Greetings

Greetings and warm holiday wishes for you and your family. Each year BPI sends a New Year Calendar to its select Clients. Each year we receive a few notes that the Calendar photos reminded some of a wonderful experience they had where the photograph was taken. This makes our day when we hear about the experience.

The Driller’s Geophysicistä

The Driller’s Geophysicistä shall be the new name for the BPI Newsletter, beginning with the next issue.

Update from BPI

First an update then some technical data for you, our Client: Almost everyone is interested in what’s new and what’s coming up. BPI shall do whatever it takes to maintain its technical edge in the areas of well planning and seismic pressure prognosis. What we accomplished this year:

• Kept up with Client demand for well planning services
• Improved software tools for seismic pressure and basin modeling prediction of abnormal fluid pressures.
• Successfully distributed over 250 copies of the little book, Simple Seismics by Nigel Anstey.
• Completed 16 well planning projects. These wells extended from Vietnam to the Adriatic to the Black Sea to the South China Sea as well as the deep water Gulf of Mexico and new shallow water Gulf of Mexico deep gas shelf wells. What was particularly interesting was the increased complexity of these projects and the pioneering work and results we provided.
• Continued to improve the usefulness of the BPI website www.bairdpetro.com
• Built up a RedHat Linux based computer system that has raised the bar for improved seismic analysis.
• Started the migration of Baird legacy software to the Linux environment.
• Evaluated two (2) competitive seismic data processing systems for in-house use and recommendation to our clients.
• Continued the time consuming work to standardize and database all the well planning data in our extensive files. Included is the research and excellent work by Leo J. McClure over the past two decades.

 

What we are planning:

• Work towards increasing the in-house capability to 4 wells per month for geologic well planning, including seismic pressure prognosis.
• Expand the service offerings of the Company to include closer integration with Client workstation based information and communications
• Complete the well planning database and place it on the internet/web for client access.
• Reinstate the BPI/McClure Pore Pressure and Frac Gradient Schools.
• Set up/author on-line learning. This will be a continuing development and offering of our pressure schools and basic technology schools onto the Internet for BPI Clients.
• Identify out-of-print books for engineers that can be re-published by BPI and offered for free to BPI Clients. We have three in the works at this time.
• Continue to support SPE, AADE, IADC and AAPG scholarships for dual-degree/multidisciplinary undergraduates at the Colorado School of Mines and other qualified four-year universities.
• Technical research and literature search has identified many interesting, under-utilized algorithms to help analyze seismic data for engineers. This fits the category of applied research and many will be tested in the coming months.
• Establish alliances with data acquisition service contractors for joint efforts to provide excellent well planning and hazard identification services. The first of these shall be announced before the end of calendar year 2003.

What is Hard Pressure?

Do not use the term hard pressure. The term hard pressure is a misunderstood term. The term 'hard pressure' dates back to Loucks, et al (1979), where the authors say they recognized three (3) pressure regimes, defined in terms of pressure-depth gradients:

 

*normal pressure (0.465 psi/ft, 8.9 PPG EMW, 1.07 kg/l),

*soft overpressure (0.465 to 0.700 psi/ft, 13.5 PPG EMW,  1.62 kg/l), and

*hard overpressure (> 0.700 psi/ft, 13.5 PPG EMW,  1.62 kg/l).

 

We at BPI, strongly disagree with the use of these terms. Hard pressure refers more to a short pressure transition zone where significant changes to drilling parameters are required during drilling operations. Hard pressure is not a term that BPI uses. We document transition zones and the reasons for changes and their magnitude, depth and uncertainty/certainly.

 

Sometimes unexpected short transition zones are encountered from geologic causes:

• Buried fault
• Unconformity
• Breech by drilling below a perfect pressure seal
• Gas (and sometimes oil) reservoir sand/porosity zone

 

Geologic caused pressure transition zones are identifiable from subsurface data and seismic data.

 

*To convert psi/ft to PPG-EMW divide by 0.0519.

*To convert psi/ft to kg/l divide by 0.433.

PPG = pounds per gallon

EMW = equivalent mud weight

BPI NEWSLETTER

BPI Newsletter is published and freely distributed by:

Baird Petrophysical Group, Inc.

1784 W. Sam Houston Pkwy N.

Houston, Texas 77043-2723.

Disclaimer:

The results discussed herein are based on interpretation of drilling planning, geological, geophysical and other scientific data supplied to Baird Petrophysical by its various customers on a private basis.  It is the Reader’s responsibility to value its use.  Baird Petrophysical specifically disclaims and does not warrant any of its news, comments, interpretations or opinions about the information presented here.

Communication with BPI:

Tel:       (713) 461-1784                       Fax:      CALL

Email:          Web:    www.bairdpetro.com