Petroleum Engineering Commons^™

Removing Ilmenite-Based Filter Cakes Using Hydrochloric Acid And Chelating Agent – Experimental Study, Jianping Su, Omar Mahmoud, Hisham A. Nasr-El-Din

Future Engineering Journal

Ilmenite is often used as a weighting agent in drilling fluids to increase the fluid density, but the formation of a filter cake on the borehole wall can impact cementing operations and reduce well productivity. To remove the filter cake, various techniques can be employed such as chemical treatments, mechanical methods, or a combination of both. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of chemical removal of ilmenite-based filter cake using 7.5 wt.% hydrochloric acid (HCl) and hydroxyethyl ethylenediamine triacetic acid (HEDTA) – chelating agent. The filter cakes were generated using API filter press under harsh conditions …

Blowout - Capping - Fracturing - Relief Well, A Full Cycle Workflow, Youssuf A. Elnoamany

LSU Master's Theses

Broaching is defined as the uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons to ocean seafloor after a loss of subsurface well control event. Failed attempts to cap the offshore wells undergoing worst case discharge may lead to hydraulic fracture initiation and subsequent propagation, leading to renewed release of hydrocarbon to the seafloor. During the capping stack shut-in process, pressure build-up will occur along the wellbore, exposing locations of possible fracture initiation to overpressurized fluid, such as directly below the casing shoe, and critical points along the well casing. Shall there be enough build-up pressure to exceed the minimum horizontal stress in an exposed …

Experimental And Modeling Study Of The Effects Of Sealing Structures In Lost Circulation Prevention And Remediation, Mingzheng Yang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Drilling fluid lost circulation leads to non-productive time and increases the overall well cost. In general, wellbore strengthening and lost circulation control are achieved by creating effective sealing structures to inhibit fluid flow through loss conduits such as formation fractures. This research aims at better understanding the effects of sealing structures in fluid loss prevention and remediation, and providing useful references to effectively establishing filtercakes on the wellbore and plugs in the fracture.

Recent research on wellbore strengthening disclosed the critical role of filtercake in sealing microfractures during the initial stages of fracture initiation and propagation. The performance of a …

Fluid-Driven Fracture Initiation From Oil And Gas Wells Considering Lifetime Stresses, Andreas Michael

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fluid-driven fracture initiation from oil and gas wells is examined in detail. The dissertation covers three subtopics: drilling, completion (stimulations), and post-blowout capping-induced fracture initiation.

Drilling-induced tensile fractures (DITFs) are located in an azimuth orthogonal to wellbore breakouts and are observed from image logs obtained during drilling operations. Fully analytical criteria for the orientation of DITFs initiating from wells in porous, permeable media are derived considering fluid infiltration from a pressurized wellbore. DITF orientation (longitudinal or transverse-to-the-wellbore) is used to constrain the magnitude of the local maximum horizontal principal stress. The range of the possible stress states is indicated on …

Field Drilling Data Cleaning And Preparation For Data Analytics Applications, Daniel Cardoso Braga

LSU Master's Theses

Throughout the history of oil well drilling, service providers have been continuously striving to improve performance and reduce total drilling costs to operating companies. Despite constant improvement in tools, products, and processes, data science has not played a large part in oil well drilling. With the implementation of data science in the energy sector, companies have come to see significant value in efficiently processing the massive amounts of data produced by the multitude of internet of thing (IOT) sensors at the rig. The scope of this project is to combine academia and industry experience to analyze data from 13 different …

Influence Of Frictional Or Rotational Kinetic Energy On Wellbore-Fluid/Temperature Profiles During Drilling Operations, Ahmed Q. Al Saedi, Ralph E. Flori, C. Shah Kabir

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Temperature-profile distributions in a wellbore during drilling operations might take different forms when applying the energy balance in the overall system. For steady-state conditions, wherein the wellbore is considered a closed system, adding any source of additional energy to this system can influence the predicted temperature profiles. This study presents a new analytical model to investigate the influence of rotational energy arising from the drillstring operation on the wellbore-temperature behavior.

A significant part of the drilling operation is rotation of the drillstring. Depending on the drilling rig, various equipment provides this kind of energy, such as the rotary table or …

Horizontal Flow Loop Design For The Study Of Drill String Rotation Effects On Cuttings Transport, David C. Rathgeber

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Exploration and Production companies are continually focusing more time, energy and resources into Extended Reach Drilling in order to maximize reservoir production while minimizing both environmental impact and development costs. These long laterals (2:1 Measured Depth: True Vertical Depth) are often more difficult to drill and can be severely impacted by inadequate drilling practices. Cuttings transport efficiency is a critical parameter of Extended Reach Drilling operations, and poor wellbore cleaning can lead to excessive torque, drag, and several other serious downhole problems.

Although many studies have been performed that identify the importance of drill string rotation on cuttings movement, there …

String Out And Compressibility Effect On Pressure Rise In A Shut-In Well, Nicholas Henry

LSU Master's Theses

Gas kick migration experiments were performed in a small-scale well prototype model of annular geometry to analyze the behavior of gas kicks in highly non-Newtonian fluids. The objective was to isolate and estimate the effects system compressibility and bubble string out have on the pressure build up in a situation in which a gas kick rises through a noncirculating drilling mud in a vertical well.

The experiments consisted of 2 tests. The first test measured the apparent compressibility of the liquid phase of the experiment – that phase which simulated the drilling mud in a gas kick situation. The second …

Drilling Performance Monitoring And Optimization: A Data-Driven Approach, Shan E Zehra Lashari, Ali Takbiri-Borujeni, Ebrahim Fathi, Ting Sun, Reza Rahmani, Mehdi Khazaeli

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Abstract Drilling performance monitoring and optimization are crucial in increasing the overall NPV of an oil and gas project. Even after rigorous planning, drilling phase of any project can be hindered by unanticipated problems, such as bit balling. The objective of this paper is to implement artifcial intelligence technique to develop a smart model for more accurate and robust real-time drilling performance monitoring and optimization. For this purpose, the back propagation, feed forward neural network model was developed to predict rate of penetration (ROP) using diferent input parameters such as weight on bit, rotations per minute, mud fow (GPM) and …

Effect Of Pipe Rotation On Casing Pressure Within Mpd Applications, Zahrah Ahmed Al Marhoon

LSU Master's Theses

Well control is one of the most crucial sectors in drilling engineering. Human lives and safety depend on the correct execution of the engineering design. Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) is a new technology that has recently emerged in the oil and gas industry. It has special well control abilities supported by the RCD to continue drilling or carry operations that involve pipe rotation, while circulating out a gas kick. This thesis examines the effect of pipe rotation on casing pressure profiles within MPD kick circulation application. The analysis was carried on real scale kick experiments. These experiments were carried in …

Experimental Study And Modeling Of Smart Loss Circulation Materials; Advantages And Promises, Ahmed Khaled Abdelmaksoud Mansour

LSU Master's Theses

Lost circulation occurs when mud or cement is lost to the formation while drilling. Lost circulation has been a huge problem and may cause heavy financial costs in the form of lost rig time, mud fluid and in severe cases, well blowout with serious environmental and safety consequences. Despite extensive advances in the last couple of decades, lost circulation materials used today still have disadvantages such as damaging production zones, plugging drilling tools or failing to seal the fractures. Here, we propose a new class of smart expandable lost circulation material (LCM) to remotely control the expanding force and functionality …

Mitigation Of Wellbore Instability In Deviated Wells By Using Geomechanical Models And Mpd Technique, Husam Raad Abbood

Masters Theses

"During drilling operations for the E oilfield in the Mishrif formation in southern Iraq, stuck pipe presents a significant wellbore stability problem for deviated wells. In this study, two solutions are utilized to address this problem. The first approach is a 1-D Geomechanical model of the Mishrif formation compiled based on the state of stress and rock strength parameters. It is utilized to assess the contribution of borehole collapse leading to the stuck pipe problems. The results of this study show that wells characterized by stuck pipe are drilled along azimuths which promote wellbore collapse. Three different failure criteria, the …

Numerical And Field Data Analysis Of Drill Stem Vibration, Mohammed Fayez Al Dushaishi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Drill stem vibration is a major cause of premature failure of drill stem components and drilling inefficiency. In severe cases, drill stem vibration may lead to wellbore instability that could lead to increased operational cost. Drill stem vibrations are affected by design decisions and the drilling environment. Examples are; bottom hole assembly configurations, selection of operational parameters, and frequent changes in lithology. Vibration modeling, analysis of vibration data, and specialized vibration reduction tools are methods in use to prevent and mitigate severe vibrations.

A drill stem vibration model was created using nonlinear strain formulation which couples the axial, lateral and …

Investigation Of Lost Circulation Materials Impact On Fracture Gradient, Mortadha Turki Alsaba

Doctoral Dissertations

"Lost circulation is a challenging problem to be prevented or mitigated during drilling. Lost circulation treatments are widely applied to mitigate losses using a corrective approach or to prevent losses using preventive approaches, also known as "wellbore strengthening". The disagreement among the different wellbore strengthening theories and the lack of understanding the strengthening mechanism resulted in the absence of a standardized method to evaluate the effectiveness of lost circulation materials (LCM) for wellbore strengthening application.

An extensive experimental investigation was performed by constructing a high pressure LCM test apparatus to investigate the effects of different parameters on the sealing efficiency …

Analytical Modeling And Diagnosis Of Penetration Rate Performance Of Pdc Bits, Reza Rahmani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The high cost of drilling deep (15000+ ft) wells, due to slow rate of penetration (ROP) at depth, has severely limited the utilization and economic significance of deep hydrocarbon resources. The overall objective of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the major cause(s) of slow ROP in deep drilling. An analysis of field data demonstrated the impact of the problem and identified shale and limestone as the primary lithologies where slow ROP occurs at depth. Previous researchers have concluded that interactions between rock, drilling fluid, cuttings, and the bit control ROP. More specifically, several researchers have concluded …

Discrete Phase Simulations Of Drilled Cuttings Transport Process In Highly Deviated Wells, Doguhan Yilmaz

LSU Master's Theses

Transporting drilled cuttings from the bottomhole to the surface becomes more difficult and problematic in highly deviated wells than in vertical wells. Cuttings tend to settle down on the low side of the annulus typically in the form of a bed which can cause further problems. The height of this bed depends on many parameters such as annular domain geometry, drilling fluid density and rheology, annular flow rate, drill pipe rotation speed, cuttings size, shape, and their density. Prediction of the stationary cuttings bed height with respect to these aforementioned parameters is thus necessary to optimize the range of the …

An Experimental And Computational Investigation Of Rotating Flexible Shaft System Dynamics In Rotary Drilling Assemblies For Down Hole Drilling Vibration Mitigation, Richard Duff

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Rotary drilling system vibration has long been associated with damaging the bit, the bottom hole assembly (BHA) and drill string. Vibration has been traditionally measured in the bottom hole assembly, and been closely associated with the resonant behaviors.

This research study proposes an improved physical laboratory model to explore the dynamic behaviors associated with vibration. This model includes contact with the borehole wall allowing a range of stabilization geometries while removing bit-formation interaction effects. The results of exercising the model help develop new insights into both vibration measurement diagnostics and mitigation strategy execution.

Presented here is a review of other …

A Simulation Study Of Factors That Affect Pressure Control During Kick Circulation In Managed Pressure Drilling Operations, Jose Eduardo Eduardo Chirinos

LSU Master's Theses

An university-industry consortium has been studying alternative well control procedures to be used for kicks taken during managed pressure drilling (MPD) operations using the constant bottom hole pressure (CBHP) method. The CBHP method of MPD allows more precise control of wellbore pressure than conventional drilling. MPD surface equipment allows more alternatives for controlling a kick and may support faster detection of kicks and losses which can reduce the severity of a well control event. Nevertheless, the elimination of well control incidents cannot be guaranteed, and the uncertainty in downhole drilling margins are not reduced by adopting MPD methods. The primary …

Controlled High Pressure Slurry Injection In Water Jetting Applications-A New Approach, Manish Kumar

LSU Master's Theses

The ability of an abrasive assisted water jet to cut through rocks and metals has potential applications in the oilfield. However, the size of cutting nozzle has not allowed water jet to be used on commercial scale for drilling reservoir rocks down-hole. Inefficient momentum transfer to abrasive particles from pressurized water and lack of abrasive feed rate control in commercially available units has further discouraged the use of water jet in oil industry. Despite various technical difficulties, immense power of water jet cannot be neglected. Studies have shown that momentum transfer can be improved significantly, if abrasive particles are introduced …