Advancing Influx Detection Toward Automated Well Control

Abstract

Beginning in the early 2000s, the industry has applied a lot of attention, effort and protocol toward drilling automation routines in the interest of advancing efficiency and consistency, and most of all, safety. The routines that have grown in maturity and gone mainstream blend data interpretation from advanced algorithms and apply actions to downhole and/or surface machines to achieve the desired outcome. Directional drilling stands our as one field that has proven successful. Well control has been pursued with less enthusiasm in the automation space. Some effort has gone into automating a segmented well control workflow. A fully closed loop automated workflow that detects and controls has not reached commercial maturity yet. A key challenge for the pursuit of a fully closed loop influx management routine is detection. The data signatures that present themselves remain difficult to interpret consistently. This may be due to the wide range of variables that influence the interpretation. The drilling fluid, reservoir fluid and pressure, and the drilling state when the influx initiates are only a few. This paper will describe and demonstrate new technology that improves upon a process used since 2014, targeting the most important step of advancing early kick detection. This new generation of algorithms and workflows reduce gain and loss detection thresholds, can enable kick tolerance reduction, and will also minimizes false alarms. As dynamic pressure management and primary well control techniques become more complex, so to, do the challenges associated with the prompt and accurate detection of gains and losses. The new algorithms and workflows have been developed to ensure compatibility with surface backpressure Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) systems, as well other techniques such as riser annulus height control. With increasingly stringent environment regulations being implemented worldwide, it is becoming essential for drilling operations to not only detect gains and losses, but to also monitor subsea equipment to avoid unplanned releases of drilling fluid. A side benefit of accurate gain and loss detection also enables detection of such leaks from subsea equipment. The case studies presented here will focus on the results obtained while running this technology in both conventional mode, and MPD mode. Additionally, a case study will describe how the detection application is then coupled with applied backpressure MPD and previously developed work automating circulation of the influx in SPE-194089-MS, attempting to fully close the automated influx management loop. Beyond the technology, human factors remain a barrier. To break these barriers, validation under robust conditions is essential.