SPE/IADC 79846

Imaging unstable wellbores while drilling

Stephen Edwards, Bruce Matsutsuyu, Steve Willson, BP America

Copyright 2003, SPE/IADC Drilling Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/IADC Drilling Conference held in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1921 February 2003.
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Abstract
This paper presents a case study of borehole instability from 4
wellbores on the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) shelf, offshore
Louisiana. Logging while drilling (LWD) borehole images are
combined with observations of cavings and modeling of
borehole shear failure in order to diagnose the mechanisms of
instability and thus select the appropriate remedial action.
It is observed that instability due to shear failure of intact rock
(borehole breakout) can be suppressed by increasing mud
weight. However, where pre-existing planes of weakness such
as bedding planes and fractures dominate the mechanism of
instability, mud weight increases do not necessarily lead to a
more stable hole and can in fact further destabilize the
wellbore.
Introduction
Despite considerable effort from the drilling, subsurface and
geomechanics communities, many oil wells continue to suffer
from wellbore instability problems during drilling. Although
instability is quite common, in the majority of cases a
considerable amount of uncertainty exists around exactly
where, when and why the instability occurred.
Unfortunately, it is almost axiomatic that logs will not be run
in an unstable wellbore. Direct measurements of the borehole
shape and condition which can be obtained from caliper and
image logs are therefore rarely acquired in the wellbores
where (from a geomechanics point of view) they would be
most valuable. Modeling and cavings analysis alone, can leave
considerable uncertainty as to the location and to some extent
the mechanism of failure.
An exception to the axiom can be where LWD image data is
acquired. It is still unlikely that LWD imaging tools would be
run in a well where significant instability was expected.

However, LWD is often acquired in wells that turn out to be

less stable than anticipated. In these cases a rare glimpse of the
unstable wellbore wall in the early stages of collapse may be
captured. This is very useful information, which would
normally remain the secret of the well.
Mechanisms of wellbore instability
Mechanism of mechanical wellbore instability can be grouped
in two main classes.
1. Instability due to failure of intact rock (rock which is
unbroken and isotropic in strength)
2. Instability due to failure of rock containing pre-existence
planes of weakness (bedding planes, fractures, cleavage).
Rock containing pre-existing weaknesses such as bedding or
cleavage may be intact in the sense that it is unbroken.
However, for the sake of this discussion intact is defined as
above.
The majority of quantitative wellbore stability studies since
the 1979 paper by Bradley1 have modeled the wellbore wall as
intact rock subject to the stresses imposed from the far-field
and the wellbore fluid. This type of failure gives rise to
symmetrical breakouts in the wellbore walls. Breakouts can be
stabilized by increasing the mud weight, or may stabilize after
reaching a certain size under favorable combinations of stress
and strength. Breakouts are quite often observed in image and
multi-arm caliper log data and are clearly a common cause of
wellbore instability.
Other mechanisms of instability where pre-existing
weaknesses are present do not necessarily stabilize with time
or with increased mud weight. Instability due to such
mechanisms is therefore rarely calipered or imaged, making
the exact location and mechanism of instability uncertain.
Consideration of wellbore instability due to pre-existing
weaknesses in oil wells is for the most part relatively recent
2,3,4,5,6
. Evidence of these mechanisms came from observations
such as correlations of trouble time with wellbore trajectory
and the existence of pre-existing fracture planes, bedding
planes and cleavage in cavings.
Types of wellbore instability associated with pre-existing
weaknesses can be grouped into two classes.

EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

SPE/IADC 79846

(A) Failure due to the existence of impermeable

pre-existing weaknesses.
In the case where the pre-existing weakness are not
preferentially permeable, increase in mud weight will tend to
further support the wellbore wall. An example of this type
might be where a single set of bedding planes is intersected.
(B) Failure due to the existence of preferentially
permeable planes of pre-existing weaknesses.
Where the mud and filtrate preferentially enters pre-existing
planes of weakness, increasing the mud weight does not add
support to the wellbore wall and may increase instability.
Networks of pre-existing weakness (such as where two sets of
weakness - e.g. bedding and fractures intersect) are probably
more likely to be permeable than the single plane of weakness
(e.g. just bedding planes). In an extreme case, the body of rock
may actually be made up of many discrete rock fragments
with no cohesion between them, rather like a pile of rubble or
the material seen in brittle/semi-brittle fault zones. This type
of rock mass could be referred to as a rubble zone, the rock
having been effectively rubbelized. These pre-existing
weaknesses could be a combination of fractures, cracks,
bedding and cleavage planes. Naturally fissile rock, such as
thinly bedded shale, is likely to be particularly susceptible to
becoming rubbelized where it is affected by faulting.
Quantitatively including pre-existing weaknesses in the
wellbore stability models is difficult although recently
encouraging progress has been made for the case of a single
set of pre-existing non permeable weaknesses 7. This difficulty
in modeling, coupled with a lack of direct downhole
observations, has tended to bias the industry towards thinking
in terms of shear failure of intact rock. This bias may be partly
addressed if more direct observations of failure on pre-existing
planes of weakness are made. The emerging use of LWD
imaging tools provides such a possibility.
The following case study contains examples of instability due
to both shear failure of intact rock and failure due to preexisting weaknesses. Both modes of failure are imaged with
an LWD tool. Two distinct cavings types are linked to the 2
mechanisms. Mud weight increase is seen to suppress the
breakouts but increase instability on pre-existing weaknesses.
GOM shelf case study
This paper presents a wellbore stability case study from the
GOM shelf. The study looks at 4 wellbores: an original hole
and 3 sidetracks. The geological setting of the wells is shown
in figure 1. A detail of the well trajectories is shown in figure
2.
Wellbore 1
An original hole was drilled in 1993. This well is labeled
wellbore 1 in figure 1. It was drilled at an angle of 50 degrees
with mud weight of between 10 and 11.5 ppg in the equivalent
section to that described below for the wellbores 2-4.
Wellbore 1 did not encounter any significant instability.

Wellbore 2
In 2002, wellbore 1 was sidetracked. This sidetrack (wellbore
2 in Figure 2) was drilled at 60 degrees, down dip (i.e. subparallel to the dip of the bedding, or perpendicular to the strike
of the bedding). The bedding angle is 12 degrees. The relative
angle between the wellbore and bedding in the plane of the
wellbore (the attack angle) is therefore 18 degrees.
The 8 diameter section of wellbore 2 was drilled from
approximately 7100 MD to 13,427 MD (12,232 TVD). The
mud weight was increased in stages throughout the hole from
10 and 10.8 ppg in response to signs of instability (tight hole
and cavings). The first indications of instability occurred after
drilling to approximately 12,400 ft MD. Tight hole was noted
tripping back in and large pieces of shale (cavings) were seen
over the shakers. No cavings were kept or recorded in detail.
From the available descriptions however, a variety of shapes
and sizes of cavings were seen. The mud weight was increased
from 10 to 10.3 ppg at this stage. While drilling ahead to
13,300 ft MD, tight spots were encountered and
washing/reaming was required on trips. The mud weight was
raised again to 10.5 and then to 10.7 ppg in response to the
hole conditions, which did not appear to improve and cavings
continued to be seen on the shakers. Hole conditions appeared
to be worst below around 12,400 ft MD. On tripping back in
the hole, the BHA was unable to ream past 12,407 ft MD.
After more tight spots and over-pull while tripping out, it was
observed that the lower part of the BHA was left in the hole.
Some time was spent in fishing attempts (while continued
instability was experienced) before deciding to set a cement
plug and re-drill this wellbore from approximately 10,700 ft
MD.
LWD Borehole Images in wellbore 2.
The LWD tools were recovered and the memory data
downloaded. An Azimuth Density Neutron (ADN) tool was
included in the LWD suite. Details of the ADN tool are
available from Anadrill. In brief, the tool measures density as
a function of azimuth around the hole. Density measurements
are binned into 16 sectors (each sector covers a 22.56 degrees
arc) to create a density image.
Figure 3 shows the ADN image from wellbore 2 from 13000
to 13100 ft MD. The figure is from a standard field log ADN
presentation. The data displayed (from left to right) is as
follows:
1st track shows the rotational speed of the tool in RPM
2nd and 3 rd tracks show the raw photo-electric absorption
factor data
4th track is the azimuthal photo-electric factor image
5th track is the azimuthal density image and gamma ray
6th and 7th tracks are the raw density data
Drilling mud has a higher photo-electric absorption factor and
a lower density than the formation. Thus, where wellbore
instability has occurred and mud instead of formation is
adjacent to the tool, a high photo-electric factor and low

SPE/IADC 79846

IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

density are recorded. In Figure 3, this correlates to dark areas

on the photo-electric factor image and light areas on the
density image. The photo-electric factor is considerably more
sensitive to the mud/formation contrast than the density.
The image in Figure 3 is oriented relative to the borehole
geometry. For display purposes, the cylindrical hole is cut
down the axis of the hole (along the top) and unwrapped.
The top of the hole therefore lies on the far left and right-hand
sides of the unwrapped image and the bottom of the hole
(being 180 degrees from the top of the hole) lies in the center
of the image.
Any planar feature that the borehole intersects will appear in
the image as sinusoidal lines running from one side to the
other. Bedding planes can be seen as low amplitude sinusoids
in Figure 3. When the wellbore intersects planar features at
low angles, the amplitude of the sinusoid is usually high.
However, Figure 3 is presented at a compressed scale such
that the sinusoid amplitude is low, even though the angle
between the wellbore and bedding is only approximately 18
degrees.
Imaged modes of instability
The nature of the instability can be best seen in the photoelectric factor image in Figure 3. The dark areas are where the
wellbore wall has failed and the material has been removed. It
can be seen that the failed area is largely delimited by the
bedding planes and is located mainly on the wellbore roof, and
partly from the wellbore floor. The influence of the bedding
planes on the geometry of the hole failure indicates that they
are acting as pre-exiting planes of weakness. This interval can
be seen from the gamma ray to be a shale section which might
be expected to be somewhat fissile.
Instability dominated by failure on weak bedding planes in
fissile shale, where the wellbore is close to parallel with the
bedding planes has been observed in the laboratory. An
example from Okland and Cook4 is shown in Figure 4. From
their experiments and field data they suggest that the bedding
plane splitting or roof collapse mode of failure occurs where
the angle of attack is less than 10 to 20 degrees.
In most of the section shown in Figure 3, the sides of the hole
are seen to be intact (compare to Figure 4). We could therefore
describe this instability as predominantly a roof collapse
mechanism.
In a couple of places however (e.g. at approximately 13075 ft
MD) failure is seen to extend from the roof of the hole down
to the sides of the hole. The sides of the hole in a 60 degree
well where the maximum stress is vertical may be expected to
exhibit breakouts. It could be that one mode of failure triggers
or interacts with another mode of failure. This is discussed
further (below) with reference to the failed section shown in
Figure 5.
In figure 5, the mode of failure appears to be different to that
in Figure 3. The photo-electric factor image is saturated at the
high end in much of the failed section making details difficult
to discern. In this section, the density image is more revealing.

The density image reads beyond mud in the immediate

vicinity of the tool to show the lowest densities (the failed
section) to be on the sides of the hole.
In a normal faulting environment (where the maximum
principal stress is vertical) such as this part of the GOM shelf,
breakouts in intact rock would be expected to form on the
sides of a hole deviated at 60 degrees, as this is where the
maximum stress concentration would form. A simple
analytical model of shear failure in intact rock indicates that
such failure would be not be unexpected in this hole with the
relatively low mud weight (10 ppg) used to drill this interval.
The location of much of the failed zones in Figure 3 is
therefore probably controlled by the stress concentration rather
than the pre-existing planes of weakness. The angle between
wellbore and bedding is roughly the same in figures 3 and 5.
The bedding planes in figure 5 may not be so weak as in figure
3. The lithology in the failed section of figure 5 can also be
seen (from the gamma ray) to be more silty than that in Figure
2. A more silty rock is likely to be less fissile than a shale.
Although most of the failure in Figure 5 is on the sides of the
hole, it also clearly extends in some places to the roof of the
hole along bedding planes. Thus, there is some element of roof
collapse apparent in this section, which may have been
initiated by breakouts on the side of the hole.
Logging in the time domain.
When studying Figures 3 and 5, another factor that should be
kept in mind is time. The ADN tool is about 100 ft behind the
bit, therefore the well is typically logged approximately 1 hour
after being drilled. In the case of figure 3, about 5 hours
circulating time occurred between drilling the interval and
logging it. In the case of Figure 5, the well was drilled to
12,540 ft MD and then a trip was made to test equipment. The
interval 12,440 to 12,540 ft MD was therefore not logged until
approximately 2 days after it was drilled. On the trip out of
hole, it may also have experienced some swabbing which
would tend to induce instability.
The field log used for this study is a depth based drilling
log. That means that each time the well is deepened, the log
data over the new depth is spliced to the bottom of the
previous log. The measurements are originally recorded in the
time domain. It is converted to depth for presentation. For
most petrophysical applications to is desirable to obtain log
data acquired as soon after the well is drilled as possible in
order to measure undisturbed or uninvaded formation
properties. Where wellbore stability is the topic of interest, it
is instructive to see the state of the hole both directly after
being drilled and at later times. This is possible. It is called
time-lapse logging 8,9. Unfortunately in this case, time
restrictions and difficulty in retrieving the data has prevented
any time-lapse study. It would be extremely interesting
however to examine these and other sections at a latter time.
Wellbore 2 summary
Two modes of instability are apparent in the ADN images:

EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

?? Roof collapse dominated by failure on bedding

planes in a section drilled close to parallel with
bedding in a shale.
?? Breakout on the sides of the hole also in a section
close to bedding parallel but more silty.

SPE/IADC 79846

suppressed the shear failure on the sides of the hole. However,

the higher mud weight in wellbore 3 seems to have worsened
the pre-existing weakness mode of failure. Normally,
increasing mud weight should add support to the wellbore wall
and prevent collapse. However, if the mud is able to penetrate
along pre-existing weaknesses the effect of the mud pressure
will be to destabilize the wellbore wall rather than support it.

A variety of cavings were reported but not collected or

recorded.
The imaged sections of unstable hole were both recorded some
time after having been drilled. Other parts of the wellbore may
also have been seen to be unstable had they also been logged
some time after drilling.
Wellbore 3
Wellbore 2 was abandoned due to the instability problem
encountered and a cement plug set at 10700 ft MD. Wellbore
3 was kicked off on the top of the cement plug. After steering
about 75 feet away from wellbore 2, wellbore 3 was drilled at
exactly the same azimuth and deviation (60 degrees towards
the east). Because of the instability experienced in wellbore 2,
the mud weight in wellbore 3 was increased to 11.7 ppg. This
is 1ppg more than the maximum mud weight used in wellbore
2. However, the stability problems in wellbore 3 were seen to
be worse than in wellbore 2, particularly in the interval below
12,400 ft MD. After drilling to 13,500 ft MD, multiple
packing-off events occurred even after further increases in
MW (to 11.9), which also resulted in lost circulation. After
more than a day of fighting the battle between instability and
lost returns (and losing on both sides) the drillstring became
irretrievably stuck.

The observation that increased mud weight in wellbore 3

increased instability implies that the mud filtrate was
penetrating the planes of weakness and destabilizing them.
Either the bedding planes themselves are preferentially
permeable, or there is an additional set of cracks and fractures
which provides the permeability, essentially interacting with
the bedding planes to creating a network of pre-existing
weaknesses.
There is no clear evidence of cracks or fractures in the ADN
images. However, they may be well below the resolution of
these images. Figure 1 shows the general structural setting of
the wells and figure 2 shows two mappable faults in close
proximity to the wells. The faulting occurred late in the
geological history and is related to movement of the salt
shown in figure 1. Although the sediments penetrated by these
wells are clearly not highly disturbed, they may have
experienced some degree of faulting/fracturing in response to
nearby fault movement.

Breakout of intact rock gives rise to angular cavings. Failure

dominated by planes of pre-existing weakness on the other
hand give rise to cavings which are delimited mainly by the
planes of pre-existing weakness and therefore tend to be
blocky to tabular and characteristically have parallel sides. We
would therefore expect a variety of cavings from wellbore 2.
On the other hand, the cavings in Figure 6 are the type of
cavings that might be expected from a zone dominated by
failure of bedding planes and roof collapse.

The LWD resistivity provides additional evidence that the

rock has some kind of additional permeability, which would
not be found in a normal (unfractured) shale. The LWD
resistivity tool measures many resistivities at different
spacings and frequencies. In a normal shale, all resistivities
read essentially the intrinsic resistivity of the formation such
that all resistivity curves more or less stack on top of each
other when plotted. Any curve separation indicates some
abnormality. Curve separation in a permeable rock is normal,
as the drilling fluid is expected to invade to some extent and
alter the resistivity. In a shale however, curve separation is
caused by either invasion into a fracture network (or other
path of preferential permeability), anisotropy, tool eccentricity
or hole enlargement. In much of the section showing curve
separation we know the hole to be in gauge from the ADN
tool. Tool eccentricity isnt a likely cause in an 8 hole.
Some of the curve separation is probably due to anisotropy in
the sections drilled at low attack angle to bedding. However,
the key observation is the comparison of the curves from
wellbore 2 and wellbore 3. In the interval shown in Figure 3,
the apparent invasion is greater in wellbore 3, where the
higher mud weight was used, even though it was logged
directly after being drilled as opposed to several hours after in
wellbore 2 (the resistivity tool is much closer to the bit than
the ADN tool so the time effect is not so great). The greater
invasion with the higher mud weight supports the idea that the
mud is penetrating the formation. In a shale, the only likely
mechanism of significant invasion is via some set of network
of pre-existing permeable planes of weakness.

The higher mud weight in wellbore 3 is likely to have

Figure 7 shows the resistivity data from wellbore 2 and 3. The

Many cavings were observed while drilling wellbore 3.

Fortunately, in this case they were saved and photographed
using a digital camera at the wellsite. This was an important
piece of information for the post-mortem diagnosis.
Unfortunately, as the BHA was lost, the ADN images from
this section were not retrieved. Only real-time LWD data was
recovered.
Figure 6 presents a sample of cavings recovered from wellbore
3. These were the dominant type of caving in this wellbore.
Although no record of cavings from wellbore 2 exists,
anecdotal information from the mud engineers and shaker
hands indicates that there was more of a mixture of cavings
type in wellbore 2. We know from the ADN image in wellbore
2 that 2 modes of instability were occurring.

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IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

data from wellbore 3 has been depth shifted to match that of

wellbore 2. Normal shale resistivity in this interval is
approximately 0.8 ohmm. The data from wellbore 3 is realtime data and is therefore more coarsely sampled than the data
from wellbore 2, which is downloaded from the memory.
Time-lapse resistivity 8,9 through these zones of suspected
fracturing/invasion would be very instructive but has not been
performed in this case.
Summary of wellbore 3
Like wellbore 2, wellbore 3 was drilled at a low angle of
attack to bedding.

quantitative estimate was made) the instability was not

sufficient to impact drilling. No stuck pipe, packing-off or
significant tight spots were experienced.
Although the details are beyond the scope of this paper, the
simple analytical model of shear failure in intact rock
mentioned above was again run to predict the mud weight
required to prevent breakouts in this wellbore. As the hole has
a lower deviation angle than wellbores 2 and 3, less mud
weight is required to prevent breakout. However, the mud
weight used in this section was still relatively low for the insitu stress and strength conditions, and the observation of
breakouts is again not unexpected.

Wellbore 3 used a higher mud weight than wellbore 2,

however, instability worsened, leading to the loss of the BHA.
Cavings were predominantly blocky to tabular in wellbore 3
indicating failure associated with planes of pre-existing
weakness.
Real-time LWD resistivity indicates increased invasion
(compared to wellbore 2) of oil based mud into the unstable
shale sections.
Wellbore 4
Wellbore 4 was drilled after careful examination of all the data
available from wellbore 2 and 3 (presented above). A wellbore
stability study for this well had not previously been conducted.
The main conclusion drawn from the above observations is
that the majority of instability in wellbores 2 and 3 is due to
the low attack angle to bedding coupled with penetration of
mud into pre-existing weaknesses (either just bedding planes
or a network of bedding planes and fractures).
The key change in plan was therefore to increase the attack
angle. The trajectory of wellbore 4 is shown in Figure 2. As a
secondary precaution against destabilizing the pre-existing
planes of weakness, the mud weight was also lowered back to
10.5 PPG. Although this risked allowing the breakout mode of
failure to occur, this was thought preferable to risking the
more catastrophic bedding plane failure.
Having lost the BHA in wellbore 3, no LWD tools were run in
wellbore 4. However, evidence that the breakout mode of
failure was indeed active in wellbore 4 was obtained from the
cavings. Figure 8 shows cavings recovered from the shakers
while drilling wellbore 4. They are noticeably different to
those recovered from wellbore 3. There are no obviously
blocky or tabular cavings indicating the bedding plane failure
mode was not occurring extensively in this borehole. The
cavings are predominantly angular, consistent with the shear
failure of intact rock or breakout mode. The existence of preexisting fractures may have also played a role in the geometry
of the cavings. However, the dominant influence of the
bedding planes is not seen. Figure 9 attempts to summarize the
geological setting, location and modes of failure seen in
wellbore 1 to 4.
Although the volume of cavings was noticeable (no

Conclusions
Two modes of instability can occur in the same hole at the
same time but require different treatments. In this example the
two modes observed were:
Shear failure of intact rock at the point of maximum
stress concentration on the borehole wall.
Roof collapse due to splitting of weak (fissile shale)
bedding planes where the angle between the wellbore
and the bedding planes was approximately 18
degrees.
Increasing mud weight appeared to prevent the shear failure
mode but worsen the roof collapse mode. This implies that
mud was preferentially penetrating the bedding planes or other
pre-existing planes of weakness (such as fractures). This mud
penetration appears to have been detected from the resistivity
tool.
A combination of LWD imaging, cavings analysis and
modeling is required to unambiguously diagnose the location
and mode of wellbore instability.
LWD imaging offers a rare glimpse at a severely unstable
wellbore. It is a key tool for any attempts at real-time wellbore
stability. There is enormous potential to improve our
understanding of wellbore instability from further LWD
imaging studies and in particular from time-lapse LWD
imaging.
Refrences
1. Bradley, W.B. Failure of inclined boreholes. Transactions
of the ASME Volume 101, December 1979.
2. Santarelli, F.J., Dahen. D., Baroudi, H., Silman, K.B.,
Mechanisms of borehole instability in heavily fractured rock
media. International Journal of Rock Mech. Min. Sci. and
Geochem. Abstracts. 1992 (29) 457 467.
3. Last, N., Plumb, R., Harkness, R., Charlez, P., Alsen, J.,
Mclean, M. An integrated approach to evaluating and
managing wellbore stability in the Cusiana field, Colombia.
1995. SPE 30464

EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

4. Okland, D., Cook, J.M., Bedding related borehole

instability in high angle wells. Eurock, 1998. SPE 47285
5. Willson, S. M., Zoback, M.D., Moos, D. Drilling in South
America: A wellbore stability approach for complex geolgic
conditions. 1999. SPE 53940.
6. Chen, X., Tan, C.P., Detournay, C. The impact of mud
infiltration on wellbore stability in fractured rock masses.
Oilrock 2002. SPE 78241.
7. Crook, A.J.L., Yu, J., Willson, S.M. Development of an
orthotropic 3D elastoplastic material model for shale
Oilrocks 2002. SPE 78238.
8. Bratton, T.R., Rezmer Cooper, I.M., Desroches, J., Gille YE., Li, Q., McFayden, M. How to Diagnose Drilling Induced
Fractures in Wells Drilled with Oil-Based Muds with RealTime Resistivity and Pressure Measurements SPE/IADC
67742.
9. Edwards, S.T., Bratton, T.R., Standifird, W.B. Accidental
Geomechanics: Capturing in situ stresses from mud losses
encountered while drilling

SPE/IADC 79846

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IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

REGIONAL WEST-EAST SEISMIC LINE THROUGH THE SUBJECT WELLBORES

1-4 SHOWING THE RELATIONSHIP TO MAJOR STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

WEST

EAST
LINE

SUBJECT WELLS

TOP OF 12.5#
PRESSURE

SALT

SALT

5000
Figure 1. Regional West-East seismic line showing the general structural setting of the discussed GOM shelf wellbores 1-4.

EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

SPE/IADC 79846

DETAIL SEISMIC LINE PARALLEL TO WELLS SHOWING THE RELATIONSHIP

OF BORE HOLE ANGLE AND BED DIP (Some Vertical Exaggeration)

EAST

WEST

Shallower Target

Target Anomaly
Bed Dips ~12 Degrees
Fault

Wells 2&3:
60 Degrees
Fault
Well 4: 36 Degrees

Well 1: 50 Degrees

1000
Figure 2. Detail of structural setting of wellbores 1 -4. The angle between wellbore and bedding (for the bottom secti ons of wellbores 2 and 3 is
18 degrees.

SPE/IADC 79846

13000 MD

IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

Bottom of Hole

Bedding Plane

13100 MD
Top of Hole

Figure 3. ADN image from wellbore 2 showing wellbore

instability on the roof and floor of the wellbore predominantly
related to bedding planes in this section. Angle between the
wellbore and bedding planes is 18 degrees. See text for
explanation of data in the display.

10

EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

Bedding plane
orientation

Figure 4. Montage of scanning electron microscope image

of a laboratory hollow cylinder test in a fissile Jurassic North
Sea Shale showing catastrophic hole collapse dominated by
failure of bedding planes. The large cross cutting cracks
(running from one side of the sample to the other) are thought
to be pre-existing cracks roughly parallel to bedding. Original
hole diameter is 10mm. Taken from Okland and Cook4.

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IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

11

Bottom of Hole

12500 ft

12550 ft
Breakouts on
side of hole
Top of Hole

Figure 5. ADN image from wellbore 2 showing failure

predominantly on the sides of the hole (clearest in the density
image). Although angle between wellbore and bedding is only
18 degrees in this section and bedding planes can still be seen,
it is more silty (note gamma ray) and therefore perhaps less
fissile than the interval in Figure 3. The failure on the sides of
the hole appears to be shear failure (breakout) of intact rock

rather than being dominated by the bedding planes. In some

places however, the bedding does clearly influence the failure.
It may be that breakout on the sides of the hole and bedding
plane failure on the roof of the hole are inter-related in this
section. See text for explanation of data in the display.

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EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

Figure 6. The predominant cavings type in wellbore 3 were

blocky to tabular shales as shown here. They are characterized
by parallel bounding surfaces, which by analogy to Figure 4
and from examination of Figure 3 are probably bedding
planes.

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IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

13

2.5

150

2.3

100

2.1

50

1.9

1.7

-50

1.5
-100

1.3

-150

1.1
0.9

WB2_LWD_Res_P40H

WB2_LWD_Res_A40L

0.7

WB3 LWD_Res_P40H_RT

WB3 LWD_Res_A40L_RT

WB2_LWD_GR

WB3_LWD_GR_RT

0.5
12800

12900

13000

Figure 7. Comparison of LWD resistivity in wellbores 2

and 3 (depth shifted to match). Higher resistivities in the
shaley sections in wellbore 3 may indicates greater invasion of
synthetic oil based mud.

13100

-200
-250
-300
13200

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EDWARDS, S.T., MATSUTSUYU, B., WILLSON, S.M.

Figure 8. Cavings from wellbore 4 shown here were

noticeably different to those from wellbore 3. None of the
blocky tabular cavings were seen in wellbore 4. These
cavings are predominantly angular with bounding surfaces at
less than 90 degrees to each other. These are likely to be
caused by shear failure of intact rock. The presence of some
other set of pre-existing fractures is also apparent form the
shape of some of the cavings.

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IMAGING UNSTABLE WELLBORES WHILE DRILLING

15

Shear failure on
sides of hole
produces angular
cavings
Wellbore 1
Wellbores 2 and 3

Possible fractures
related to Fault
Trend

B ed D
ip = 1

2 Deg

rees

X100

Roof collapse on
bedding planes
produces blocky tabular cavings
Figure 9. Summary of structural setting, instability
mechanism and resulting cavings in wellbores 1 to 4. The
ADN image shown here with wellbore 4 is actually from
wellbore 2 (see text) but the type of failure is interpreted to be
the same.

Wellbore 4