Abstract
Horizontal well drilling contribute to a dramatic increase of shale gas production in unconventional reservoirs. However, the drilling is also risky and challenging with different types of drilling problems often encountered including stuck pipes, inflows, losses and pack-offs, etc. To reduce shale-gas development costs, shale gas operators are faced with finding effective solutions to minimize drilling risks and improve drilling efficiency. A holistic workflow, which can be divided into three steps: pre-drilled modelling and assessment, real-time monitoring, and post-drilled validation, is proposed. Based on the pre-drilled geomechanical modeling, mud weights, mud formulations and casing setting depths are optimized to ensure wellbore stability during the drilling process. Real-time operations involve monitoring drilling parameters and cavings characteristics (shape and volume), and providing updated recommendations for field drilling engineers to mitigate and reduce borehole instability related problems. During the post-drilled stage, the updated geomechanical model will be used for optimizing the drilling designs of upcoming wells. With geomechanics as foundation, a systematic workflow was developed to provide integrated solutions by using multiple technologies and services to reduce serious wellbore instability caused by abnormal formation pressures, wellbore collapse and other complex drilling problems. The implementation of the systematic and holistic workflow has proven to be extremely successful in supporting the drilling of shale gas wells in China. The integrated approach, which was applied in a Changning shale gas block in Sichuan Basin for the first time in March 2019, recorded an improvement in ROP by 111.2% and a reduction in mud losses by 89.9% compared with an offset well without the risk mitigation strategy applied in the same pad. The geomechanics-based approach provides a convenient and effective means to assist field engineers in mud weight optimization, drilling risk assessments, and horizontal well drilling performance evaluation. The approach can also be extended to reduce potential drilling risks and improve wellbore stability, all of which contributes to reducing drilling costs and optimizing subsequent massive hydraulic fracturing jobs.
Analysis and optimization of control algorithms for RSSTSP for horizontal well drilling
