Engineered Highly Crush-Resistant Cement Slurry to Prevent Lost Circulation

Veisi, Mahdi Sheikh; Taoutaou, Salim; Steven, Alan; Pasteris, Mathieu; Wedhaswari, Victoria Rasmi; Awalt, Michael; Kadrie, M.; Permata, Elok

doi:10.2118/176038-ms

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Recently, there were some publications on application of swelling thixotropic polymers to put an end on lost circulation during managed pressure drilling MPD (Barry 2017;Ombe et al 2020) when there was no safe mud window (Aljubran et al 2018). Generally, it should be noted that magnesium-cement slurry is used for reservoir thief zones because it is soluble by an HCl-acid wash removing the reservoir rock formation damage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Level-off’ cement plugging method to cure lost circulation verified with case studies

Ashena

Ghalambor

Elmgerbi

et al. 2021

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

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Controlling lost circulation during drilling operations in a reservoir prone to fluid losses is typically remedied by cement squeezing or plug setting as the last resort. The aim being to minimize or stop drilling fluid losses and to regain full returns at surface, and to maintain wellbore integrity. Different placement methods of cement plugs have been discussed in detail in the literature, except for the ‘level-off’ method, which can be effective for curing complete loss circulation cases. Following modeling and calculations of this cement plug placement method, its design and execution procedures are discussed, together with two successful field cases in highly fractured carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East. Using drill pipe and a Retrievable-Test-Treat-Squeeze (RTTS) packer, set with some spacing from the loss zone, the method entails that the cement slurry is allowed to drop by gravity in order to cure lost circulation. As the column of fluid, mud and slurry in the well exceeds formation pore pressure, i.e., overbalanced conditions, a volume of acid-soluble cement slurry is allowed to slowly drop and freely penetrate the formation, i.e., through its fractures or caverns. During the penetration of this viscous slurry into the loss zone, the cement slurry can set and the fracture or fissure openings are plugged. Presented are detailed design calculations for the level-off placement technique, determination of required cement slurry and displacement volumes, and recommended displacement and RTTS packer setting depths. The expected depth of the top of cement plug is estimated. The design parameters are compared with field cases and explanations are given for possible discrepancies. Success of the operation is discussed in terms of final mud loss after cement plugging and Non-Productive Time mitigation. Detailed field procedures and execution are also presented. The level-off job is already practiced by the industry, but it is not published in the literature, in some cases they have different methods with causing some errors. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first detailed description and stepwise calculation of the level-off cement placement technique in the literature.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Level-off’ cement plugging method to cure lost circulation verified with case studies

Ashena

Ghalambor

Elmgerbi

et al. 2021

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

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“…Chemical proportions change and controlling cement hardening with designed additive amounts might be impossible. Therefore, many authors have proposed ways to stop or minimize cement fluid loss [43,44,45,20,46,47], and most agree on the importance of better understanding the mechanisms that govern fluid loss in order to predict it [48,49,50,51,52].…”

Section: Well Cementing Techniques and Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cementing Process in the Presence of Fluid Loss

RIBEIRO¹

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To my parents for the lifetime support and inspiration. To my best friend and wife, Priscilla Varges, for the effusive technical discussions and compelling motivational arguments. To my daughter Marina (Nina), which even not quite understanding why, she learned that dad had a work to finish. To Ângela and Patrícia Varges, for being great listeners and for all their love and dedication to our family. To my advisor, Prof. Mônica Feijó Naccache, for the trust and excellent technical discussions. To Prof. Márcio Carvalho, for great lectures and technical partnership. To Halliburton and Petrobras technical teams and to the laboratory colleagues at GReo and LMMP for the valuable discussions and all the help through these years.

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Novel Cementing Solutions to Impede Lost Circulation with Highly Crush-Resistant Lightweight Cement System and Engineered Fibers

et al. 2016

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Seguni field and Sejadi field are smaller regions of Sepinggan field in offshore of East Kalimantan, Indonesia, which were drilled and developed by the operator since 1977. Seguni-V (redrilled well) was prognosed to encounter several depleted sandstone formations with reduced pore pressure due to produced hydrocarbons. Consequently, the utilized drilling fluid density was set as low as reasonably practical and this methodology had successfully prevented any lost circulation event until the total depth (TD) was reached. Nonetheless, the risk of losses were greater in the cementation phase of the 3 1/2-in tubing due to long column of cement (>7000 ftMD) required. Therefore, the challenge was to reduce the cement slurry density that still can achieve a required compressive strength within timely manner. The reduced slurry density was also predicted to be instable downhole due to the immense bottomhole pressure, which might crush the conventional cenospheres in the slurry as lightweight materials and result in an increase of downhole slurry density. Therefore, to minimize the risk of induced lost circulation caused by slurry density increase, a novel lightweight material with highly-crush resistant property was proposed. The result of the job with this cement system was satisfactory with no losses occurred and the targeted intervals were covered with good cement. Sejadi field, on the other hand, had experienced losses while drilling, from seepage losses which were commonly found, up to 170 bbl/hr of loss rate at one of the wells in the field. A particular lost circulation case with persistent loss rate into depleted formations was observed at Sejadi-X well. 728 bbl of synthetic based mud (SBM) had been lost into the hole when a loss rate of >40 bbl/hr was encountered while drilling 8 1/2-in open hole (OH) section. The loss rate could not be reduced even after spotting three times of 30 bbl conventional lost circulation material (LCM) pill and had cost significant volume of SBM and LCM amount lost to the formation, as well as 2 rig days spent in attempt to cure the loss. The study of the previous failure on similar problems in the neighboring well led to the solution proposal to use engineered, optimized fiber in cement slurry for lost circulation plug. The result was prominently effective and drilling operation could be resumed to total depth. This paper describes the features, case histories, challenges, field applications, as well as the acknowledged results of mentioned technologies. Lastly, this paper also introduces a mutualistic technical feature when the two technologies are combined to both prevent and mitigate lost circulation.

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Engineered Highly Crush-Resistant Cement Slurry to Prevent Lost Circulation

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

‘Level-off’ cement plugging method to cure lost circulation verified with case studies

‘Level-off’ cement plugging method to cure lost circulation verified with case studies

Cementing Process in the Presence of Fluid Loss

Novel Cementing Solutions to Impede Lost Circulation with Highly Crush-Resistant Lightweight Cement System and Engineered Fibers

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