A New Empirical Correlation for Pore Pressure Prediction Based on Artificial Neural Networks Applied to a Real Case Study

Abstract

Pore pressure prediction is a critical parameter in petroleum engineering and is essential for safe drilling operations and wellbore stability. However, traditional methods for pore pressure prediction, such as empirical correlations, require selecting appropriate input parameters and may not capture the complex relationships between these parameters and the pore pressure. In contrast, artificial neural networks (ANNs) can learn complex relationships between inputs and outputs from data. This paper presents a new empirical correlation for predicting pore pressure using ANNs. The proposed method uses 42 datasets of well log data, including temperature, porosity, and water saturation, to train ANNs for pore pressure prediction. The trained model, with the Bayesian regularization backpropagation function, predicts the pore pressure with an average absolute percentage error (AAPE) and correlation coefficient (R) of 4.22% and 0.875, respectively. The trained ANN is then used to develop a new empirical correlation that relates pore pressure to the input parameters considering the weights and biases of the optimized ANN model. To validate the proposed correlation, it is applied to a blind dataset, where the model successfully predicts the pore pressure with an AAPE of 5.44% and R of 0.957. The results show that the proposed correlation provides accurate and reliable predictions of pore pressure. The proposed method provides a robust and accurate approach for predicting pore pressure in petroleum engineering applications, which can be used to improve drilling safety and wellbore stability.