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Summary
While drilling ahead in salt on the Pompano A-31 (Gulf of
Mexico) wellbore below the 16-in. shoe, the rotary stalled
abruptly, and the drillpipe simultaneously became stuck. Subsequent calipers indicated the 16-in. casing to be deformed onto the
drillpipe at approximately 250 ft.
To the authors knowledge, this situation represents the first
instance of an annular pressure buildup (APB) failure during drilling. APB is typically associated with extremes of temperature change
resulting from production operations. In the current instance, the
temperature change is solely from circulating drilling fluid.
This paper provides a detailed post-analysis of the 16-in. casing
failure as follows:
An overview of the conventional casing design for this well,
indicating that normal operating conditions should not have resulted in a failure.
A review of the failure event, substantiated by field measurement and photographs.
An investigation of APB, associated with inadvertently closing the 16-in. casing annulus at the surface, demonstrating the
magnitude of the possible resulting thermally induced pressure load.
Consideration of an alternate failure mode, column buckling,
to demonstrate that this failure mode was not active in this wellbore.
A finite-element model of the drillpipe/16-in. casing/20-in.
casing trio indicating that, in addition to the collapse of the 16-in.
casing and subsequent sticking of the drillstring, the outer 20-in.
casing was also damaged by the event.
The latter item is particularly important because damage to
outer strings can be easily overlooked if concentration is on the
collapsed casing and drillpipe fish. A mechanical caliper confirms
damage to the outer 20-in. string.
Conclusions in the paper center on confirmation of the postulated failure mode by field measurement and recommendations for
avoiding such an event.
Introduction
While drilling ahead at 9,132 ft. on the Pompano A-31 wellbore
(Vioska Knoll 989 A-31, OCS-G-6898) below the 16-in. shoe
(Fig. 1), the rotary stalled abruptly, and the drillpipe simultaneously became stuck. An increase of mudflow out of the flowline
surged over the gumbo buster.
Approximately 500-psi pressure was bled off the 16-in. by
20-in. annulus. The fluid initially recovered from the 16-in. by
20-in. annulus was a clear, 10-ppg brine, but later changed to a
10.5-ppg, synthetic-based mud composition tantamount to the
fluid placed above the cement top in the 16-in. annulus.
Tripping the drillstring out of the hole required 60 to 100 kips
at each 838-in. HWDP tool joint and 150 kips at the uppermost
1412-in. stabilizer. Recovery of subsequent stabilizers and the remaining seven joints of HWDP was aided with drilling jars.
A caliper-logging tool set for a maximum diameter of 1134 in.
tagged an obstruction at 253 ft. Logging upward, the caliper
showed damage from 242 to 253 ft. The wellbore was temporarily
abandoned with four cement plugs. Subsequent to plugging the
well, pressure testing indicated communication between the 16and 20-in. casing strings.
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The 16-in. casing was cut at 1,399 ft and pulled. The remaining
16-in. riser stub, along with the Dril-Quip hanger running tool,
were recovered to 1,485 ft. A caliper was then run in the 20-in.
casing, thereby indicating damaged casing from 253 to 280 ft.
(maximum inside diameter 20.387 in. at 272 ft.) (See Fig. 2.).
Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate the condition of the 16-in. casing recovered from the vicinity of the obstruction. The ovalized cross
section appears adjacent to a window (presumably) worn by milling before recovery.
Pertinent evidence gathered during the initial investigation and
recovery of the ovalized 16-in. casing includes the following:
The drillstring stalled abruptly, indicating an instantaneous event.
There is no evidence from prefailure drilling parameters of an
out-of-the-ordinary occurrence.
The recorded circulating temperatures180F bottomhole
and 168F at the flowlineare high (particularly the latter).
The 16-in. annulus valve was closed while drilling the 1412in. by 1712-in. hole section.
The depth of the failure is shallow. Given 10.5-ppg drilling
fluid outside the 16-in. casing, an evacuated collapse differential is
0.052 psi/ppg-ft by 250 ft by 10.5 ppg136 psi, as compared to
the API collapse rating for this casing of 1,480 psi.
For future reference, the Pompano A-31 casing run before the
failure is listed in Table 1.
Conventional Casing Design
The term conventional casing design in this context refers to a
design in which the integrity of a single-tubular string is investigated without consideration of the interaction of the string with
other tubulars. Loads that are associated, for example, with trapped
pressures in an annulus between the target string and its neighbors
are not considered.
Fig. 5 summarizes the pertinent external pressure design factors
for loads typical of an intermediate casing string. The current
string is designed for the lost-circulation load case in which mud
used to drill the next hole section is allowed to drop until it reaches
a hydrostatic balance with pore pressure in the open hole. The
depth and corresponding pore pressure used are those that result in
the most severe collapse load case. The evacuation load case is
also shown for information because this load scenario is also used
by operators. Pertinent depths in the figure are 1,486 ft, the section
crossover in the 16-in. string (see Table 1) and 2,549 ft, the depth
to which the mud column falls in the lost circulation load case.
Although the lower portion of the 16-in. casing, the 97-lb/ft
N80 run below 1,486 ft, has a safety factor less than unity under
the evacuation-load case, the failure in this string was in the shallower, 84-lb/ft P110 casing. Collapse safety factors for this shallower segment of the 16-in. casing are consistently higher than 1.5.
The implication of this information is that, barring an unexpectedly low-collapse resistance of the subject casing, conventional
collapse loads should not have failed this string at 242 to 280 ft. To
investigate the possibility that the casing opposite this interval has
a lower-than-expected collapse performance, companion joints to
the failed casing were collapse tested, with the results displayed in
Table 2. As indicated in the table, the collapse resistance of the
companion joints is higher than the API minimum collapse rating
of 1,480 psi upon which the safety factors in Fig. 5 are based.
Temperature Modeling
Of the evidence outlined in the previous section, one outstanding
feature is the high-surface circulating temperature during drill
ahead. An attempt was made to match the circulating temperatures
with a commercial thermal simulator.
December 2006 SPE Drilling & Completion
244
Nomenclature
Ai tube internal cross-sectional area, [L2], in.2
Ao tube external cross-sectional area, [L2], in.2
Fe effective force, [ML/T2], lb.
Fz axial force, [ML/T2], lb.
pi internal pressure, [M/(LT2)], psi
po external pressure, [M/(LT2)], psi
References
Ellis, R.C., Fritchie, D.G., Jr., Gibson, D.H., Gosch, S.W., and Pattillo,
P.D. 2004. Marlin Failure Analysis and Redesign; Part 2Redesign.
SPEDC 19 (2): 112119. SPE-74529-PA. DOI: http://www.spe.org/
elibrary/servlet/spepreview?id74529-PA.
Halal, A.S. and Mitchell, R.F. 1994. Casing Design for Trapped Annular
Pressure Build-Up. SPEDC 9 (2): 107114. SPE-25694-PA. DOI:
http://www.spe.org/elibrary/servlet/spepreview?id25694-PA.
Tamano, T., Mimake, T., and Yanagimoto, S. 1985. A New Empirical
Formula for Collapse Resistance of Commercial Casing. Nippon Steel
Technical Report 26.
Conclusions
1. Damage to the 16-in. casing in the subject well is caused by
collapse associated with APB during drill ahead.
2. The 16- by 20-in. annulus was closed by (a) closing the annulus
valve at the upper end, and (b) either cement, formation (e.g.,
wellbore stability) or barite settling at the lower end.
3. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first-known instance of
an APB-related collapse caused by drilling, rather than production, thermal loads. The primary source of pressure is the relatively high surface circulating temperature.
4. The variation in thermal behavior between an oil-based and
water-based fluid, possibly coupled with the presence of a gas
cap in the 16-in. by 20-in. annulus, can explain why this problem was not encountered on previous wellbores.
5. Collapse of the 16-in. casing not only seizes the inner drillpipe,
but also ovalizes the outer 20-in. casing. The latter effect is
confirmed by a mechanical caliper.
6. Excess bending stress caused by column buckling during drill
ahead is not the failure mechanism in this well.
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