Improving Well Delivery by Integrated Geomechanical Understanding withRobust Well Planning and Execution: A Successful Case Study from aDevelopment Drilling Campaign in Offshore Peninsular Malaysia

摘要

This paper presents a case study on usefulness of having geomechanical understanding to avoid drillingrisks and minimize costs in a Drilling campaign, Offshore Peninsular Malaysia. Significant drilling issues related to wellbore stability were encountered in the four exploration wellsdrilled during previous campaigns. The development wells were planned to drill with high inclinations (upto 700), through weak coal layers and cross major fault. The drilling problems of the offset wells werecritically analyzed to understand the mechanisms of failures. A geomechanical model was built using theoffset well information. The well-calibrated stress model was then used for the wellbore stability modelingfor the planned trajectories. The outcome of this study was used as key input for casing and mud design. With the help of the reccomendations based on this study, six highly inclined development wells weredrilled through low pressure and narrow mud window intervals without operational problems. Reducingnon-productive time (NPT) for the entire drilling campaign was one of the key focus for delivering the wellssafely within schedule and budget. This paper documents the entire workflow and methodologies used forthis entire study.