Casing Failures Correlated with Cementing Quality in Steam Injection Wells

Abstract

Abstract Steam injection wells have been used as an oil recovery method for an extended amount of time in the industry. It is used to recover oil of extremely high viscosities by lowering its viscosity using the steam zone created by the injection. To lower the viscosity the steam must be pumped at very high temperatures and pressure, which can create thermal stresses that are too high on the casing. This thermal stresses affect the casing even more if the cementing job on the casing is not very high quality. The focus for this paper will be on casing failures in steam injection wells, and whether these causes are connected in the integrity of the cement or not. Other factors such as corrosion or sand invasion will be excluded from this study. The data that would be collected will be from drilling logs of well that have failed in the Mukhaizna field in the south of Oman. The data would focus on the amount of static and dynamic losses as well as the use of CemNET, which is used as a spotting cement fiber for loss zones. This study will eventually prove that there is a correlation between those casing failures and the loss zones, cementing effectiveness and use of spotting additives to block fractures.