Failure Analysis and Countermeasures for Cement Sheath Interface Sealing Integrity in Shale Gas Wells

Abstract

Summary Shale gas development usually uses large displacement horizontal well and staged fracturing technology to increase operation production. The complex environmental and construction conditions often lead to wellbore sealing integrity problems in the shale gas production process. This study shows a new method for evaluating the sealing integrity of shale gas cement sheath interfaces, which aims to understand the failure mechanism during shale gas production and to propose countermeasures that can effectively improve the sealing integrity of cement sheath interfaces in shale gas cementing. The study results showed that the oil contamination of cement sheath interface will greatly weaken its sealing performance. After repeated cyclic loading, the sealing performance of the conventional and expanded cement sheath assemblies is damaged, and a gas channel is formed, which is caused by the combination of microcracks and microgaps. Furthermore, oil contamination of the cement sheath interface will accelerate its sealing failure. The addition of an expansion agent is helpful to solve the problem of microgap destruction, and the fibers or whiskers can alleviate the problem of tensile cracking. The field application in the three wells proved that the toughened expanded cement slurry significantly improved the sealing integrity of the cement sheath interface in shale gas wells. The research results can evaluate and predict the sealing performance of the cement sheath interface in shale gas wells under the conditions of staged fracturing and have some directional significance for the cement slurry system optimization in the field.