Real-Time Evaluation of Kick During Managed Pressure Drilling Based on Wired Drill Pipe Telemetry

摘要

Wired drill pipe telemetry is expected to revolutionize the ability to transmit downhole measurements in real time during drilling operations. Bandwidth, reliability and availability improves dramatically and lead to better premises for developing new technology for more advanced drilling methodology. Specifically, distributed pressure sensors along the drill string, combined with real-time analysis of the data at the rig, will give valuable information to the drilling control system and the decision makers when utilized properly. In this paper, improved methodology for kick evaluation and handling during Managed Pressure Drilling is presented based on this step change in availability of downhole pressure measurements. The objective of this methodology is to improve Managed Pressure Drilling by better handling of unwanted influx from the formation and thereby reducing formation damage and non productive time. The presented methodology relies on the characteristics of the pressure curves from distributed sensors during a kick. A representative North-Sea well is used as test case geometry and an advanced hydraulics model is used as a virtual well in computer simulations that provide the basis for the presented results. The proposed methodology is demonstrated to estimate the depth of the influx zone as well as the size and distribution of the kick. This will improve the handling of the influx, prevent the risk of hole stability problems and the cost associated with non-productive time