The Forum is a limited-attendance meeting for up to 75 people, designed for professionals in the oil and gas industry interested in the future direction of geomechanics integration to optimize resources development. In particular, we will discuss potential future challenges associated with integrating geomechanics knowledge from drilling and completion operations to be then incorporated into reservoir management to reliably forecast reservoir performance and maximize asset value. This means that the evolution of the stress field from drilling and completion then production is incorporated during reservoir management. The forum is aimed at people with expertise in any of the following categories, as they pertain to geomechanics: drilling and completion operations, reservoir evaluation and characterization, diagnostic analysis and interpretation, production forecasting, reservoir management and field development, and risk management.

The past 30 years have seen a rapidly growing recognition of the important role geomechanics and pore pressure analysis plays in the hydrocarbon industry. Geomechanics and pore pressure analysis originally gained prominence in the late 1980s in planning and drilling wells, with issues such as wellbore stability and high pressures recognized as leading causes of lost-time incidents in expensive deep-water drilling operations. Since these beginnings, geomechanics and pore pressure have been used in an increasingly broad capacity, and are now important elements throughout the entire field life-cycle. Geomechanics and pore pressure provide valuable insights and applications in acreage selection and prospect risking, well planning and field development planning, completions, reservoir modeling, enhanced recovery, and eventual field abandonment.

Furthermore, geomechanics in particular has been an essential aspect of unconventional hydrocarbon production, providing critical inputs for fracture stimulation, directional drilling and field planning that have drastically changed the industry.

This 2 day workshop will bring together a wide range of geoscientists, engineers and managers to highlight the important and varied roles that geomechanics and pore pressure play from initial exploration phasçåes through to field abandonment. This workshop will also highlight the key aspects and elements that are unusual or unique to geomechanics and pore pressure analysis in Australia and Asia, where basins are often characterized by complicated geology, variable and high-magnitude stress states and anomalous overpressures. Key themes of the workshop will follow the use of geomechanics and pore pressure throughout the well life-cycle, including their use in:

• developing play concepts and prospect risking;
• well planning and optimal well design;
• safe and efficient real-time operations;
• field appraisal and development;
• completions and fracture stimulation;
• reservoir geomechanics and enhancing field production, and;
• successful well and field abandonment.