Pore pressure prediction is a well-developed key discipline for well planning in the hydrocarbon industry, suggesting a similar importance for deep geothermal wells, especially, since drilling cost is often the largest investment in deep geothermal energy projects. To address the role of pore pressure prediction in deep geothermal energy, we investigated pore pressure-related drilling problems in the overpressured North Alpine Foreland Basin in SE Germany – one of Europe's most extensively explored deep geothermal energy plays. In the past, pore pressure was mainly predicted via maximum drilling mud weights of offset hydrocarbon wells, but recently more data became available, which led to a re-evaluation of the pore pressure distribution in this area. To compare the impact of pore pressure and its prediction, 70% of all deep geothermal wells drilled have been investigated for pore pressure-related drilling problems and two deep geothermal projects are given as more detailed examples. Thereby, pore pressure-related drilling problems were encountered in one third of all wells drilled, resulting in several side-tracks and an estimated drilling rate decrease of up to 40%, highlighting the importance of accurate pore pressure prediction to significantly reduce the cost of deep geothermal drilling in overpressured environments.

Thematic collection: This article is part of the Geopressure collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/geopressure

孔隙压力预测是油气行业井规划的一个成熟的关键学科，这表明深部地热井具有类似的重要性，特别是因为钻井成本通常是深部地热能项目的最大投资。为了解决孔隙压力预测在深层地热能中的作用，我们研究了德国东南部超压北高山前陆盆地中与孔隙压力相关的钻井问题，该盆地是欧洲探索最广泛的深层地热能区之一。过去，孔隙压力主要通过偏置烃井的最大钻井泥浆重量来预测，但最近有更多数据可用，这导致对该区域的孔隙压力分布进行了重新评估。为了比较孔隙压力的影响及其预测，70% 的深部地热井已针对与孔隙压力相关的钻井问题进行了调查，并给出了两个深部地热项目作为更详细的示例。因此，三分之一的钻井都遇到了与孔隙压力相关的钻井问题，导致出现多条侧钻，预计钻井速度下降高达 40%，凸显了准确预测孔隙压力对显着降低钻井成本的重要性在超压环境中进行深层地热钻探。

专题合集：本文是 Geopressure 合集的一部分，可在以下网址获得：https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/geopressure