Casing Deformation Mitigation Achieved Through Ball Activated Sliding Fracturing Sleeves – An Alternative to Plug and Perf Fracturing Operations

Casing Deformation has plagued numerous unconventional basins globally, in particular with plug-and-perforation (also known as plug-and-perf) operations. This infamous issue can greatly influence 20-30% of field productivity of horizontal wells in shale and tight oil fields (Jacobs, 2020). When a wellbore lies in a target zone and intersects many natural fractures, these fractures are perturbed by hydraulic stimulation. Therefore, rock or bedding slippage may occur, resulting in casing deformation. This phenomenon is escalated by active tectonics, high anisotropic in-situ stresses, and poor cement design. This paper evaluates the mechanisms of casing deformation. It reviews how these conditions can be evaluated in the target zone. The mitigation procedures to reduce casing deformation through either well planning or completions design are discussed. Finally, an alternative completion method to plug-and-perf allowing limited entry completion technique in restricted casing with a field case study will be discussed.

Regional In-Situ Stress Prediction in Frontier Exploration and Development Areas: Insights from the First-Ever 3D Geomechanical Model of the Arabian Plate

In this paper, we present results from the first-ever 3D geomechanical model that supports pre-drill prediction of regional in-situ stresses throughout the Arabian Plate. The results can be used in various applications in the petroleum industry such as fault slip-tendency analysis, hydraulic fracture stimulation design, wellbore stability analysis and underground carbon storage. The Arabian tectonic plate originated by rifting of NE Africa to form the Red Sea and the Gulfs of Aden and Aqaba. The continental rifting was followed by the formation of collisional zones with eastern Turkey, Eurasia and the Indo-Australian Plate, which resulted in the formation of the Eastern Anatolian fault system, the fold-thrust belts of Zagros and Makran, and the Owen fracture zone. This present-day plate tectonic framework, and the ongoing movement of the Arabian continental lithosphere, exert a first-order control on the of in-situ stresses within its sedimentary basins. Using data from published studies, we developed a 3D finite element of the Arabian lithospheric plate that takes into account interaction between the complex 3D plate geometry and present-day plate boundary velocities, on elastic stress accumulation in the Arabian crust. The model geometry captures the first-order topographic features of the Arabian plate such as the Arabian shield, the Zagros Mountains and sedimentary thickness variations throughout the tectonic plate. The model results provide useful insights into the variations in in-situ stresses in sediments and crystalline basement throughout Arabia. The interaction between forces from different plate boundaries results in a complex transitional stress state (thrust/strike-slip or normal/strike-slip) in the interior regions of the plate such that the regional tectonic stress regime at any point may not be reconciled directly with the anticipated Andersonian stress regimes at the closest plate boundary. In the sedimentary basin east of the Arabian shield, the azimuths of the maximum principal compressive stresses change from ENE in southeast to ~N-S in northern portions of the plate. The shape of the plate boundary, particularly along the collisional boundaries, plays a prominent in controlling both the magnitude and orientations of the principal stresses. In addition, the geometry of the Arabian shield in western KSA and variations in the sedimentary basin thickness, cause significant local stress perturbations over 10 – 100 km length scales in different regions of the plate. The model results can provide quantitative constraints on relative magnitudes of principal stresses and horizontal stress anisotropy, both of which are critical inputs for various subsurface applications such as mechanical earth model (MEM) and subsequently wellbore stability analysis (WSA). The calibrated model results can potentially reduce uncertainties in input stress parameters for MEM and WSA and offer improvements over traditional in-situ stress estimation techniques.

What the Shale are We Talking About!

Shale ‘stability’ has been extensively studied the past few decades in an attempt to understand wellbore instability problems encountered while drilling. Drilling through shale is almost inevitable, it makes up 75 percent of sedimentary rocks. Shale tends to be characterized as having high in-situ stresses, fissile, laminated, with low permeability. However, not all shale are the same, and the problem herein lies where they are all treated as such, in which most cases, has shown to be ineffective. Ironically, shale is predominantly generalized as being "reactive/swelling". Even though this can be true, it is not always the case because not all shale is reactive! In reality, there are many different types of shale: ductile, brittle, carbonaceous, argillaceous, flysch, dispersive, kaolinitic, micro-fractured etc. This study aims to clear many misconceptions and define different types of shale (global case scenarios) and their failing mechanisms that lead to wellbore instability, formation damage and high drilling cost. Afterwards, solutions will be offered, from a filed operation perspective, which will provide guidelines for stabilizing various shale based on their failure mechanism. Furthermore, we will define the symptoms for shale instability and propose industry accepted remedies.

A New Higher Order Displacement Discontinuity Method Based on the Joint Element for Analysis of Close-Spacing Planar Fractures

Summary The 2D displacement discontinuity method (DDM) has been widely used to characterize the hydraulic fracture geometry and the induced in-situ stresses in the oil and gas industry owing to its simplicity and accuracy. As smaller fracture spacing is used by multistage fracturing, the constant DDM (CDDM) loses its accuracy in predicting the fracture behaviors, especially for the inner fractures in a stage where they are subjected to the strong stress shadowing effect. In this paper, the 2D higher order DDM (HDDM) based on the joint elements was developed to overcome this limitation. The higher order displacement discontinuity intensively increases the accuracy of CDDM but maintains the same amount of computation time by using patched-element pattern. The joint elements are introduced to simultaneously determine the opening, shearing, and closing of each fracture element based on the stress boundary condition, which can avoid the “negative width” of the inner fractures given by CDDM which are mechanically closed under the strong stress shadowing effect. The developed 2D joint element HDDM (JE-HDDM) gives the same results with the CDDM when the fracture spacing is relatively large, but shows its outperformance in both efficiency and accuracy over the CDDM in predicting the displacement discontinuities and induced in-situ stresses in close fracture-spacing case.

Machine learning application to predict in-situ stresses from logging data

Determination of in-situ stresses is essential for subsurface planning and modeling, such as horizontal well planning and hydraulic fracture design. In-situ stresses consist of overburden stress (σv), minimum (σh), and maximum (σH) horizontal stresses. The σh and σH are difficult to determine, whereas the overburden stress can be determined directly from the density logs. The σh and σH can be estimated either from borehole injection tests or theoretical finite elements methods. However, these methods are complex, expensive, or need unavailable tectonic stress data. This study aims to apply different machine learning (ML) techniques, specifically, random forest (RF), functional network (FN), and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), to predict the σh and σH using well-log data. The logging data includes gamma-ray (GR) log, formation bulk density (RHOB) log, compressional (DTC), and shear (DTS) wave transit-time log. A dataset of 2307 points from two wells (Well-1 and Well-2) was used to build the different ML models. The Well-1 data was used in training and testing the models, and the Well-2 data was used to validate the developed models. The obtained results show the capability of the three ML models to predict accurately the σh and σH using the well-log data. Comparing the results of RF, ANFIS, and FN models for minimum horizontal stress prediction showed that ANFIS outperforms the other two models with a correlation coefficient (R) for the validation dataset of 0.96 compared to 0.91 and 0.88 for RF, and FN, respectively. The three models showed similar results for predicting maximum horizontal stress with R values higher than 0.98 and an average absolute percentage error (AAPE) less than 0.3%. a20 index for the actual versus the predicted data showed that the three ML techniques were able to predict the horizontal stresses with a deviation less than 20% from the actual data. For the validation dataset, the RF, ANFIS, and FN models were able to capture all changes in the σh and σH trends with depth and accurately predict the σh and σH values. The outcomes of this study confirm the robust capability of ML to predict σh and σH from readily available logging data with no need for additional costs or site investigation.

Influence of In-Situ Stress on the Energy Transmission of Blasting Stress Wave in Jointed Rock Mass

The study of influence of in-situ stress on energy transmission of blasting stress wave in jointed rock mass is the basis for improving the utilization rate and optimizing the distribution of explosive energy in underground rock mass during blasting excavation. Thus, a model test was carried out to explore the energy transmission of blasting stress wave in jointed rock mass under different in-situ stresses, and the energy transmitting coefficients of the blasting stress wave were derived. Then, the influencing factors such as the scale and distribution of in-situ stresses and the angle and number of joints were discussed, respectively. The results showed that the energy transmission of blasting stress wave in jointed rock mass was affected by both the intact rock and joints, and the energy transmitting coefficients first increased and then decreased with the rise of static load and lateral static load coefficient, indicating that the lower in-situ stress can enhance the energy transmission of stress wave in rock mass to some extent. While the in-situ stress was relatively large, the stress wave energy dissipation in intact rock was dominant. The number and angle of joints also had a remarkable impact on the energy attenuation of the stress wave; when the stress wave was vertically incident on the joints, the energy transmitting coefficient was the largest. For underground engineering, the orientation of the dominant structural plane and the in-situ stress state of rock mass should be determined firstly, and the blasting parameters can be optimized to improve the utilization of explosive energy and achieve the designed blasting effect.