The Golden Arrow for performance BV.

WELLBORE STABILITY – PRACTICAL APPROACH

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Introduction

Wellbore stability is a function of both mechanical and/or thermal/chemical effects.

Mechanical effects include microfractures, wellbore angle, and tectonic activity.

The mechanical stress surrounding the wellbore is strongly affected by the
drilling fluid density.

The rock must be strong to support the stress differences surrounding the wellbore
or mechanical instability will occur. This instability can manifest itself as
sloughing shale in rock that fails in a brittle manner or as tight hole problems in
rock that falls in by plastic deformation.

High mud weight (ECD) can lead to tensile failure of the wellbore wall and leads to
mud losses, hydraulic fracture the formation. If the mud weight is too low,
compressive failure can occur, as formation shears at the wellbore and caves in.

Main factors :Thermal effects on wellbore stability, circumferential tensile fractures,

and fracturing the formation during packing off play an important role in
determining critical mud weights for low permeable formations.

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HOW BAD IT IS ?

• In 2003 the approx NPT (non-productive time) related to wellbore stability

issues is 22% for an operator
• This equates to 22% of $102MM, $23MM
• In 5 years approx $100MM related to WSA issues

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 WELLBORE STABILITY ANALYSIS – WHAT IS IT?

WBS can be broken into 2 areas; chemical and mechanical

Chemical; mud interaction with formation, reactive shales, temperature effects
Mechanical; in-situ stresses, near wellbore stresses, shear failure, compressional failure

Collapse is the minimum mud weight required to prevent the onset of hole compressive failure

Breakdown is the maximum mud weight allowed without fracturing the formation

Symptoms of wellbore instability include, oversize hole, stuck pipe, hole fill, large
cavings/cuttings, restricted circulation/increase in pump pressure, losses

Wellbore Instability occurs when local stress exceeds the rock strength. Factors include
overburden, horizontal stresses, pore pressure, tectonics, drilling process (very important)
Need to understand what is happening as we drill; hole cleaning, pore pressures; all contribute
to WBS. Needs to be factored into the well design & best practice’s

Controllable factors: mud weight, hole inclination and azimuth, swab and surge pressure,
circulating pressures, operational practices, and casing point depths

Uncontrollable factors: natural fractures, faulted zones, pore pressures, weak formations, in-
situ stresses

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 WELLBORE STABILITY ANALYSIS – WHAT IS IT?

compression failure; maximum and minimum stresses that cause breakout areas. Breakout occurs
along the axis of minimum stress

Some failure can be tolerated as long as you keep fluid out of the cracks. Steal seal from Halliburton
aims to achieve this but can blind the shakers.

To calculate mud weight window; evaluate stresses, calculate rock mechanical properties, then
calculate strength and determine breakdown and collapse pressures

Most WSA work typically concentrates on shale section where it has the highest impact Mechanical
properties of rocks which are important include compressive strength, cohesive strength, Internal
friction angle, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, bulk modulus, shear modulus.

wellbore instability can drive development concepts .

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 WSA – WHAT IS REQUIRED?

Wellbore Stability Analysis needs rock strength stresses (overburden, horizontal, pore pressures)
and formation strength

Rock physics & engineering properties. As porosity decreases, rock stiffness increases

Density log – used to calculate overburden

Caliper – useful to calibrate stresses and identify hole problems

Mandatory input data includes; pore pressure, lithology, hole inclination, core testing calibration
data, drilling records, mud logs & bit records, geological data

Calibration data. Good analogue offset data.

LOT’s can tell you a lot more than maximum allowable mud weight to breakdown the shoe.

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HOLE CLEANING / WELLBORE STABILITY/BOTH?

ANP & AXS

% occurrence of encountered problems
during running 7 5/8" PDL / 5 1/2" screens

Tortuosity

50 Differential sticking
Hole cleaning/stability
Shale
45

40

35

30

25
%

20

15

10

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ACTUAL – EXAMPLE (DESIGN CURVES)

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REQUIRED MUD WEIGHT

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REQUIRED MUD WEIGHT

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QUICK OFFSET WELL REVIEW

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WHAT SAFE DIRECTION IS ?

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WHAT SAFE DIRECTION IS ?

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FAILED EXAMPLE

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WHAT TO DO WITH THE MUD SYSTEM

Schematic diagram of Wellbore

Strengthening (WBS) technique in a
vertical borehole.
A) When the pressure in the borehole
exceeds the formation fracture initiation
pressure, a tensile fracture forms in the
direction of maximum horizontal stress
B) B) The drilling fluid must contain the
WBS additives when fracture initiation
occurs, thus ensuring the correctly
sized particles bridge off the fracture in
the early phase of fracture propagation.
For an effective bridge to form, the
particles need to be the correct size and
shape, in sufficient quantity and
possess the right material properties.
This ensures that the circulating mud
pressure (ie the ECD) does not reach
the fracture tip and therefore fracture
propagation is arrested

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 RECOMMENDATIONS
Steelseal is a lost circulation additive for both OBM and WBM, angular carbon based material
that allows tightly packed particles under compression in pores and fractures to expand or
contract without being dislodged due to changes in differential pressure.

Soltex has been recognised as a shale stabiliser, well bore lubricant, and HTHP fluid loss control
additive for water base muds. It was proved that when soltex is used in a conventional low
toxicity oil base fluid, provide enhanced HTHP fluid loss control properties. Slotex helps
produce the proper particle size distribution for improved filter cake and for the plugging of
microfractures.

It is recommended to add Steelseal - Fine at 2 - 3 sx/std while drilling and treat the mud
system with Soltex at a concentration of 1.5 – 2 ppb, when encountering early cavings. The
Soltex will be added to the mud system anyway before penetrating the Alba sand.

Logs: Consider running the following logs to collect data for further understanding on Alba’s
wellbore instability in the 12 ¼” hole section:
A- PWD log.
B- Calliper tool.
C- Wellbore imaging tool.

Drilling practices: It is an appropriate time to re-visit some of the ERD practices. Note that
there is no universal agreement on many of these, and in some cases, there is wide
disagreement on "best practice". It should always be kept in mind, however, that "best
practice" is what is the most effective overall, for a particular application, and may change
for different applications.
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Who we are

Mud logging: Stability monitoring during drilling the hole is important. At high ROP’s
PDC cuttings mask small cavings. It is recommended to log, mud temperature in,
mud temperature out, the depth from which the cavings are coming from, size of
cavings, percentage of the cavings and description of the cavings on the daily
mud logs.

Torque and drag: On certain wells, those projected to have high torque and drag,
consideration to be given after drilling out the casing shoe, to pull into casing and
calibrate torque and drag model for casing. Re-calibrate the model for casing and
the open hole during wiper trip to the casing shoe.

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EFFECT OF DEPLETION ON FRACTURE GRADIENT

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