Numerical Simulations of Wellbore Stability in Under-Balanced-Drilling Wells

Abstract

Drilling underbalanced is often used to prevent formation damage, avoid lost circulation, and increase rate of penetration. However, it is also risky and may lead to wellbore collapse due to lack of positive support provided by the hydrostratic wellbore fluid column. Hence, the application of underbalanced drilling (UBD) should be evaluated thoroughly through the use of in-situ stresses and rock mechanical properties to estimate under what hydraulic drilling conditions the wellbore is stable.This paper presents numerical simulations for wellbore stability analysis in two depleted Iranian fields, named herein as field A and B. The simulations were executed both in Finite-Explicit and Finite-Element codes to cross check the results.Depleted Iranian fractured carbonate fields are suffering from severe wellbore stability problems and lost circulation during overbalanced drilling conditions. The application of UBD in these fields with a pressure less than formation pore pressure brought on new wellbore stability problems like risk of shear failure and collapse of borehole wall. Using good geomechanical model description matching field characteristics in conjunction with rock failure criteria in some cases may lead to a good prediction for avoiding wellbore stability problems and choosing the optimum mud weight window. By analyzing cores, log and triaxial rock mechanical data, an elastoplastic model combined with a finite explicit code was used in the wellbore stability analysis to estimatimate an optimum Equivalent Circulating Density (ECD) for these fields. Compared to some actual field data it was observed that using an elastoplastic constitutive model would be sufficient to analyze mechanical wellbore stability in these fields.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Elasto-Plastic Model; Near Yielded Zone Area (NYZA); Wellbore Stabiliy Analysis; Borehole Wall; Cross Check; Elastoplastic Constitutive Model; Equivalent Circulating Density; Field Data; Finite-Element Codes; Formation Damage; Formation Pore Pressure; Fractured Carbonates; Geomechanical Model; Insitu Stress; Lost Circulation; Matching Fields; Mud Weight Windows; Numerical Simulation; Rate Of Penetration; Rock Failures; Rock Mechanical Data; Shear Failure; Underbalanced Drilling; Well Bore Fluids; Petroleum Engineering; Iran

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0920-4105

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2010 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 2010

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