Use of underbalanced drilling technology expands

UNDERBALANCED DRILLING has

emerged as a critical technology that
could bring significant gains in drilling
efficiency.
IADC members recognize the potential
of underbalanced drilling technology
and have formed the Underbalanced
Operations Committee to promote the
safe and efficient use of the technique.
A number of projects are underway by
the Committee, including the development of a standard well classification
system and supporting nomenclature.
A session, Underbalanced Well Operations and Engineering, is a part of the
2001 SPE/IADC Drilling Conference.
Papers prepared for this session, to be
chaired by D Heeman, Tesco Drilling
Technology and J Boyle, Weatherford,
focus on safety, well planning, reservoir
characterization, pressure prediction,
and other critical areas.

MOVING UBD OFFSHORE

In 1996, a multidisciplinary team in
Shell Expros Gas Supply Group began
a project to adapt existing onshore
underbalanced drilling technology to the
North Sea offshore environment. Using
an evolutionary stepwise implementation path, the technology was matured
from low-head drilling operations in
1997 to two fully underbalanced drilling
strings at present.
In SPE/IADC paper 67688 prepared for
the Conference, J Kohnert, Shell UK
Exploration and Production highlights
the safety critical learning that emerged
during the project. The paper, Safety
Critical Learning in Underbalanced Well
Operations in Shell Expro, focuses on:
The team structure and implementation plan;
Mud and nitrogen system;
BOP and snubbing unit;
Pressured flow line and separator
package;
UBD well design.

OFFSHORE INDONESIA
Repsol-YPF-MAXUS
Southeast
Sumatra B V decided to implement
underbalanced drilling technology in the

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development drilling
campaign in the Krisna Field offshore
Indonesia. The target
production zone is
fractured carbonate.
Previous
wells
drilled in this concession have had massive losses of drilling
fluids once the productive
zone
is
encountered.
The
zone also has a very
high clay content,
which may be prone
to fluid damage.
In SPE/IADC paper
67689 prepared for
the Drilling Conference, G Soerdasono,
YPF-Maxus Southeast Sumatra; P R
Brand, Blade Energy Partners; and B
Allison, Northland
Energy
Services
present the pre-engineering, project management and field
implementation
results
for
the
drilling of the Krisna This underbalanced equipment layout on the R&B Falcon Roger MowD12. Planning and ell was used for the first UBD project from a jackup in South East Asia.
Implementation of
The well was TDd before reaching the
the Repsol-YPF-Maxus Krisna Underproposed total depth because the basebalanced Drilling Project describes the
ment high was encountered. There were
first use of the technology offshore in
no instances of lost returns or stuck
the region.
pipe once the well was in an underbalIn an effort to eliminate lost return,
anced condition.
eliminate stuck pipe, identify fractures
Although the project encountered proband eliminate formation damage, Maxus
lems during the initial start up, modifidecided to proceed with the Krisna
cations to the system and changing the
underbalanced drilling project.
fluid system to a diesel mist eliminated
Since it was the first attempt of underthe majority of the issues.
balanced drilling in Southeast Asia from
By the end of the well, the underbalan offshore unit, significant planning
anced system was working well, the
and engineering were required.
authors report.
The Krisna D12 production interval was
successfully drilled underbalanced from
PROFILING PRESSURES
10-20 June, 2000 from the R & B Falcon
Understanding reservoir characteristics
jackup Roger W Mowell.
is a key to successful underbalanced
A total of 1,159 ft of formation was
drilling operations.
drilled underbalanced without any sigIn SPE/IADC paper 67690 prepared for
nificant drilling related problems.
the Drilling Conference, author W

D R I L L I N G

C O N T R A C T O R

January/February 2001

Kneissl, Schlumberger Cambridge

Research, describes a method for deriving both pore pressure and permeability
profiles of a reservoir in real timeon a
foot-by-foot basisduring underbalanced drilling operations.

Indeed, says the author, previous work

along these lines would misinterpret
higher pore pressure regions of the
reservoir as higher permeability zones.

Offshore Wells in Underbalanced Conditions, prepared by A L Martins, A M F

Loureno, and V Silva Jr, Petrobras,
discusses procedures and results.

Such information about near wellbore

characteristics of the reservoir offer
invaluable input into drilling and completion decisions.

The author also discusses the implications of compressibility in the muds

used during underbalanced drilling for
the extrapolation of flow rates measured at surface to production rates
downhole.

The lab work steps included foaming

agent selection (considering optimum
concentration and salt/oil contaminants), rheology lab equipment development or adaptation and a definition of
test procedure and matrix.

The algorithm described in the paper,

Reservoir Characterisation Whilst
Underbalanced Drilling, can be run at
the well site with a laptop computer and
has been extensively tested against real
UBD data, according to the author.

This is a critical factor in accurate characterization of the reservoir, since it is

the local production rates downhole that
are used to characterize the response of
the reservoir to the drawdown condition.

Based on a set of real scale tests under

foam circulation conditions and numerical simulations, the authors propose a
comprehensive model for predicting
borehole pressures while drilling underbalanced or near balance with foams.

The mathematical methodology presented is an extension of that described in

earlier papers, but the new algorithm
also determines local pore pressure values, which allows for a more accurate
description of the local drawdown, and
thereby a more accurate derivation of
the permeability than has previously
been possible.

FOAM SYSTEM

The use of foam is a highly attractive

alternative for drilling depleted, lost circulation or gas zones. Due to its complexity, however, a foamed system
requires special attention while designing field operations.

January/February 2001

An extensive experimental program

developed at Petrobras R&D Center as
part of the joint industry project (JIP)
named Lightweight Fluid Drilling from
Floating Platforms, is summarized in
SPE/IADC paper 67691. Foam Rheology
Characterization as a Tool for Predicting Wellbore Pressures While Drilling

D R I L L I N G

The main goal of the project is to make

it possible to drill with foam from floating platforms.

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After about 60 rheology tests performed

in lab and pilot scale equipment, correlations were proposed to predict rheological parameters as functions of foam
quality.
Based on the experimental data, a set of
correlations was developed to predict
foam rheological properties as functions
of base fluid rheological properties and
foam quality. The next step was to evaluate the lab results by comparing pressure predictions with experimental data
obtained by circulating different quality
foams in a real scale vertical well located at the Petrobras Training Center.
The proper fitting of the proposed model
and the experimental results supported
its implementation in Petrobras lightweight fluid drilling software.
The authors suggest the possibility of
applying the technique in deepwater
conditions will open a new strategy for
the development of depleted areas in offshore fields worldwide.
Proper knowledge of downhole pressures is important for adequate system
design and operation.

AERATED MUD
Predicting flow patterns in directional
wells is always important. But the use of
aerated muds poses special challenges.
Alternate SPE/IADC paper 67189, New
Developments
in
Aerated
Mud
Hydraulics for Drilling in Inclined
Wells, describes a study to determine
the hydraulics of aerated mud in an
inclined annulus.
The paper was prepared for the Drilling
Conference by Ashwin Sunthankar,
Ergun Kuru and Stefan Z. Miska, The
University of Tulsa; and Arjan Kamp,
PDVSA/Intevep.
When drilling with aerated drilling fluids, bottomhole pressure is a strong
function of gas-liquid flow patterns. The
existing methods of predicting flow patterns are mostly based on the extrapolation of results from pipe flow to flow in
annuli.
Due to non-linear relationships between
flow rate, pipe size and pressure drop,
this practice may not be appropriate to
apply in drilling operations, according
to the authors.
To verify the applicability of existing
practice, the study described by the

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authors focuses on hydraulics of aerated drilling fluid flow through an inclined

annulus, typical for drilling operations
in directional wells.
Extensive experiments were performed
in a unique field-scale low-pressure flow
loop (8-in. x 4.5-in. annular geometry, 90
ft long) in inclined positions (15, 45
from vertical) with and without drill pipe
rotation.
The liquids used were water and aqueous polymer solution (CMC+XCD+
water) at flow rates in the range of 100325 gpm and air in the range of 8-85
scfm.
Gas/liquid ratios are chosen to simulate
the exact gas/liquid ratios under downhole conditions, correcting for the fact
that the actual pressure in the flow loop
is much lower than the bottomhole conditions.
Pressure drop and average liquid
holdup over the entire annular section
were measured. The authors report that
they are not aware that such data has
been published before.
The two-phase flow patterns were identified by visual observations. Bubbly
flow and slug flow are the two flow patterns observed over the ranges of the
chosen test matrix. The presence of slug
flow does not justify many of the existing field and simulation practices that
assume homogeneous gas-liquid flow.
Also, the flow pattern boundaries were
shifted compared to pipe flow. The transition between bubbly flow and slug flow
(for 15 inclination) was observed at a
void fraction of 0.32 as compared to that
reported for pipe flow of 0.25.
But for air-aqueous polymer fluid flow, it
was the same as for air-water pipe flow
(0.25).
For flow with drill pipe rotation, churn
flow was observed instead of slug flow
due to the churning of slugs by the rotating drill pipe. The authors report that
there was no significant effect of drill
pipe rotation on the pressure drop for
air-water flow, while the pressure drop
decreased in case of air-aqueous polymer fluid flow with drill pipe rotation.
A higher pressure drop was observed in
case of air-aqueous polymer fluid flow
compared to air-water flow.
An existing unified pipe flow model was

D R I L L I N G

modified based on the experimental

results and was evaluated against
experimental and field data.
The comparison shows that the pressure drop prediction by the modified
model for inclined wells is better than
some other existing models, though it
still under-predicts the experimental
pressure drop measurements.

REAL TIME SUPPORT

A successful underbalanced drilling
operation requires control of downhole
pressures and management of the fluids
flowing from the well. Downhole pressures and the amount of fluid flowing
out of the well are affected by injection
of fluids, reservoir inflow performance
and operational procedures.
These parameters are inevitably subject
to fluctuations that cause transient
responses to the multiphase system.
In Alternate SPE/IADC paper 67693,
Underbalanced Drilling: Real Time
Data Interpretation and Decision Support, the authors describe a model used
to predict these changes. The paper was
prepared for the Drilling Conference by
R J Lorentzen and E H Vefring, RFRogaland Research; C V M Lage,
Petrobras; and K-K Fjelde, RF-Rogaland Research.
During an underbalanced drilling operation several parameters like injection
rates, downhole pressure, choke pressure and outlet rates can be measured.
Methodology has been developed for
incorporating the measured data in a
transient model.
The transient model is continuously
updated with the measured data. The
idea is to estimate the different parameters in the multiphase model and the
reservoir model to give a correct interpretation of the conditions in the well.
Based on this interpretation, the future
state of the underbalanced drilling system can be predicted.
The model can be used to predict the
consequences of change in the underbalanced drilling system such as connections and shut down.
The methodology has been applied to
measured data from a 1,300 m deep
well. Several transient cases have been
considered with drill string injection
n
and parasite string injection.

C O N T R A C T O R

January/February 2001

May/June 2000

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