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The assessment of alterations in hydrocarbon components preserved in reservoirs is important for oil field management and drilling procedures. Drilling fluid analysis yields valuable insights into the reservoir fluid. This study focuses on identifying and quantifying shallow gas basins in the Azadegan oil field. Risk assessment of abnormal pressure zones with a focus on shallow gas pockets based on surface gas logging data and statistical relationships is also a key aspect of this research. Shifts in the C1 gas ratio to other gas components signify a notable peak in the Asmari Formation. Consistency among various wetness (Wh), balance (Bh), and character (Ch) indices suggests that the Aghajari and Gachsaran formations potentially harbor gas and contain some heavy or residual oil with limited production potential. However, the Asmari Formation shows the potential for natural gas production, while the Gurpi Formation has the potential for wet gas or condensate. Pixler parameters were computed and plotted to affirm the results of other parameters. The investigation of stratigraphic columns for component changes and lithology reveals that lithology plays a pivotal role in preserving valuable fluids. The upper section of the Aghajari Formation, primarily composed of shale-evaporite horizons, exhibits lower frequency compared to its lower part. The Gachsaran Formation displays an exceptional ability to preserve components in anhydrite sections. Although Asmari has a high accretion ratio, the Chilean calcareous sandstone horizons are more prominent in the upper part of the Gurpi Formation. The structural model includes humpback microstructures as controls for shallow gas pockets and component accumulation. Evaporite and shale layers significantly influence the movement of these components across different horizons. The 3D model illustrates migration from the Gurpi Formation to the Aghajari Formation, as both formations serve as sources due to the propagation paths leading to the Pabdeh and Gurpi Formations.

Rock physics plays an important role in the oil, gas, and water industries by providing essential data for reservoir management. This study focuses on predicting Shear Wave Velocity (Vs), a key geophysical parameter, using the Deep Belief Network (DBN) and Random Forest (RF) algorithms. The dataset is divided for training, validation, and testing, revealing that the DBN model surpasses the RF and empirical models in accuracy. With a low RMSE value of 0.0398 km/s in testing and an R2 of 0.9775, the DBN model demonstrates precision in Vs prediction. The analysis identifies specific parameters—Measure Depth (MD), Caliper (CALL), Gamma Ray (GR), Shallow Electrical Resistivity (RES-S), Medium Electrical Resistivity (RES-M), Deep Electrical Resistivity (RES-D), Compressional Wave Velocity (DCT), Neutron Porosity (NPHI), and Photoelectric Coefficient Index (PEF)—as significantly influencing Vs, while CALI and GR have a relatively lesser effect. The results of the Vs prediction indicated that the DBN algorithm excels in deep feature extraction, unsupervised pretraining, and efficient handling of complex data. Ultimately, the DBN algorithm proves to be a superior and time-saving alternative for Vs prediction and analysis in subsurface reservoirs.

The mud weight window (MW) determination is one of the most important parameters in drilling oil and gas wells, where accurate design can secure the drilled well and deliver a stable borehole. In this paper, novel algorithms based on the most influential set of input features are developed to predict pore pressure, including rate of penetration (ROP), deep resistivity (ILD), density (RHOB), photoelectric index (PEF), corrected gamma ray (CGR), compression-wave velocity (Vp), weight on bit (WOB), shear-wave velocity (Vs) and pore compressibility (Cp). The algorithms used in this study are as follows: 1) machine learning algorithms (ML), these are the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm, weighted K-Nearest Neighbor (WKKNN), and distance weighted KNN (DWKNN); 2) hybrid machine learning algorithms (HML), which include the combination of three ML with particle swarm optimization (PSO) (KNN-PSO, WKNN-PSO and DWKNN-PSO). The 2875-record dataset used in this study was collected from three wells (S1, S2 and S3) in one of the gas reservoirs (Tabnak field) in Iran. After comparing the performance accuracy of all algorithms, DWKNN-PSO has the best performance accuracy compared to other algorithms presented in this paper (for the total dataset of wells S1 and S2: R2=0.9656and RMSE = 12.6773 psi). Finally, the generalizability of the best predictive algorithm for PP, DWKNN-PSO, is evaluated by testing the proposed algorithm on an unseen dataset from another well (S3) in the field under study, where the DWKNN-PSO algorithm provides PP predictions in well S3 with high accuracy, R2 = 0.9765 and RMSE = 9.7545 psi, confirming its ability to be used in PP prediction in the studied field.

Pore pressure (PP) is one of the essential and very critical parameters in the oil and gas industry, especially in reservoir engineering, exploitation, and production. Forecasting this valuable parameter can prevent huge costs incurred by the oil and gas industry. This research aims to develop a algorithm to better predict PP in subsurface -formations. Based on this, information from three wells (F1, F2, and F3) representing one of the Middle East oil fields was used in this research. The input variables used in this research include; laterolog (LLS), photoelectric index (PEF), compressional wave velocity (Vp), porosity (NPHI), gamma ray (spectral) (SGR), density (RHOB), gamma ray (corrected) (CGR), shear wave velocity (Vs), caliper (CALI), resistivity (ILD), and sonic transit time (DT). Based on the results presented in the heat map (Spearman’s correlation), it can be concluded that the pairs of parameters RHOB-PEF, CGR-SGR, RHOB-CALL, DT-PEF, PP-RHOB, Vs-RHOB, ILD-LLS, DT-CGR, and DT-NPHI are connected. In this research the GS-GMDH methods is used for modeling which is based on the Group method of data handling (GMDH). The results of this research show that this algorithm has an average error of RMSE = 1.88 Psi and R2 = 0.9997, indicating its high-performance accuracy. The difference between this method and the conventional GMDH method is that it can use three or more variables instead of two, which can improve prediction accuracy. Furthermore, by using the input of each neuron layer, the proposed model can communicate with other adjacent and non-adjacent layers to solve complex problems in the simplest possible way.

One of the challenges that reservoir engineers, drilling engineers, and geoscientists face in the oil and gas industry is determining the fracture density (FVDC) of reservoir rock. This critical parameter is valuable because its presence in oil and gas reservoirs boosts productivity and is pivotal for reservoir management, operation, and ultimately energy management. This valuable parameter is determined by some expensive operations such as FMI logs and core analysis techniques. As a result, this paper attempts to predict this important parameter using petrophysics logs routinely collected at oil and gas wells and by applying four robust computational algorithms and artificial intelligence hybrids. A total of 6067 data points were collected from three gas wells (#W1, #W2, and #W3) in one gas reservoir in Southwest Asia. Following feature selection, the input variables include spectral gamma ray (SGR); sonic porosity (PHIS); potassium (POTA); photoelectric absorption factor (PEF); neutron porosity (NPHI); sonic transition time (DT); bulk density (RHOB); and corrected gamma ray (CGR). In this study, four hybrids of two networks were used, including least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) with two optimizers particle swarm optimizer (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA). Four robust hybrid machine learning models were applied, and these are LSSVM-PSO/GA and MLP-PSO/GA, which had not previously used for prediction of FVDC. In addition, the k-fold cross validation method with k equal to 8 was used in this article. When the performance accuracy of the hybrid algorithms for the FVDC prediction is compared, the revealed result is LSSVM-PSO > LSSVM-GA > MLP-PSO > MLP-GA. The study revealed that the best algorithm for predicting FVDC among the four algorithms is LSSVM-PSO (for total dataset RMSE = 0.0463 1/m; R2 = 0.9995). This algorithm has several advantages, including: 1) lower adjustment parameters, 2) high search efficiency, 3) fast convergence speed, 4) increased global search capability, and 5) preventing the local optimum from falling. When compared to other models, this model has the lowest error.

This study has been conducted in order to analyze the subject of lack of promotion of faculty members’ competencies for sustainability education and to present the mechanisms for improvement of problem. The method of system dynamics analysis was used because of the nature of the problem. Based on the steps of research method, a survey of faculty members with less than 20 years experience were implemented in the University College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran. The causal layered analysis was used to explain research problem and formulate dynamic hypotheses. Based on the recognition of the problem, dynamic model of faculty members’ competencies for sustainability education was developed that describes and predicts the behavior of research problem by simulating for the next 20 years. The model includes eight reinforcing and four balancing feedback loops. After ensuring the validity of the model, for enhancing faculty members’ competencies, six mechanisms were elicited and tested in simulated environment in order to study their effects on the problem. Six mechanisms include: taking a compulsory course to familiarize freshman students with the basic concepts of sustainability competencies, holding educational-skill courses concerning appropriate strategies for sustainability education for faculty members, revising compulsory specialized outlines of educational disciplines, holding meetings of strategic dialogue, changing faculty members’ promotion system through taking special advantages to sustainability researches, and changing promotion system based on the educational processes.