Modern Methods of Elimination of Lost Circulation in Directional Wells

Abstract

Losses of drilling mud and other fluids is the one of the major types of drilling troubles. Annual time losses for their elimination by oil and gas companies are huge. The factors, influencing the mud losses and regulating the direction of the further works, can be divided into two groups: geological and technological. Conducted studies on the use of an insulating composition based on chromium acetate made it possible to identify: the use of the insulation composition on the chrome acetate base allows considerable reduction of time required to eliminate disastrous circulation loss without installation of cement plugs; avoiding BHA replacement; avoiding drilling-in after bullheading and overlapping of lost-circulation layer; low cost, possibility of fast preparation, as it does not entail the delivery of additional chemicals, which also contributes to reduction of time required to eliminate disastrous circulation loss; the use with every type of drilling mud. Basing on the positive experience of the use of this composition in the neighboring regions and considering its economic side, the technique can be used in regions of the Udmurt Republic.

Preparation of Oil-Based Foam Gel with Nano-SiO2 as Foam Stabilizer and Evaluation of Its Performance as a Plugging Agent for Fractured Shale

“…It is easy to induce wellbore instability and wellbore collapse, blowout, stuck drilling, and other drilling accidents, causing a lot of economic losses and reducing drilling efficiency. This problem deserves much attention in on-site operation, and the use of foam plugging agent is a new and low-cost plugging method [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”