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Drilling Safety Assessed by Anisotropic Strength Criterion of Rocks in Deep Fractured Formation: Trajectory Optimization of Inclined Wells

  • INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES OF OIL AND GAS
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Chemistry and Technology of Fuels and Oils Aims and scope

Anisotropic strata are frequently encountered in deep drilling engineering, especially for the rock with fracture structures. The problem of instability in highly deviated well in this kind of rock stratum is prominent as the strength of fractured rocks is weakened and the directions of fractures, in-situ stress and borehole axis can be complex. A model is built in this paper to assess the safety of drilling considering the influences of well trajectory, in-situ stress and fractures. The results show that: the fractures with different dip angles have important influence on the failure area and the collapse pressure. It is quite necessary to select the safe drilling trajectory in fractured formations as this is the economical and convenient approach. For some directional drilling, the determination of safe mud weight should be cautious. The in-situ stress difference, pore pressure and fracture strength parameters have significant effects on well collapse pressure. The above model calculation under specific working conditions can easily evaluate the safety and stability of wells drilling in all directions in fractured formation, so as to provide reference for well trajectory design of highly deviated wells.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Project support by China Petrochemical Corporation (No. p21069), the financial support of the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No.52074018), the financial support of fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (buctrc202017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sinopec Shengli Petroleum Engineering Co., Ltd Huanghe Drilling Company, Dongying, China

    Bo Zhao

  2. Sinopec Shengli Petroleum Engineering Co., Ltd, Drilling Technology Research Institute, Dongying, China

    Jianbin Yu

  3. Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China

    Tengfei Sun & Liqin Ding

Authors
  1. Bo Zhao
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  2. Jianbin Yu
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  3. Tengfei Sun
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  4. Liqin Ding
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Correspondence to Tengfei Sun.

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Translated from Khimiya i Tekhnologiya Topliv i Masel, No. 3, pp. 85–91 May–June, 2022.

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Zhao, B., Yu, J., Sun, T. et al. Drilling Safety Assessed by Anisotropic Strength Criterion of Rocks in Deep Fractured Formation: Trajectory Optimization of Inclined Wells. Chem Technol Fuels Oils 58, 511–518 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10553-022-01415-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10553-022-01415-2

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