Benefits of Using Continuous Circulation Systems in ERD Wells to Manage ECD, Bottom Hole Pressure and Hole Cleaning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott William Petrie ◽  
Rick Doll

Abstract Continuous Circulation Systems (CCS) have been around since the JIP between Shell, BP, Statoil, BG, Total and Eni in October 2000. Initial reports of these systems demonstrated that while cumbersome, the use of CCS is of benefit to drilling ERD wells. Continuous circulation keeps cuttings moving out of the wellbore, reducing or eliminating the time required to circulate clean any high-angle section before making a drill pipe connection or before tripping out of the hole. Continuous Circulation over each connection enhances the management of Equivalent Circulating Density(ECD) to control the bottom hole pressure on the well by never switching off the pumps, therefore the wellbore never experiences an Equivalent Static Density(ESD). Through this mechanism, the application of CCS has also been proven to manage bottom hole pressure constantly, which in conjunction with good drilling practices for torque and drag management, are key factors in drilling any Extended Reach Drilling(ERD), Complex or High Pressure/High Temperature (HPHT) well.

Author(s):  
Fabio Ernesto Rodriguez Corredor ◽  
Majid Bizhani ◽  
Ergun Kuru

Effective hole cleaning in horizontal and extended reach wells (ERD) often requires use of high circulation rates, which may not be always achievable due to the risk of circulating bottom hole pressure reaching the fracture limit of the rock. Achieving good hole cleaning while keeping the circulating bottom hole pressure within the safe operational window is very often the major engineering challenge. A drag reducing fluid with good hole cleaning ability could be a potential solution in this case. In order to see if it is possible to use a drag reducing fluid and still achieve a good hole cleaning, an experimental program was designed and conducted. The main objective of this experimental study was to compare the hole cleaning performances of water and a drag reducing fluid. The hole cleaning experiments were conducted using a 9m long horizontal flow loop with concentric annular geometry (Outer Pipe ID = 95 mm, Inner Pipe OD = 38 mm, ID/OD ratio = 0.4). The drag reducing additive was a commercially available partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (PHPA). Water and two drag reducing fluids with 0.07% V/V and 0.1% V/V PHPA concentrations were used. Critical velocities for the initiation of cuttings movement with rolling, saltation/dunes, and suspension modes were determined and compared when using water and drag reducing fluids as a carrier fluid. Critical velocities for the initiation of cuttings movement were found to be lower with water than that of drag reducing fluid in all transport modes.


2020 ◽  
pp. 014459872096415
Author(s):  
Jianlin Guo ◽  
Fankun Meng ◽  
Ailin Jia ◽  
Shuo Dong ◽  
Haijun Yan ◽  
...  

Influenced by the complex sedimentary environment, a well always penetrates multiple layers with different properties, which leads to the difficulty of analyzing the production behavior for each layer. Therefore, in this paper, a semi-analytical model to evaluate the production performance of each layer in a stress-sensitive multilayer carbonated gas reservoir is proposed. The flow of fluids in layers composed of matrix, fractures, and vugs can be described by triple-porosity/single permeability model, and the other layers could be characterized by single porosity media. The stress-sensitive exponents for different layers are determined by laboratory experiments and curve fitting, which are considered in pseudo-pressure and pseudo-time factor. Laplace transformation, Duhamel convolution, Stehfest inversion algorithm are used to solve the proposed model. Through the comparison with the classical solution, and the matching with real bottom-hole pressure data, the accuracy of the presented model is verified. A synthetic case which has two layers, where the first one is tight and the second one is full of fractures and vugs, is utilized to study the effects of stress-sensitive exponents, skin factors, formation radius and permeability for these two layers on production performance. The results demonstrate that the initial well production is mainly derived from high permeable layer, which causes that with the rise of formation permeability and radius, and the decrease of stress-sensitive exponents and skin factors, in the early stage, the bottom-hole pressure and the second layer production rate will increase. While the first layer contributes a lot to the total production in the later period, the well bottom-hole pressure is more influenced by the variation of formation and well condition parameters at the later stage. Compared with the second layer, the scales of formation permeability and skin factor for first layer have significant impacts on production behaviors.


2013 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 3291-3298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingze Liu ◽  
Bing Bai ◽  
Xiaochun Li

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