Title Mechanical and physico-chemical aspects of wellbore stability during drilling operations.

Mohammad Ebrahim
Zeynali
Introduction One of the problems during drilling operation is wellbore instability. Many parameters affect the wellbore stability.
Some of these parameters are related to the properties of drilling mud and its interaction with the formation and some
of them are related to the mechanical properties of the formation and the magnitude and distribution of the forces
around the wellbore. Generally, the wellbore instability is classified as mechanical, physico-chemical or both.
Definition Wellbore stability is the determination of the conditions under which failure will initiate in the rock surrounding the
wellbore.
Issue Maintaining wellbore stability is a key factor in improving safety and drilling efficiency while minimizing problem
costs associated with well construction and production operations. Wellbore stability is the determination of the
conditions under which failure will initiate in the rock surrounding the wellbore. The causes of instability are often
classified into either chemical or mechanical effects or combination of both.
Chemical Or Some of the theoretically identified and most important factors that affect mechanical wellbore stability are:
Mechanical (1) in situ stresses existing in different layers of rock
Effects In order to predict whether the walls of a proposed well will be stable or will spall, it is necessary to specify the far
field in situ stresses that will be experienced by the wellbore. For example controlling of stress-induced wellbore
instability and designing of the deviated and horizontal wellbores require knowledge of the magnitude and
orientation of the in-situ stress field
(2) the mechanical properties of rock
(3) variation of pore pressure
The role of pore pressure in failure phenomena is evident in soil mechanics. Unstable slopes along highways after
heavy rains and catastrophic landslides in open-pit mining operations serve to illustrate the important role of pore
pressure. In rocks, the same effects exists but is less easily observed. A triaxial compression cylinder of rock fails
at decreasing stresses as the pore pressure is increased to the confining pressure. Under the same dimensional and
boundary conditions, the tangential stress induced in the cylinder would assume its highest values for a porous
cylinder with a permeating fluid of constant viscosity, and its lowest values for an impermeable cylinder; the
difference in stresses developed in permeable and impermeable cylinders could be quite significant. For example,
rock cylinders at elevated stress levels loaded uniaxially to a stress less than the yield strength can be fractured by
holding the constraints constant and increasing the pore fluid pressure. When the pore pressure and confining
pressures are equal, the pore pressure appears to be totally effective in reducing the confining pressure effects.
Therefore the pore pressure must be included in any discussion of the state of stress within a rock.
(4) mud weight
Application of inappropriate mud weight is an obvious source of any formation instability. Safe mud weight can be
obtained for various conditions by mechanical wellbore stability analysis. The temperature gradient with depth
may vary considerably from region to region. The drilling mud will warm up due to heating by the formation. In
general at the depths of interest to the petroleum industry the drilling fluid will be cooler than the surrounding
formation. A cooling of the formation around the wellbore should reduce the compressive shear failure (McLean,
1988).
(5) hole angle and direction
(6) thermal effects
(7) anisotropy.
Sedimentary formations, because of their depositional environments, have laminated structures with
directional elastic as well as directional strength properties which are best described as transversely isotropic
media. At great depth, these formations are under a state of compressive, anisotropic in-situ stress. With the
introduction of the borehole, the in-situ stress magnitude as well as the orientation is significantly modified at the
borehole wall. The influence of anisotropies on the stability of the borehole only becomes critical when the
inclinations of the borehole are high, such as the case of extended-reach and horizontal boreholes.
(2) Another evidence of coupling of mechanical and physico-chemical aspects of wellbore stability is time dependency
of that during drilling operations. It is well known that in practice in shale wellbore instability occurs after some
time of drilling. These partly are due to time consuming chemical reactions and resulting swelling of the shale.
(3) Hydration of shale by water is a physico-chemical phenomenon which influences the mechanical properties of
shale. Development of pore pressure due to osmosis cause fast failure of shale and significantly influences the
mechanics of wellbore. The above explanations are some evidences and examples of coupling of physico-chemical
and mechanical phenomena in drilling operations.
(4) Over-gauged boreholes induced by borehole collapse failure, the loss of drilling fluid into the formation due to
borehole breakdown failure, and consequent hole cleaning and well control problems are typical occurrences when
shale experience failure (Yu et al., 2001).
(5) Effects of different factors on time dependent wellbore stability and ballooning induced by wellbore deformation
and fracture charging were investigated (Helstrupet al., 2004). Rock matrix permeability and the presence of mud
cake have significant effects on wellbore instability and ballooning. Increase in matrix permeability and filtration
time reduces both stress intensity and ballooning volume while the presence of mud cake provides a barrier for
mud pressure to penetrate into the formation, resulting in higher stress concentration at the fracture tip and larger
ballooning volume.
(6) The magnitude and direction of hydraulic flow in the pores of the formation is a function of the pressure difference
between the mud pressure and the formation pressure. At the moment of penetration the pressure difference is
applied at the wall of the borehole, but with time a pressure gradient is established in the pores of the formation. It
has been shown that the hydraulic pressure gradient thus created can influence hole stability (Pasley and Cheatham,
1963; and Darley, 1969). The effect of hydraulic gradient is to increase the hoop stress gradient, and hence to
destabilized the hole. Experimental investigation of invasion, mud/shale interaction and hole instability is often
 carried out using model wellbores under appropriate stress and flow conditions (Ewy and Cook, 1990; Bailey et
al., 1991)

Title An Objective Method for Wellbore Stability Analysis Bai, M.Halliburton, Houston, Texas, USA
Introduction . The method combines the weighted functions of hole enlargement from a caliper
measurement and calculated shear failure. The method is called the Wellbore Quality Index
(WQI). This is because using the hole-enlargement measurement is non-discriminative.
Consequently, WQI is effective even when limited data is available (e.g., only a routine one-
arm caliper log is available and the hole-enlargement mechanism is unknown). When high-
quality data is available (e.g., oriented caliper measurements, image logs, pore pressure and
fracture gradient measurements, and rock core testing results), WQI becomes a valuable and
objective calibration tool for assessing wellbore instability. It demonstrates a significant
improvement over conventional mechanism-biased wellbore stability analysis methods used
to match field observations. Furthermore, when using dimensionless analysis with filtering,
WQI can differentiate the effect of each failure mechanism and determine the underlying
physics of the wellbore failure.
Definition
Issue Wellbore instability is detrimental in many ways
a) annually costs the oil/gas industry substantial monies to provide remedial measures;
b) results in non-productive time during drilling to fix non-operations related wellbore
mechanical failure problems,
c) causes loss of part or all of a well due to fatal kicks, large scale borehole collapse, and severe
tight-hole conditions due to elevated stresses and pore pressure.
Wellbore stability analysis is a necessary step in predicting wellbore failure and implementing
preventive measures to minimize the impact of wellbore failure. Such an analysis requires a
set of good quality data from the offset wells. At a minimum, the basic required data are:
Often data available from the offset wells are limited. Using conventional methods, the
available data are so constrained that the quality of any wellbore stability study is highly
questionable
SOLUTION The Wellbore Quality Index (WQI) method described maximizes the quality of the wellbore
stability evaluation under scarce data conditions by identifying the suitable wellbore
stability impact factors that may dominate the process.
With severely limited measurement data, conventional wellbore stability methods generate
an analysis with a high degree of uncertainty. However, in the same situation, the proposed
WQI method could provide an analysis with reduced degrees of uncertainty. The
advantages of using the proposed WQI method are its ability to determine the dominant
source (i.e., mechanism) as well as other less dominant sources (i.e., mechanisms) of
wellbore instability. The combination of the mechanically driven parameter and the non-
biased multi-factor parameter makes the WQI method a versatile tool for identifying the
causes behind wellbore failure even under scarce data conditions.
The concept of the WQI method is quite straightforward and easily understood, i.e. defining
the level of wellbore stability using an index function. However, the form of the WQI
method is subtle. In other words, it is not simple to use the method without knowing the
utilities of the individual factors in the expression.
Even though WQI only contains two equations , additional work needs to be done for the
method to function effectively. For the dimensional WQI method, the result needs to be
calibrated against multiple logs and correlations to determine the causes of the wellbore
failure. For the dimensionless WQI method , a sensitivity investigation must be conducted
to determine the causes of wellbore instability from the defined zones (i.e., magnitudes) of
DL-WQI. The associated analyses make the method more attractive to potential users due
to the intuitive nature of the analyses.
There are no severe constraints on using WQI. The method should always work. It would
work more effectively with observed wellbore failure (e.g., from hole enlargement shown in
the caliper data). Naturally, the method is useless if there is no evidence of wellbore failure.
It is most useful as a screening method for wellbore stability under limited data conditions.
It can be used as a quality assurance index when major measurement data become
available.
Title Analysis of vertical, Horizontal and deviated wellbores stability
Introduction Prediction and analysis of wellbore stability is considered as a critical and significant issue in
drilling engineering. Loss of well due to instability prompts high expenditure and ceases
drilling operation. Effective parameters on wellbore stability are in situ stress, pore pressure,
rock strength, drilling mud pressure, and well path. Wellbore instability controlling, needs
understanding of rock strength and in situ stresses. In general, in situ stresses and rock
strength are uncontrollable; therefore wellbore instability can be prevented by properly
adjusting the mud pressure and well path that are controllable factors.
Definition
Issue When a well is drilled, the rock surrounding the hole must take the load that was previously taken
by the removed rock. As a result, the in situ stresses are significantly modified near the borehole
wall. This leads to an increase in stress around the wall of the hole, that is to say, a
stressconcentration. The stress concentration can lead to failure of the borehole wall, depending
on the rock strength [2].
The selection of a suitable failure criterion for wellbore stability analysis is difficult and
controversial (Mclean and Addis, 1990) [2, 7]. It is therefore unclear to drilling engineer which
failure criterion should be used. So far, the two most commonly used strength criteria in wellbore
stability analysis are the MohrCoulomb criterion and the DruckerPrager criterion. Researchers
have found that these two strength criteria can give very different minimum mud pressures. The
MohrCoulomb criterion overestimates the minimum mud pressure because it neglects the
strengthening effect of the intermediate principal stress while the DruckerPrager criterion
underestimates the minimum mud pressure because it exaggerates the intermediate principal
stress effect [4]. Al-Ajmi andZimmerman (2006) proposed the use of the MogiCoulomb criterion
to predict brittle shearfailure of rocks.
solution Effective parameters on wellbore stability
Investigating failure criteria, it can be understood that wellbore stability depends on in situ
stresses and rock strength. As alluded to above, stress alteration is the main reason of wellbore
instability. In order to preclude the possibility of wellbore collapsing, drilling engineers should
properly adjust mud pressure as well as the orientation of the wellbore with respect to the in situ
stress. In general, the possible alteration of the borehole orientation is limited. It is therefore
obvious that in most cases, wellbore instability can be prevented mainly by properly adjusting the
mud pressure. Traditionally, the difference pressure between well and fluid formation, regardless
of the rock strength and the field stresses, was about 100200 psi. However, it cannot solely
cover all the aspects of wellbore stability during drilling.
It also shows that plastic zone around the horizontal borehole is more than the vertical one that
represents drilling in vertical direction is more stable than horizontal one. The borehole drilling in
the direction parallel to the maximum horizontal stress has more displacement than that the
minimum horizontal stress; therefore drilling in this direction will increase the potential borehole
instability
The reason for difference between the Mohr-Coulomb and Mogi-Coulomb criteria in
determination of well trajectory, mud pressure, and mud weight is that, the Mohr-Coulomb
criterion involves only the maximum and minimum principal stresses, ! and ! , and therefore
assumes that the intermediate stress ! has no influence on rock strength so the predicted rock
strength is lower than the real one, and then it needs more mud pressure to be stable, and due to
this fact, the Mohr-Coulomb criterion is considered more conservative. Conversely, the Mogi-
Coulomb criterion considers intermediate stress ! so it predicts higher rock strength, and then
the required mud weight for being stable is lower than that estimated by the Mohr-Coulomb
criterion. Therefore, it represents field conditions more realistically than does the Mohr-Coulomb
criterion.
Conclusions
Wellbore stability analysis in different drilling directions showed that drilling in vertical direction is
more stable than horizontal one and the well can be drilled with inclination angle lower than 60!
in a direction parallel to the minimum in situ stress (i.e.!).
Plastic flow of rock into the borehole is initiated provided that mud pressure is lower than 32MPa
and mud weight is lower than 53.3 pcf that causes wellbore instability.
Analytical solution of The Mogi-Coulomb and Mohr-Coulomb criteria can be used beside FLAC to
examine wellbore stability more precisely.
The reason drilling direction is so important in this case study is that at the depth of interest there
is a significant difference between the maximum and minimum horizontal principal stresses.
Definition
Issue
Solution