Preliminary Technical Agenda

Monday, 28 June

Session I: Petroleum Systems Modelling in Deep Water Environments

This session will focus on understanding the big picture, the basin. That includes the configuration, with emphasis on its petroleum systems. Presentations and panel discussions will include:

• Basin modelling and analysis
• Source rocks, and hydrocarbon generation
• Maturation and migration
• The reservoir, trap and seal
• Focus and application on salt will be highlighted and emphasised
• Analog basins and relevance to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean

Session II: Pre-salt and Salt Deposition and Tectonic Evolution

Pre-salt and salt depositional environment and facies are key to reservoir prediction, time to depth conversion. Subsalt trapping of hydrocarbons is generally induced by salt diapirism and tectonic. Deep sea sub–salt prospect evaluation needs to have a good basin evaluation based on seismic and no seismic techniques, outcrop geology, well data assessment etc.

Session III: Subsalt Exploration Methods - Acquisition Technology

Seismic acquisition technology has made signifi cant improvement in sub-surface imaging in sub-salt environments. The success of this technology has been manifested in substantial discoveries in new hydrocarbons around the world. Acquisition geometry, efficiency and real-time quality control have optimised data quality and reduced costs in acquisition meeting exploration challenges. Advances in source and receiver systems using high channel count, have allowed significant improvement in seismic resolution, reduced risks and increasing exploration successes. Streamer and multi-component seismic acquisition systems have made enormous progress in exploring sub-salt deposits.

Tuesday, 29 June

Session IV: Sub-Salt Seismic Imaging

The seismic image below salt is distorted by complicated ray paths through complex salt layers. This session deals with processing solutions in the form of multiple attenuation, the construction of proper velocity models and the use of modern migration algorithms to reconstruct the undistorted seismic image below salt.

Session V: Role of Potential Fields and Non Seismic Methods

Seismic imaging suffers from known limitations in defi ning the sub-salt geology. Seismic and non-seismic data sets complement each other by the fact that they respond to different physical properties and thus do not share the same problems or limitations. Integrated together they have the potential to provide a better and more unique solution.

Session VI: Drilling Technology

The session will highlight technologies and best practices currently used for successful and cost efficient deepwater wellbore construction and placement. Accessing deepwater reservoirs poses significant technical challenges – pressures up to 30,000 psi, over-pressured formations and the geological uncertainty of sub-salt plays pose signifi cant risks. With rig spread rates in excess of $1MM/day, the cost of failure is high. Detailed pre-drill planning is used to assess and reduce the risks arising from wellbore stability and wellbore pressure management issues, opportunities to optimise drilling parameters to extend the life of downhole equipment as well as real-time measurements to address geological uncertainty.

Wednesday, 30 June

Session VII: Formation Evaluation

Drilling and evaluating deep sub-salt formations is not only challenging but also critical to success of these projects. Using state of the art technology to get rock mechanical properties, pore pressure as well as geological and petrophysical information in real-time, is highly recommended. Obtaining this data in a timely fashion will ensure better understanding of the depositional environment and proper reservoir characterisation and will lead to informed decisions on the field potential and its future development. This session will bring in experience from world leaders in sub-salt development and will focus on:

• Wireline and LWD technologies
• Reservoir pressure, sampling and testing
• Petrophysical interpretation
• Reservoir modelling/stimulation

Session VIII: Risks, Economics and Environmental Impact

This session will try to highlight and investigate the methodologies used to quantify economics and risks involved in any deepwater campaign. The aim is to highlight the use of process simulation models to evaluate and quantify the level of uncertainty in terms of time and cost. It is well known that deepwater drilling operations are complex and risky endeavors, with the cost of these drilling operations responsible for a significant cost of the overall field development budget, thus it is critical to understand and identify areas to mitigate any inherent risk. Tools to assess the economics and risks and have been available for many years but, due to the level of complexity involved in setting up and maintaining these models, it has not often been applied to deepwater drilling. It is our aim to draw on lessons from project developments where these proactive methodologies were employed in project planning and evaluating of deepwater developments globally. Therefore, we hope through the sharing of these economic and risk models we can benefit, thus ensuring that we in the Oil and Gas industry are able to present methodologies that leverage our cause and decrease the time for approval of these difficult projects.

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