Effect of Pipe Rotation on Hole Cleaning for Water-Based Drilling Fluids in Horizontal and Deviated Wells

Abstract

One of the major concerns during drilling horizontal and directional wells is proper hole cleaning. If there exists a stationary bed, generally, an increase in the fluid velocity will erode the bed significantly. However, depending on the drilling conditions, very high fluid velocities are needed for bed removal, which may not be applied due to hydraulic and physical limitations. In such cases, pipe rotation may enhance the cuttings transport mechanically, and effective hole cleaning can be achieved even at fluid velocities lower than the critical annular fluid velocities required to prevent stationary bed development. In this study, the effect of pipe rotation on hole cleaning is investigated for horizontal and directional wells. Cuttings transport experiments have been conducted at METU Cuttings Transport Flow Loop using pure water as well as water-based muds consist of different concentrations of xanthan biopolimer, starch, KCl and soda ash, weighted with barite. Effect of pipe rotation have been observed for hole inclinations from horizontal to 50 degrees, for rate of penetrations from 15 to 45 ft/hr, for flow velocities from 2.1 ft/s to 7.2 ft/s, and for pipe rotations from 0 to 120 rpm. Pressure drop within the test section, and stationary and/or moving bed thickness are recorded besides the other test conditions. It has been observed that, pipe rotation has a significant improvement on cuttings transport, especially if the pipe is making an orbital motion. Also, pipe rotation drastically decreases the critical fluid velocity required to remove the stationary cuttings bed totally. However, after a certain rotation speed, no additional contribution of pipe rotation on hole cleaning is observed. When there are no cuttings present, the frictional pressure losses are increasing as the pipe rotation speed is increased. However, as the cuttings are introduced, due to the reduction in the stationary cuttings bed area, frictional pressure losses may decrease. Additionally, the effect of pipe rotation on hole cleaning as a function of fluid viscosity is also examined. It has been observed that, as the fluid viscosity is increased, contribution of pipe rotation on hole cleaning is increasing when compared with no rotation case.

Improving the Cuttings Transport Performance of Water-based Mud Through the Use of Polypropylene Beads

“…This was inferred to have caused by a high impact of gravity acting on the sliding bed which led to the increase in cuttings concentrations on the lower end of the annulus. At this juncture, it is pertinent to say that this research work has demonstrated credence and the observed critical angle at 60° is in consonant with that observed by Binzanti et al (2003), Brown et al (1989), Ford et al (1990), Ogunride & Dosunmu (2012), Ozbayoglu et al (2008), , Sifferman & Becker (1992) and Tomren et al (1986). Dramatically, the declining performance of the transporting fluid reversed gradually as the hole inclination angle was changed from the near horizontal to the horizontal plane (75°-90°).…”

“…Parameters such as annular flow rate, rate of penetration, fluid density, effective fluid viscosity, cuttings size, cuttings density, well inclination and pipe/hole eccentricity play leading roles in cuttings transport performance of drilling fluid (Ozbayoglu et al 2004;Stan & Avram 2014). In the same vein, other factors such as fluid flow regime and pipe rotation have also been observed to have a great impact on drilled cuttings transport in vertical, deviated, and horizontal wellbores Ozbayoglu et al 2008;Rooki et al 2014;Tomren et al 1986). …”

Review of Hole Cleaning in Complex Structural Wells

“…Therefore, mud rheology [20][21][22][23][24], particle size [20,21,23,25,26], and drillpipe rotation [6,24,27] continued to be studied.…”

“…Ozbayoglu et al [6] observed specifically the effect of drillpipe rotation on hole cleaning using a 3 inch 12 feet long METU's flow loop. It was observed drillpipe rotation has a significant improvement on cuttings transport, especially making an orbital motion, and drastically decreases the critical velocity required to remove stationary cuttings bed totally.…”

Simulation on Cuttings Transport with Drillpipe Rotation in Highly-Inclined Well Section

“…The influence rules of different factors on cuttings transport have been studied deeply except the drill pipe rotation because the pipe rotation can make the two-phase flow in annular become more complicated and difficult to solve. As a result, these theoretical models which ignore or simplify the influence of drill pipe rotation, on cuttings transport, which is very important proved by many experimental researches and practices [12,13,14,15], cannot be used in fields design because of the big error . In the contrary, the regression models based on the experiment data including the pipe rotation show a good agreement with actual conditions.…”