Effect of Drilling Fluid Invasion on Natural Gas Hydrate Near-Well Reservoirs Drilling in a Horizontal Well

Qibing Wang, Ren Wang, Jiaxin Sun, Jinsheng Sun, Cheng Lu, Kaihe Lv, Jintang Wang, Jianlong Wang, Jie Yang and Yuanzhi Qu
Additional contact information
Qibing Wang: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Ren Wang: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Jiaxin Sun: Faculty of Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jinsheng Sun: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Cheng Lu: Center of Oil & Natural Gas Resource Exploration, China Geological Survey, Beijing 100083, China
Kaihe Lv: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Jintang Wang: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Jianlong Wang: Department of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Jie Yang: CNPC Engineering Technology R & D Company Limited, Beijing 102206, China
Yuanzhi Qu: CNPC Engineering Technology R & D Company Limited, Beijing 102206, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: Horizontal wells can significantly improve the gas production and are expected to be an efficient exploitation method for the industrialization of natural gas hydrates (NGHs) in the future. However, the near-wellbore hydrate is highly prone to decomposition during the drilling process, owing to the disturbance aroused by the factors such as the drilling fluid temperature, pressure, and salinity. These issues can result in the engineering accidents such as bit sticking and wellbore instability, which are required for further investigations. This paper studies the characteristics of drilling fluid invasion into the marine NGH reservoir with varied drilling fluid parameters via numerical simulation. The effects of the drilling fluid parameters on the decomposition behavior of near-wellbore hydrates are presented. The simulating results show that the adjustments of drilling fluid density within the mud safety window have limited effects on the NGH decomposition, meanwhile the hydrates reservoir is most sensitive to the drilling fluid temperature variation. If the drilling fluid temperature grows considerably due to improper control, the range of the hydrates decomposition around the horizontal well tends to expand, which then aggravates wellbore instability. When the drilling fluid salinity varies in the range of 3.5–7.5%, the increase in the ion concentration speeds up the hydrate decomposition, which is adverse to maintaining wellbore stability.

Keywords: marine natural gas hydrate; horizontal well drilling; drilling fluid invasion; near-wellbore; drilling mud property; reservoir response (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7075/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7075/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:7075-:d:667523

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().