Modelling of Effects of Drilling Fluid Temperature on Wellbore Stability

Author(s):  
S.K. Choi ◽  
C.P. Tan
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Mostafa Samak ◽  
Abdelalim Hashem Elsayed

Abstract During drilling oil, gas, or geothermal wells, the temperature difference between the formation and the drilling fluid will cause a temperature change around the borehole, which will influence the wellbore stresses. This effect on the stresses tends to cause wellbore instability in high temperature formations, which may lead to some problems such as formation break down, loss of circulation, and untrue kick. In this research, a numerical model is presented to simulate downhole temperature changes during circulation then simulate its effect on fracture pressure gradient based on thermo-poro-elasticity theory. This paper also describes an incident occurred during drilling a well in Gulf of Suez and the observations made during this incident. It also gives an analysis of these observations which led to a reasonable explanation of the cause of this incident. This paper shows that the fracture pressure decreases as the temperature of wellbore decreases, and vice versa. The research results could help in determining the suitable drilling fluid density in high-temperature wells. It also could help in understanding loss and gain phenomena in HT wells which may happen due to thermal effect. The thermal effect should be taken into consideration while preparing wellbore stability studies and choosing mud weight of deep wells, HPHT wells, deep water wells, or wells with depleted zones at high depths because cooling effect reduces the wellbore stresses and effective FG. Understanding and controlling cooling effect could help in controlling the reduction in effective FG and so avoid lost circulation and additional unnecessary casing points.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jitong Liu ◽  
Wanjun Li ◽  
Haiqiu Zhou ◽  
Yixin Gu ◽  
Fuhua Jiang ◽  
...  

Abstract The reservoir underneath the salt bed usually has high formation pressure and large production rate. However, downhole complexities such as wellbore shrinkage, stuck pipe, casing deformation and brine crystallization prone to occur in the drilling and completion of the salt bed. The drilling safety is affected and may lead to the failure of drilling to the target reservoir. The drilling fluid density is the key factor to maintain the salt bed’s wellbore stability. The in-situ stress of the composite salt bed (gypsum-salt -gypsum-salt-gypsum) is usually uneven distributed. Creep deformation and wellbore shrinkage affect each other within layers. The wellbore stability is difficult to maintain. Limited theorical reference existed for drilling fluid density selection to mitigate the borehole shrinkage in the composite gypsum-salt layers. This paper established a composite gypsum-salt model based on the rock mechanism and experiments, and a safe-drilling density selection layout is formed to solve the borehole shrinkage problem. This study provides fundamental basis for drilling fluid density selection for gypsum-salt layers. The experiment results show that, with the same drilling fluid density, the borehole shrinkage rate of the minimum horizontal in-situ stress azimuth is higher than that of the maximum horizontal in-situ stress azimuth. However, the borehole shrinkage rate of the gypsum layer is higher than salt layer. The hydration expansion of the gypsum is the dominant reason for the shrinkage of the composite salt-gypsum layer. In order to mitigate the borehole diameter reduction, the drilling fluid density is determined that can lower the creep rate less than 0.001, as a result, the borehole shrinkage of salt-gypsum layer is slowed. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the salinity, filter loss and plugging ability of the drilling fluid to inhibit the creep of the soft shale formation. The research results provide technical support for the safe drilling of composite salt-gypsum layers. This achievement has been applied to 135 wells in the Amu Darya, which completely solved the of wellbore shrinkage problem caused by salt rock creep. Complexities such as stuck string and well abandonment due to high-pressure brine crystallization are eliminated. The drilling cycle is shortened by 21% and the drilling costs is reduced by 15%.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Vladimirovna Norkina ◽  
Sergey Mihailovich Karpukhin ◽  
Konstantin Urjevich Ruban ◽  
Yuriy Anatoljevich Petrakov ◽  
Alexey Evgenjevich Sobolev

Abstract The design features and the need to use a water-based solution make the task of ensuring trouble-free drilling of vertical wells non-trivial. This work is an example of an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the mechanisms of instability of the wellbore. Instability can be caused by a complex of reasons, in this case, standard geomechanical calculations are not enough to solve the problem. Engineering calculations and laboratory chemical studies are integrated into the process of geomechanical modeling. The recommendations developed in all three areas are interdependent and inseparable from each other. To achieve good results, it is necessary to comply with a set of measures at the same time. The key tasks of the project were: determination of drilling density, tripping the pipe conditions, parameters of the drilling fluid rheology, selection of a system for the best inhibition of clay swelling.


2012 ◽  
Vol 490-495 ◽  
pp. 3114-3118
Author(s):  
Xiao Ling Jiang ◽  
Zong Ming Lei ◽  
Kai Wei

With six-speed rotary viscometer measuring the rheology of drilling fluid at low temperature, during the high-speed process, the drilling fluid temperature is not constant at low temperature, which leads to the inaccuracy in rheological measurement. When R/S rheometer is used cooperating with constant low-temperature box , the temperature remains stable during the process of determining the drilling fluid rheology under low temperature. The R/S rheometer and the six-speed rotational viscometer are both coaxial rotational viscometers, but they work in different ways and the two cylindrical clearance between them are different.How to make two viscometer determination result can maintain consistent?The experimental results show that, The use of R/S rheometer, with the shear rate for 900s-1 shear stress values instead of six speed rotary viscometer shear rate for 1022s-1 shear stress values.Then use two-point formula to calculate rheological parameters.The R/S rheometer rheological parameter variation with temperature has a good linear relationship,Can better reflect the rheological properties of drilling fluids with low temperature changerule


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xian-Bin Huang ◽  
Jin-Sheng Sun ◽  
Yi Huang ◽  
Bang-Chuan Yan ◽  
Xiao-Dong Dong ◽  
...  

Abstract High-performance water-based drilling fluids (HPWBFs) are essential to wellbore stability in shale gas exploration and development. Laponite is a synthetic hectorite clay composed of disk-shaped nanoparticles. This paper analyzed the application potential of laponite in HPWBFs by evaluating its shale inhibition, plugging and lubrication performances. Shale inhibition performance was studied by linear swelling test and shale recovery test. Plugging performance was analyzed by nitrogen adsorption experiment and scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation. Extreme pressure lubricity test was used to evaluate the lubrication property. Experimental results show that laponite has good shale inhibition property, which is better than commonly used shale inhibitors, such as polyamine and KCl. Laponite can effectively plug shale pores. It considerably decreases the surface area and pore volume of shale, and SEM results show that it can reduce the porosity of shale and form a seamless nanofilm. Laponite is beneficial to increase lubricating property of drilling fluid by enhancing the drill pipes/wellbore interface smoothness and isolating the direct contact between wellbore and drill string. Besides, laponite can reduce the fluid loss volume. According to mechanism analysis, the good performance of laponite nanoparticles is mainly attributed to the disk-like nanostructure and the charged surfaces.


2011 ◽  
Vol 402 ◽  
pp. 709-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei Yang ◽  
Mian Chen ◽  
Yan Jin ◽  
Bing Hou ◽  
Kang Qiu ◽  
...  

The Jabung oilfield in Indonesia is characterized by complex geological structural movement, large tectonic stress and high temperature gradient. Accidents such as borehole collapse and sticking were frequently encountered when drilling shale formations, which often result in serious damage. In this paper, a series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of shale in drilling fluid, including linear expansion rate evaluation tests and rolling recovery evaluation tests. Also X-ray diffraction was used to analyze the mineral composition of shale. The mechanical parameters of shale were obtained through statistical analysis. By using ABAQUS software, the temperature difference induced by thermal stress distribution was analyzed. After that, the borehole stress distribution was determined by coupling the additional stress with in-situ stress. Finally, based on borehole stability mechanical models, the effects of well trajectory on borehole stability were analyzed. We found that the chemical properties of drilling fluid, wellbore trajectory and temperature has a great influence on wellbore stability, and the impact of temperature changes and of well trajectory are the largest factor.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahid Dokhani ◽  
Mengjiao Yu ◽  
Stefan Z. Miska ◽  
James Bloys

This study investigates shale–fluid interactions through experimental approaches under simulated in situ conditions to determine the effects of bedding plane orientation on fluid flow through shale. Current wellbore stability models are developed based on isotropic conditions, where fluid transport coefficients are only considered in the radial direction. This paper also presents a novel mathematical method, which takes into account the three-dimensional coupled flow of water and solutes due to hydraulic, chemical, and electrical potential imposed by the drilling fluid and/or the shale formation. Numerical results indicate that the presence of microfissures can change the pore pressure distribution significantly around the wellbore and thus directly affect the mechanical strength of the shale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (3a) ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Tuan Tran Nguyen ◽  
Son Hoang Nguyen ◽  

This paper presents some studies on the application of mud cooler in Oil and Gas drilling in a high temperature, high pressure condition of Cuu Long reservoir. The authors have proposed a method to study the theory of temperature effects on drilling fluid properties, that have been tested practically. The authors have remarked on each type of drilling rig and installation location. With these remarks, the authors give an option to install the "Mud cooler" on the rig at the appropriate location and method so that the temperature of the solution will be ensured to reduce to a safe level. The effective application of this equipment has greatly assisted drilling process since the fluid temperature has been reduced sharply before returning to the mud tank. This has helped cut down expenses significantly by prolonging eqipment's endurability, saving time for drilling, ship renting, drilling services and minimize the budget spent on buying the fluid and additives to recover it. Thus, the drilling workers' working conditions have been facilitated. The results of these studies have been proved scientifically and practically through the successful drilling of well ST-3P-ST. This will make the way for other local wells and reservoirs which have the same conditions of temperature and pressure.


Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Pengcheng Wu ◽  
Chengxu Zhong ◽  
Zhengtao Li ◽  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
Zhiyuan Wang ◽  
...  

Finding out the reasons for wellbore instability in the Longmaxi Formation and Wufeng Formation and putting forward drilling fluid technical countermeasures to strengthen and stabilize the wellbore are very crucial to horizontal drilling. Based on X-ray diffraction, electron microscope scanning, linear swelling experiment, and hot-rolling dispersion experiment, the physicochemical mechanism of wellbore instability in complex strata was revealed, and thus, the coordinated wellbore stability method can be put forward, which is “strengthening plugging of micropores, inhibiting filtrate invasion, and retarding pressure transmission.” Using a sand bed filtration tester, high-temperature and high-pressure plugging simulation experimental device, and microporous membrane and other experimental devices, the oil-based drilling fluid treatment agent was researched and selected, and a set of an enhanced plugging drilling fluid system suitable for shale gas horizontal well was constructed. Its temperature resistance is 135°C and it has preferable contamination resistibility (10% NaCl, 1% CaCl2, and 8% poor clay). The bearing capacity of a 400 μm fracture is 5 MPa, and the filtration loss of 0.22 μm and 0.45 μm microporous membranes is zero. Compared with previous field drilling fluids, the constructed oil-based drilling fluid system has a greatly improved plugging ability and excellent performance in other aspects.


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