Novel Automated Light Foam Cementing Set-Up Brings Operational Efficiency to Major Operator in Norwegian North Sea Sector

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Marie Ekwue ◽  
Antonio Bottiglieri ◽  
Yasser Haddad ◽  
Agnieszka Walania ◽  
Toby Harkless ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Nitrogen ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Control Flow ◽  
Displacement Efficiency ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
Isolation Requirements ◽  
Critical Components ◽  
Set Up

Abstract As oil and gas operators are constantly looking for ways to increase efficiency in their operations, one area of well construction that is becoming increasingly popular is in the field of foam cementing. Foamed cement slurries are designed to have low density with relatively high compressive strength to enable operators accomplish their zonal isolation requirements. In addition, the enhanced slurry mobility of these energized fluids leads to a high displacement efficiency to ensure uniform cement coverage in the annulus. The use of foamed cement slurries particularly for top-hole sections in deep-water environments has increased over the past decade. For large volume jobs such as these, operators utilize the standard Automated Foam Cement System (AFCS) which comprises of high-pressure nitrogen pumps /converter and portable liquid nitrogen tanks. The AFCS automatically controls nitrogen and cement slurry based on the downhole rate and precisely maintains a desired foam cement density. For smaller volume jobs, the main constraint to deploying the standard AFCS is mainly rig deck space limitations, thus a "light foam package" was developed. The light package, fully developed in Norway, maintains the already well-established characteristics of automation from the standard AFCS; with the added benefit of minimizing footprint on board the rig with equipment which includes foam manifold, gas bottle rack and nitrogen control flow valve vs. the conventional liquid nitrogen tanks, pumps, and back up equipment. Other advantages of this set up include much faster rig up time due to smaller and lighter liftsimproved HSE benefits of eliminating liquid nitrogen handling; as well as limiting number of people required offshorefull job accuracy and automatic control with the utilization of mass flowmeters to measure nitrogen and cement rates with precisionrobust system with 100% redundancy of critical components This publication highlights the job details from a light foam job performed on a 30in conductor in a well on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, with the objective to cement the entire conductor length to seabed. This job was conducted in a field where numerous past cement jobs had failed to bring cement up to seabed and top up jobs with grout were the norm to achieve top of cement. With this simplified foam cementing process, the vision is that this kind of system set-up can make foam cementing a reality even in the most remote of locations and/or locations with small deck space, with reduced start-up costs.

Comparative experimental evaluation of drilling fluid contamination on shear bond strength at wellbore cement interfaces

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 597-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mileva Radonjic ◽  
Arome Oyibo
Keyword(s):  
Bond Strength ◽  
Shear Bond Strength ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Drilling Fluid ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Geothermal Wells ◽  
Sustained Casing Pressure ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
Casing Pressure ◽  
The Impact

Wellbore cement has been used to provide well integrity through zonal isolation in oil and gas wells as well as geothermal wells. Failures of wellbore cement result from either or both: inadequate cleaning of the wellbore and inappropriate cement slurry design for a given field/operational application. Inadequate cementing can result in creation of fractures and microannuli, through which produced fluids can migrate to the surface, leading to environmental and economic issues such as sustained casing pressure, contamination of fresh water aquifers and, in some cases, well blowout. To achieve proper cementing, the drilling fluid should be completely displaced by the cement slurry, providing clean interfaces for effective bond. This is, however, hard to achieve in practice, which results in contaminated cement mixture and poor bonds at interfaces. This paper reports findings from the experimental investigation of the impact of drilling fluid contamination on the shear bond strength at the cement-formation and the cement-casing interfaces by testing different levels of contamination as well as contaminations of different nature (physical vs. chemical). Shear bond test and material characterization techniques were used to quantify the effect of drilling fluid contamination on the shear bond strength. The results show that drilling fluid contamination is detrimental to both cement-formation and cement-casing shear bond strength.

Wellbore Stabilizing Technology Enhances Cementing Efforts in the North Sea

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Ilnicka ◽  
Antonio Bottiglieri ◽  
Maja Jaskiewicz ◽  
David Kulakofsky
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Drilling Fluid ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Weak Zone ◽  
Two Fluids ◽  
The North ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Isolation Requirements ◽  
Cement Integrity

Abstract North Sea lithologies are often complex creating a difficult environment to deliver effective zonal isolation with standard cementing practices. With ever-present weak, fractured, and unconsolidated formations, the practice of fully lifting heavier cement up the annular gap between the formation and the casing or liner often times compromises the formation and the cement integrity. Wellbore Stabilizing (WBS) technology has been shown capable of providing zonal isolation under these difficult conditions. A cementing spacer has been developed that incorporates WBS technology providing a simple way to deliver the technology in front of any cement job, without compromising the cement integrity or requiring any last-minute slurry design or redesign. By separating the placement of the WBS technology from the cement itself, the cement slurry can be designed with the sole focus being on the interval's zonal isolation requirements. On Askepott wells in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, the Nordland weak zone is encountered after drilling out the 30-inch shoe from the Oseberg Vest H template. Cement back to the seafloor is required when cementing the 20-in casing in these 26-in. holes. Prior to the introduction of the WBS technology, pressure had been observed on the D-annulus, hinting at a lack of sufficient cement circulation. With assistance from this new WBS spacer, pressure is no longer observed in the D-annulus indicating the cement is now being circulated back inside of the conductor string. The WBS spacer has also been used successfully ahead of cement across the production interval in wells where losses were typically expected, and again full returns were observed. Normally cement spacers are utilized to separate the drilling fluid from the cement as these two fluids are normally incompatible with each other and to help push the drilling fluid out of the well so the annulus may be completely filled with cement. If the drilling fluid is not successfully displaced from the annular space, the zonal isolation intended by the primary cement job is usually less than ideal. In addition to these standard functions in preparation for cementing operations, this specialized WBS spacer also can prevent loss of cement to the formation.

Improving Cement-to-Pipe Bonding Evaluation on Coated Casing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Albert Lumankun ◽  
Diyah Ayu Adiningtyas ◽  
Cinto Azwar ◽  
Ahmed Osman ◽  
Rudi Hartanto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Evaluation Tool ◽  
Bond Quality ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Well Integrity ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
Bond Evaluation ◽  
Construction Operation

ABSTRACT In the Oil and Gas industries, drilling a well in both exploration and development operations is becoming more challenging due to the reservoir location and complex reservoir system. A sophisticated high-cost well structure with complex trajectory, subsea system, or even operating in deep water is sometimes unavoidable. One of the crucial factors for a successful well construction operation is to achieve excellent well integrity by having good zonal isolation throughout the target reservoir section. This requires flawless primary cementation from cement job planning, design, and up to execution. The cement bond quality will need to be evaluated by performing the post job cement execution evaluation and wireline logging cement bond log survey. Supported with more stringent regulations, well integrity is becoming a fundamental aspect in drilling and production operations. This brings new challenges to cementing operations and subsequent cement evaluation. Flawless primary cementation is of great importance, from the job planning, design, to the execution. Post-job cement evaluations are needed by performing Pressure Match Post-Job Analysis and Wireline Logging Cement Bond Log Survey. Key parameters in designing optimum zonal isolation cement slurry is good understanding of the wellbore technical challenges and mitigating all geological and formation-related risks, such as narrow pressure margin, gas migration risk, etc. Light cement, complicated cement composition recipes, small cement - mud weight ratio are more common these days, supported with the developing technology in cementing. These, on the other side, would impact the cement bond evaluation. Good cement bond is crucial to ensure good zonal isolation across the reservoir intervals. Casing external coating, applied to protect casing strings from rusts, is another aspect affecting the cement bond, especially cement-to-casing bond. A more advanced cement bond evaluation tool will be required to cope with variety of cementing conditions, to enable producing undoubted log results. Thus, helping Operator in making decisions of subsequent well operations. This paper shows and presents different cement bond log interpretation results from four wells executed with a different method of implementations, performed in a development drilling campaign in Natuna Sea, offshore Indonesia in year 2019. The paper will focus on the 9-5/8" casing cementation, on which the cement bond evaluation became one of the main attentions.

Design and Fabrication of Test Facility for Longevity Testing of Elastomer Seals

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Z. Qamar ◽  
T. Pervez ◽  
M. van de Velden ◽  
F. J. Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Control Flow ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
Material Behavior ◽  
Test Facility ◽  
Smart Systems ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
Water Swelling

The oil and gas sector has witnessed a marked inclination worldwide towards enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in recent years due to diminishing easy oil in many fields. One of the more popular EOR strategies is the workover method of converting existing weak horizontal producers to maximum reservoir contact (MRC) wells, or dead vertical wells to single horizontal producers or power water injectors. This attempt at maximum well productivity and total oil recovery is based on installation of downhole smart systems to control flow from each lateral. Expandable liners and swelling elastomers are the key drivers enabling this type of zonal isolation. Enhancement and maximization of hydrocarbon recovery is also being attempted through intelligent and multilateral wells. These well systems cannot succeed without proper zonal isolation and compartmentalization of the reservoir. Compared to conventional methods, swelling elastomer packers maintain good zonal isolation in even the most complex environments, yielding major savings in rig time and cost. As yet, no data is available from designers or manufacturers about the durability or service life of swell packers under actual well conditions. A full-scale rig has therefore been designed and fabricated at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), in collaboration with a regional petroleum development company, for longevity testing of water-swelling and oil-swelling elastomers. The test battery includes packers made from different swelling elastomer materials, exposed to actual crude oil or water of different salinities, maintained at different temperatures, and subjected to high pressure. Different conceptual designs of the test setup (for longevity testing over a 5 year period) were developed and later evaluated. Detail design of the best concept was carried out and assessed for reliability, manufacturability, assemblability, etc. Salient features of the final design include thermal systems for selected packers, able to continuously maintain temperature over the 5-year period; recirculation system to maintain the desired salinity in some packers; elaborate system for measurement and observation of upstream and downstream temperature and pressure in all tubes; a system for pressurizing the tubes (to 1000 psi) once the elastomers have swelled and sealed. Daily log of readings have been maintained over the last few months. Several months of testing has shown that packers exposed to low salinity and higher temperatures have sealed earlier, and water-swelling elastomers have sealed faster than oil-swelling ones. Three units have not sealed yet, one tube has desealed after initial sealing, one packer has shown seal failure after pressurizing, and two units are exhibiting good sealing under high pressure. Most of these results are in line with material behavior of swelling elastomers observed in earlier laboratory tests. The whole test battery will be monitored over five years, reporting seal temperatures, pressures, seal deterioration or failure, etc. This study can provide direct feedback to field engineers about the lasting capability of different elastomer types under various actual field conditions. This not-as-yet-available information will be valuable in proper selection of swell packers, and may also help in improvement of packer design.

Application of Wellbore Strengthening Techniques in Carbonate Formation Solves Lost Circulation Challenges During Liner Running and Cementing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muneer Al Noumani ◽  
Younis Al Masoudi ◽  
Mohammed Al Mamari ◽  
Yaqdhan Al Rawahi ◽  
Mohammed Al Yaarubi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Well Performance ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Lost Circulation ◽  
The North ◽  
Carbonate Formation ◽  
Zonal Isolation ◽  
Isolation Requirements ◽  
Wellbore Strengthening

Abstract For many years, the oil and gas industry has deployed techniques which enhance formation strength via the successful propping and plugging of induced fractures. Induced fracture sizes have been successfully treated using this method up to the 600 – 1,100-micron range. Static wellbore strengthening techniques are commonly deployed to cover 1,000 micron and all fracture size risks underneath. The deployment of wellbore strengthening techniques has historically been confined to permeable formations. In most cases, wellbore strengthening has been deployed to operationally challenging sand fracture gradients or, where boundaries are pushed, lower ranges of permeability, such as silts. The subject of wellbore strengthening in shales or carbonates to this day, remains a challenge for the industry, with very few documented success stories or evidence of sustained ability to enhance fracture gradient across a drilling campaign. This paper covers the history of lost circulation events which have been reported in the Khazzan/Ghazeer field in the carbonate Habshan formation. It also describes the design changes which were introduced to strengthen the rock and enable circulation/returns, during liner cementation. The design work built on experience applying wellbore strengthening techniques in carbonates in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. This work is also summarized in this paper. The Habshan carbonate formation in Oman presents a lost circulation challenge through an ‘induced’ fracture risk. Since the beginning of the drilling campaign in the Khazzan/Ghazeer field, the Habshan formation has repeatedly experienced induced mud losses during well activities such as liner running, mud conditioning with liner on bottom and cementing, when the formation is exposed to higher pressures, less so during drilling. The Habshan challenge in Oman has led to regular, significant lost circulation events during cement placement, adding operational cost and more importantly, presenting difficulties around meeting zonal isolation objectives. Through previous field experience in Norway, a set of criteria was developed to qualify a standard pill approach to carbonate strengthening. The currently deployed strategy is designed to address both the risk of induced fracture by propping and plugging (wellbore strengthening) and provide some ability to seal natural fractures which are often encountered with carbonates, or similarly flawed rocks. The strategy deployed aims to cover these two risks with a blanket approach to lost circulation risk in carbonates. The success of this approach is demonstrated using well performance data from a total of 43 wells drilled before and after the introduction of the wellbore strengthening strategy. As it was initially assumed that wellbore strengthening could not be applied to carbonate formations, other techniques had been tried to prevent lost circulation. Those techniques provided mixed results. Since the implementation of wellbore strengthening significant improvements in achieving zonal isolation requirements and reducing fluid losses have been documented.

The Effects of Drying Techniques on Clay-Rich Soil Texture

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 466-467
Author(s):  
T. G. Naymik
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Liquid Nitrogen ◽  
Liquid Nitrogen Temperature ◽  
Drying Methods ◽  
Air Drying ◽  
Freeze Dried ◽  
Critical Point Drying ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Quartz Grains

Three techniques were incorporated for drying clay-rich specimens: air-drying, freeze-drying and critical point drying. In air-drying, the specimens were set out for several days to dry or were placed in an oven (80°F) for several hours. The freeze-dried specimens were frozen by immersion in liquid nitrogen or in isopentane at near liquid nitrogen temperature and then were immediately placed in the freeze-dry vacuum chamber. The critical point specimens were molded in agar immediately after sampling. When the agar had set up the dehydration series, water-alcohol-amyl acetate-CO2 was carried out. The objectives were to compare the fabric plasmas (clays and precipitates), fabricskeletons (quartz grains) and the relationship between them for each drying technique. The three drying methods are not only applicable to the study of treated soils, but can be incorporated into all SEM clay soil studies.

PRESSURE CONTROL SYSTEM AT CEMENTATION OF WELLS

2017 ◽  
pp. 62-67
Author(s):  
V. G. Kuznetsov ◽  
O. A. Makarov
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Pressure Control ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Automated Control ◽  
Injection Speed ◽  
Pressure Control System ◽  
Effective Life

At cementing of casing of oil and gas wells during the process of injecting of cement slurry in the casing column the slurry can move with a higher speed than it’s linear injection speed. A break of continuity of fluid flow occurs, what can lead to poor quality isolation of producing formations and shorten the effective life of the well. We need to find some technical solution to stabilize the linear velocity of the cement slurry in the column. This task can be resolved with an automated control system.

A Study of Downhole Drillable Pulsing Cementing Device with Low Frequency Self-Excited Hydraulic Oscillation and its Field Application

2012 ◽  
Vol 450-451 ◽  
pp. 1536-1539
Author(s):  
Cui Ping Nie ◽  
Deng Sheng Ye
Keyword(s):  
Setting Time ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Field Application ◽  
Displacement Efficiency ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Gas Reservoirs ◽  
Gas Field ◽  
Gas Well ◽  
Hydraulic Oscillation ◽  
Injection Technology

Abstract: Usually we pay more attention on how to improve gas well cementing quality in engineering design and field operations, and there are so many studies on cement agents but few researches on cement slurry injection technology. The field practice proved that conventional cementing technology can not ensure the cementing quality especially in gas well and some abnormal pressure wells. Most of the study is concentrated on cement agents and some cementing aspects such as wellbore condition, casing centralization etc. All the factors analysis on cementing quality has pointed out that a combination of good agents and suitable measurements can improve cementing quality effectively. The essential factor in cementing is to enhance the displacement efficiency, but normal hole condition and casing centralization are the fundamental for cementing only. Pulsing cementing is the technology that it can improve the displacement efficiency especially in reservoir well interval, also it can shorten the period from initial to ultimate setting time for cement slurry or improve thickening characteristics, and then to inhibit the potential gas or water channeling. Based on systematically research, aiming at improving in 7″ liner cementing, where there are multi gas reservoirs in long interval in SiChuan special gas field, well was completed with upper 7″ liner and down lower 5″ liner, poor cementing bonding before this time. So we stressed on the study of a downhole low frequency self-excited hydraulic oscillation pulsing cementing drillable device and its application, its successful field utilization proved that it is an innovative tool, and it can improve cementing quality obviously.

Applications of Nanomaterials in Wellbore Fluids in Oil and Gas Fields

2021 ◽  
Vol 881 ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
Wei Na Di
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Drill String ◽  
Wellbore Stability ◽  
Petroleum Engineering ◽  
Cement Stone ◽  
Drilling Fluids ◽  
Cement Slurry ◽  
Oil And Gas Fields ◽  
Gas Channeling ◽  
Gas Fields

The application of nanomaterials in oil and gas fields development has solved many problems and pushed forward the development of petroleum engineering technology. Nanomaterials have also been used in wellbore fluids. Nanomaterials with special properties can play an important role in improving the strength and flexibility of mud cake, reducing friction between the drill string and wellbore and maintaining wellbore stability. Adding nanomaterials into the cement slurry can eliminate gas channeling through excellent zonal isolation and improve the cementing strength of cement stone, thereby facilitating the protection and discovery of reservoirs and enhancing the oil and gas recovery. This paper tracks the application progress of nanomaterials in wellbore fluids in oil and gas fields in recent years, including drilling fluids, cement slurries. Through the tracking and analysis of this paper, it is concluded that the applications of nanomaterials in wellbore fluids in oil and gas fields show a huge potential and can improve the performance of wellbore fluids.

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