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SPE Paper: The Application of Chemistry to Manage Wellbore Instability While Drilling the Mechanically Weak Burgan Shale Formation and the Vugular Shuaiba Limestone Formation

SPE Paper: The Application of Chemistry to Manage Wellbore Instability While Drilling the Mechanically Weak Burgan Shale Formation and the Vugular Shuaiba Limestone Formation

SPE Co-Authored Paper with Kuwait Oil Company and EMEC

Abstract:

Wellbore instability while drilling mechanically weak, unstable or vugular formations has been a problem for decades. The cost of wellbore instability is a major challenge in achieving safe and economical drilling operations. As drilling operations moved into challenging formations in Kuwait, the operator sought to drill the Burgan shale and Shuaiba limestone formations in one section as opposed to the traditional two sections required to isolate each formation separately. This paper focuses on a class of technology additives used to mitigate the challenges of drilling weak and unstable formations.

One approach for drilling micro-fractured shale and weak sands with vugular limestone is to mitigate the invasion of drilling fluids into the formation. Other approaches include: stabilizing the reactive shale by preventing hydration and swelling, improving the filtercake texture and strength, and sealing natural micro-fractures. Drilling fluid invasion can change the pore pressure, which may trigger wellbore instability problems. Thus, using ultra-low invasion drilling fluids, sealing micro-fractures and maximizing shale inhibition are key components for mitigating wellbore instability. Field data for the wells using the ultra-low invasion additives and shale stabilizers is presented and compared with previous wells drilled across Burgan and Shuaiba formations in Kuwait.

The field data demonstrates the successful application of these additives to meet challenging key performance indicators (KPI) when drilling the Burgan shale and the vugular Shuaiba limestone in the same hole section. Using the ultra-low invasion additives along with shale inhibitors and borehole stabilizers, resulted in successful drilling operations with no differential sticking, torque-and-drag issues, sloughing, or tight hole problems as compared with usual incidences of differential sticking, pack-offs, and tight hole in other wells within the area. Using those additives also eliminated the need for a higher density fluid to control micro-fractured and tectonically stressed shales. The addition of the additive combination did not affect the rheological profile of the drilling fluid. Meeting these goals through the use of chemical additives in the drilling fluid reduced both non-productive time and formation damage in a cost-effective manner.

Data from this paper specifically addresses a chemical solution for drilling the Burgan shale formation together with vugular Shuaiba limestone in a major Middle East producing field. However, the technique of mitigating wellbore instability by using this combination of chemical additives is fundamental to safe and economical drilling operations for any depleted, weak or micro-fractured formations globally.

For the complete review, visit onepetro.org and download the co-authored