A Major Advancement in Expandable Connection Performance, Enabling Reliable Gastight Expandable Connections

Delange, Richard Werner; Gandikota, Raju; Osburn, Scott

doi:10.2118/135462-ms

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Research studies on the casing connections have been mainly focused on the thread connection structure design and safety evaluation in the past years. Analytical method, 6,7 finite element (FE) method, 8,9 and experimental method 10,11 were commonly adopted in the research works. Some researchers have investigated the sealing mechanism of the premium connections, 12,13 and some researchers developed highperformance premium connection in the high-temperature/high-pressure (HTHP) gas well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Viscoelastic behavior of a casing material and its utilization in premium connections in high-temperature gas wells

Zhang

Lian

Zhou

et al. 2018

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

At the high or extra-high temperatures in a natural gas oilfield, where the premium connection is employed by casing, gas leakage in the wellbore is always detected after several years of gas production. As the viscoelastic material's mechanical properties change with time and temperature, the relaxation of the contact pressure on the connection sealing surface is the main reason for the gas leakage in the high-temperature gas well. In this article, tension-creep experiments were conducted. Furthermore, a constitutive model of the casing material was established by the Prony series method. Moreover, the Prony series' shift factor was calculated to study the thermo-rheological behavior of the casing material ranging from 120°C to 300°C. A linear viscoelastic model was implemented in ABAQUS, and the simulation results are compared to our experimental data to validate the methodology. Finally, the viscoelastic finite element model is applied to predict the relaxation of contact pressure on the premium connections' sealing surface versus time under different temperatures. And, the ratio of the design contact pressure and the intending gas sealing pressure is recommended for avoiding the premium connections failure in the high-temperature gas well.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Viscoelastic behavior of a casing material and its utilization in premium connections in high-temperature gas wells

Zhang

Lian

Zhou

et al. 2018

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Analytical Evaluation of Casing Connections for Thermal Well Applications

Tao

Xie

2013

All Days

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thermal well technologies, such as Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), are widely used for the exploration of heavy oil and oilsands resources. Casing connections are one of the most critical components in thermal wells in terms of the wellbore structural and pressure integrities. High temperature operation of thermal wells inevitably imposes significant axial loads on the casing connections, and as a result, a plastic strain design concept must be used for the casing and connections. In addition, thermal well design should consider the impact of formation shear movement that may be caused by changes in the stress state in the reservoir and overburden formations during thermal operations. To meet the design challenges posed by thermal wells, premium connections are usually preferred over API connections due to generally superior structural capacity and sealability. Rigorous engineering assessments, such as full-scale physical tests and analytical evaluations are often used to assess the performance of premium connections and to identify suitable connection designs for the intended applications. These engineering assessments typically consider the in-situ load conditions specified by operators, or the load cases recommended by industry guidelines, such as the recently released Thermal Well Casing Connection Evaluation Protocol (TWCCEP 2012). This paper presents approaches and considerations for using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to conduct the analytical evaluation of casing connections for thermal wells. Such analytical evaluations serve to determine the worst-case specimen configurations (e.g. highest potential for galling or leaking) for full-scale testing programs under the load conditions specified in the Protocol, such as make-up and thermal cycles, as well as for understanding the connection performance under in-situ load cases as specified by operators, such as bending and formation shear. Analysis results provide useful insight into connection performance in terms of structural capacity, leakage resistance and galling potential. To demonstrate the use of the proposed analysis approaches and considerations, an example case with a generic premium connection geometry is analyzed and the results are presented.

show abstract

Successful Application of Fishable and Sectional ESS Completion Technology for Sand Control _ A Case History in SHAD Field

Zhang

et al. 2022

Day 1 Tue, August 09, 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SHAD oilfield, located in one of the fields with the highest onshore production in the Middle East; more than 70% of its production wells are flowing wells, with an average single well production capacity of more than 3000 bbl/d. Its main oil production formation is loose sandstone reservoir. The completion style of its production wells are generally completed casing perforation, and sand production is obvious after a period of exploitation. In the process of production, sand cleaning and sand discharging are often needed in the perforated section of oil well; however, after 3-5 years of production, serious sand burial still forces developers to give up the original production formation. In addition to the problem of sand production, there are many complex layers, some of them are oil-water layer, and the increase of water in the liquid production gradually affects the well flowing. Fishable and sectional expandable sand screen (ESS) completion technology is developed to deal with sand production and the increase of water production. The upper of the original production formation of the old wells is as the new production formation. The new formation is divided into several sections due to different physical properties. Perforation is carried out at the same time for all sections. After this, each the ESS completion string is run into each section. The top sealing hanger and the bottom packer will seal each ends of the annular between ESS and perforating casing, thus to form independent production section. In later process of production, plugging tools is run for sections if needed, so as to realize selective open/ close of different sections. Special fishing tools are developed, combined with the mechanical plastic characteristics of ESS, which can realize the fishing of the completion string. This solves the problem of fishing long string, and provides good conditions for subsequent operations. The research results show that two good results are obtained. One is that arranging several sections of ESS completion strings in the old well bore gives full play to the characteristics of ESS with strong flow capacity, good sand control effect, and is suitable for sand control in high-yield wells. The other is that selective open/close is realized for different sections which meets the sand control and production needs of in SHAD oilfield. The research results have applied to 9 wells in SHAD oilfield, and the success rate is 100%. Among them, one single well is divided into three sections, and the production is stable, the sand production is near to 0, and the sand control effect is significant. The successful application of this technology fills up the gap of multi-stage ESS completion in the Middle East.

show abstract

A Major Advancement in Expandable Connection Performance, Enabling Reliable Gastight Expandable Connections

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Viscoelastic behavior of a casing material and its utilization in premium connections in high-temperature gas wells

Viscoelastic behavior of a casing material and its utilization in premium connections in high-temperature gas wells

Analytical Evaluation of Casing Connections for Thermal Well Applications

Successful Application of Fishable and Sectional ESS Completion Technology for Sand Control _ A Case History in SHAD Field

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About