Research on Cement Sheath Integrity Under High Temperature During In-Situ Development for Shale Oil Well

Abstract

The temperature is as high as 500 °C at the bottom of shale oil wells during in-situ development. During shale oil production, the fluids with high temperature are transmitted to the wellhead, and the wellbore temperature will rise extremely, which greatly affects the cement sheath integrity. In this paper, the linear expansion coefficient of cement stone under the temperature of 500 ℃ were measured. Based on the experimental data and the field data of shale oil well, the stage finite element modeling method was adopted to establish a casing-cement-formation (CCF) model considering the temperature and pressure coupling. The results revealed that the linear expansion coefficient of cement stone decreases linearly with the increase of temperature. When the temperature was less than 250 ℃, the cement stone expanded. However, when the temperature exceeded 250 ℃, it shrank. The maximum shrinkage ratio can be 25 × 10^–6/℃ for the temperature of 500 ℃. The circumferential stress of the inner wall of cement sheath first increased rapidly, then slowly decreased to be stable. The larger the cement stone shrink ratio was, the greater the circumferential stress was. The maximum circumferential stress can exceed 10 MPa for the shrink ratio of 25 × 10^–6/℃. It can be concluded that the circumferential stress appears in a tensile state under high temperature conditions, which can easily lead to the failure of the cement sheath seal. The strength of the cement stone should be considered when designing the cement slurry property. In addition to the decay performance, the expansion of the cement stone should also be designed to ensure that the cement stone does not shrink when subjected to high temperature conditions.