Accurate Estimation of Equivalent Circulating Density During High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) Drilling Operations

Abstract

Abstract Error in equivalent circulating density estimation can be disastrous because of the narrow margin between pore and fracture pressure in HPHT wells. High temperature conditions cause the fluid in the wellbore to expand, while high pressure conditions in deep wells cause fluid compression. Failure to take these two opposing effects into account can lead to errors in the estimation of bottom-hole pressure on the magnitude of hundreds of psi. This study involves the development of a simulator called HPHT-Density Simulator to simulate the wellbore(drillpipe and annulus) during circulation as well as the temperature and pressure profiles of a wellbore during circulation. A Bingham plastic model was incorporated into a simulator called HPHT-density Simulator which was developed using Visual Basic to simulate the wellbore during circulation. The developed HPHT-density Simulator program interface is executed with a series of user forms, which will accept data pertaining to the wellbore, drilling fluid and formation parameters and return the temperature profiles in the wellbore and formation, pressure losses in the wellbore and ECD of the circulating fluid. The user can navigate between forms and input data at leisure using the "back" and "next" input bottons. Once values of all the necessary parameters have been entered into the program, the results are displayed on a "results" forms. The successful simulation of HPHT-Density Simulator shows a significant difference in the equivalent circulating density and bottom hole pressure profile for fluid circulation parameters of a Niger Delta well when the rheological properties were assumed to be constant as compared with when temperature-pressure varied. This can be adapted to drilling operations and thereby preventing downtime arising from kicks, blow-outs, lost circulation and formation damage due to wrong estimation of equivalent circulating density while drilling within narrow margin between pore and fracture pressure in HPHT wells.