Hole Cleaning Capabilities of Drilling Foams Compared to Conventional Fluids

Saintpere, Stephane; Marcillat, Yannick; Bruni, Fabrice; Toure, Abdoulaye

doi:10.2118/63049-ms

Cited by 30 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It provides an experimental basis methodology for the simple evaluation of carrying capacity of any kind of drilling fluids in a deviated wellbore. This experimental methodology will be developed for more comprehensive studies of hole cleaning problematic 13,14 . …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Aqueous Foams for Underbalanced Drilling: The Question of Solids

Herzhaft¹,

Toure²,

Bruni³

et al. 2000

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractAmong the existing non-conventional drilling operations, underbalanced drilling offers several benefits such as prevention of lost circulation and formation damage, increase of rate of penetration and reduction of differential sticking occurrence. In underbalanced drilling, the pressure of the drilling fluid is intentionally maintained below the formation pore pressure. Specific fluids are used in order to achieve underbalanced conditions : gas, mist, aerated mud or foam. Drilling with foam is very valuable due to its very low density coupled to its excellent cuttings carrying ability, but characterization of foam properties under drilling conditions is still incomplete and this could be an obstacle to the use of this technique by operators. This work is a part of a research program on drilling foams characterization conducted in collaboration between IFP and Totalfinaelf and focuses on the properties of aqueous foams when in contact with solids. The first part of the study deals with the incorporation of solids such as clays into the foaming liquid formulation; experimental measurements show that addition of swelling clay leads to very good stability properties without the necessity to add polymeric additive. Furthermore, clay addition provides good filtration properties with the formation of a filter cake, and this is important in case of accidental overbalanced condition during drilling operation. Lubricity properties of foam formulations were also characterized. The second part of this work is a characterization of the solid transport properties of aqueous foams. An experimental setup based on the weighting machine principle was elaborated. It allows the measurement of solids removal under various drilling conditions (circulating time and inclination angle, cuttings size and concentration). A new method for describing solids removal is proposed. Dimensionless numbers involving all the fluid parameters permit to describe transport properties and to bring out critical conditions. Extrapolating these numbers to the well could provide an evaluation of the critical parameters necessary to clean inclined and horizontal wells.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach is mainly phenomenological and more comprehensive studies will be found elsewhere 13,14 .…”

Section: Carrying Capacity Of Foamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aqueous Foams for Underbalanced Drilling: The Question of Solids

Herzhaft¹,

Toure²,

Bruni³

et al. 2000

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is used to lower the surface tension between the gas and the base fluid [4]. Saintpere et al [5] reported that foam rehology follow the Herschel Bulkley viscosity model.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting fill removal from horizontal well during colied tubing cleanout operation

Pao

Khan

2014

MATEC Web of Conferences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Coiled Tubing (CT) is extensively used in oil industry to clean the wellbore to increase the productivity of oil/gas well by removing the fill/sand downhole. Well cleanup operation for low bottom hole pressure is problematic and common cleanout fluids are not effective as a circulation fluid due to severe pressure losses and low suspension capability. The use of foam as cleaning agent has become more popular due to its low density and high viscosity. The objective of this paper is to investigate the factor effecting on fill concentration and pressure loss during horizontal wellbore cleanup operation at different CT/Annulus diameter ratios using Herschel Buckley viscosity model. Results showed that foam quality has the significantly high effect on fill concentration as compared to foam velocity. It is noticed that diameter ratio has high effect on particle removal when foam quality is 70%. Surprisingly, it is found that the effect of diameter ratio on fill concentration decreases when foam quality is 90%.

show abstract

“…However, studies conducted on cuttings transport with aerated fluids, especially with foams, for high inclination wells are very limited. Saintpere et al (2000) analyzed the hole cleaning with foam in inclined wells using a fluid mechanics approach ignoring the inertial effects. They introduced a few dimensionless parameters for describing the fluid rheology, foam properties, flowing time, etc.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%