A describes the geologic ingredients and how to measure them for use in screening for successful resource plays. This is followed by the techniques to probabilistically estimate the in-place and recoverable resource potential. The geologic ingredients are then revisited in spatial form to address the geologic concerns that form the risk system to grade the plays. 

The second part of the course focuses on the reserve booking and economic evaluation of resource plays. R&A reviews the development of production and reserve type curves and how the geologic segmentation and completion technology utilized for the play can be adapted to build the appropriate type curve. The economic assessment of these plays is developed through the use of a staged investment approach. 

The first day deals largely with the main types of resource plays—the main geologic attributes and concerns that may hinder the potential to be commercially successful.   The second day is focused on the reservoir engineering and economic assessment of resource plays. 

Participants will leave knowing how to determine the uncertainty in the mean outcome based on limited well information and how to develop confidence in achieving a target versus well count curves.

Shale Gas Completions, Fracturing and Production Operations

Instructor

George King, Consultant

Intended Audience

Engineers, geologists, and geophysicists interested in development of shale gas resources should attend this course.

About the Course

In this course, participants will learn candidate selection criteria including geomechanics and geochemistry needs and skilled completion and fracturing design elements leading to successful development of gas shales.

• Candidate Selection – understand the importance of major elements such as gas-in-place, maturity, pressure, maturity, natural fractures, and eight other development qualifiers.
• Completions design – select completion type, well orientation, well position, packer type or perf cluster location, and frac stage length.
• Select the elements of the multi-stage frac and generate a frac design that allows maximum area contact with the formation and stable flow path construction.
• Gain a working understanding of how to apply microseismic, tracers, monitoring techniques, and pressure analysis to effectively map and optimize fracture design.
• Learn operational details specific to gas shale wells including flowback, lift requirements, back pressure, produced water recycling methods,  and how production rates and compositions change with time.

Modern Production Decline Analysis

(Laptop required)

Instructor

David Anderson, Fekete Associates Inc.

Intended Audience

Engineers and technologists involved in exploitation, reserves evaluation, production optimization, and welltest analysis would benefit from this course. In general, it will be of interest to anyone interested in getting more “mileage” out of production and flowing pressure data.

About the Course

The course covers the traditional and modern methods of analyzing production data.  The traditional methods of decline analysis were largely empirical and analyzed production rates only. The modern methods integrate both the rates and the pressures, and maximize the value of information that can be extracted from all of the available data. Participants will learn how to determine: Expected Ultimate Recovery (EUR), Original-Gas-In-Place (OGIP), and Permeability and Skin, without shutting the well in.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own production and pressure data (ASCII columnar format), as there will be time to work through several of these examples as a class.

Hydraulic Fracturing/Pressure Analysis

(Laptop required)

Instructor

Michael Smith, NSI Technologies, Inc.

Intended Audience

This course is of interest to petroleum engineers involved (directly or indirectly) in the design and evaluation of hydraulic fracturing treatments. It would be beneficial for participants to have a basic understanding of hydraulic fracturing and well completion concepts.

About the Course

This course presents the fundamentals of fracturing pressure analysis. This includes design parameters that can be determined, uses and limitations of such analysis for on-site design, and field examples. Sessions include real-world examples from a variety of environments, from "tight" gas to high permeability, offshore, and "frac-pack" treatments.

Review for the Principles and Practice Exam

This course has been cancelled.