Effects of Sorptive Tendency of Shale on Borehole Stability

Abstract

Abstract:Interactions between aqueous drilling fluids and clay minerals have been identified as an important factor in wellbore instability of shale formations. Current wellbore stability models consider the interactions between aqueous drilling fluids and pore fluid but the interactions with shale matrix are neglected. This study provides a realistic method to incorporate the interaction mechanism into wellbore stability analysis through laboratory experiment and mathematical modeling. The adsorption isotherms of two shale rocks, Catoosa Shale and Mancos Shale are obtained. The adsorption isotherms of the selected shales are compared with those of other shale types in the literature. This study shows that the adsorption theory can be used to generalize wellbore stability problem in order to consider the case of non-ideal drilling fluids. Furthermore, the adsorption model can be combined with empirical correlations to update the compressive strength of shale under downhole conditions. Accordingly, a chemo-poro-elastic wellbore stability simulator is developed to explore the stability of transversely isotropic shale formations. The coupled transport equations are solved using an implicit finite difference method. The results of this study indicate that the range of safe mud weight reduces due to the moisture adsorption phenomenon.