SPE/IADC-184686-MS

Gas Influx into Drilling Fluids During Flow Check Operations as Affected by
Gas Absorption Characteristics of the Drilling Fluid

Harald Linga, Knut Steinar Bjørkevoll, and Jan Ole Skogestad, SINTEF Petroleum Research/DrillWell; Arild
Saasen, Aker BP

Copyright 2017, SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition held in The Hague, The Netherlands, 14–16 March 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE/IADC program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s).
Contents of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers or the International Association of Drilling Contractors and are subject to correction
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its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers or
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Abstract
The paper addresses the gas loading characteristics of the drilling fluid and its influence of the gas influx
rate during the flow check operation. In particular, the resulting fluid expansion in the wellbore annulus and
the capability to detect gas kick at HPHT process conditions will be discussed for selected drilling fluids.
For the evaluation of the applicability of flow check operations for the detection of gas influx, the time
response to the drilling fluid expansion during natural gas influx is addressed in terms of drilling fluid gas
loading properties, influx severity and influx area.
The physical gas loading rate of natural gas into the drilling fluid is described as a first order kinetic mass
transfer process including the gas loading capability for the multicomponent system of drilling fluid and
natural gas, in addition to the gas influx characteristics at the wellbore–formation boundary.
When operating the fluid system of natural gas–drilling fluid in the liquid phase region, a continuous gas
influx will at some point give more distinct expansion of the fluid mixture in the wellbore. This occurs for
the maximum gas loading of the drilling fluid. Such distinct change in sensitivity in the volume expansion
response is not encountered when operating the system of drilling fluid–natural gas in dense phase. For
selected cases relevant for HPHT drilling, the volume expansion response during flow check operation is
compared for drilling fluid with gas loading characteristics either representing single liquid phase or dense
phase gas loading. With the methodology described it is readily shown that the interpretation and design
of the flow check operation should be carefully selected when approaching dense phase conditions or if
the gas loading capability of the drilling fluid is considerable. This is particularly important for oil-based
drilling fluids featuring high gas loading capability.

Introduction
Well control is a continuous and top priority for maintaining safe and efficient drilling operations, and in
particular so for deepwater and HPHT drilling where potential gas kick situations are less detectable topside
due to the expansion potential of reservoir influx. In order to plan for and execute drilling operations aiming
for detecting occurrence of gas influx, the knowledge of the interaction between natural gas and drilling
fluid at relevant process conditions is decisive. Although gas influx will be more severe in underbalance
2 SPE/IADC-184686-MS

situations during e.g. connections, gas influx into drilling fluid can occur even in overbalance situations. In
particular this is the case where the drilling fluid has a large loading capacity of natural gas and the drilling
fluid is exposed to the reservoir gas via the filter cake, with diffusivity favouring natural gas flux (Bradley
et al., 2002). Such an influx is anticipated to destabilise the drilling fluid and introduce barite sag (Saasen,
2002). Barite sag, or sag of any type of weighting agents, may reduce the drilling fluid density sufficiently
to allow for a large influx of gas. Thus, there is an accelerating effect of dissolving gas into the drilling fluid.
Company rules of thumb exist for how to treat OBDFs (oil-based drilling fluid) to avoid sag. It is
anticipated that at least one passage of the fluid through the drill bit with a pressure loss of at least 50 bar is
needed to make a stable fluid. Furthermore, practical experience has indicated that sag is likely if a drilling
fluid is diluted with more than 5% of freshly made drilling fluid (Omland et al., 2007). Still, the detrimental
effect from diffusion of gas will be important.
The gas loading capability of OBDFs will by far exceed that of the water-based drilling fluid. As the
potential natural gas loading is more pronounced the higher the pressure, special care should be taken on
handling OBDFs. In particular this should be considered when it comes to the ability to early detection of
gas influx into the drilling fluid.
In a previous study (Linga et al., 2016) the gas loading capability of two classes of drilling fluids
was studied, one built with refined, "normal", mineral base oil, and the other built with linear paraffin
base oil. The latter is often used in HPHT drilling applications. Two realistic flow check scenarios
based on experimental gas solubility data were demonstrated, illustrating the importance of gas solubility
characteristics when it comes to gas kick precautions. As the drilling fluid with linear paraffin base oil
entered into the dense phase regime, with unlimited gas solubility, the linear paraffin base oil drilling fluid
was considered as less suitable compared to the drilling fluid using refined, "normal", mineral base oil when
it comes to detect gas influx at elevated pressures.

Phase Diagrams, the States of Mixtures for Drilling Fluid and Methane
The oil-based drilling fluids represent essentially a mixture of hydrocarbon and water, which for p, T
conditions relevant for drilling remains as a liquid phase. As natural gas such as methane is loaded into this
hydrocarbon mixture, the region vs. p and T for which the mixture remains as a pure liquid is reduced. For
this situation, it becomes important to determine for what combinations of p and T the mixture exists as
a pure liquid mixture, a combination of gas and liquid, denoted the two-phase region, or for low pressure,
exists as a gas mixture. A phase diagram can be associated with the actual gas mass loading of the drilling
fluid in concern, the gas mass loading commonly expressed in terms of the volumetric gas-oil-ratio GOR
[Sm3/m3]. An example for refined normal base oil is shown in Fig. 1.
More experimental data for the base oil in concern have been presented by Flatabø et al. (2015) and
Torsvik et al. (2016) at HPHT conditions, where in particular the impact of gas loading on rheology has
been studied. Key fluid property data are listed in appendix B for the drilling fluid used in the present study.
Extensive studies of gas loading capability into base oils for various gas types, in addition to methane,
have been presented by O'Bryan et al. (1988). The use of equation-of-state calculations for determining the
gas loading capability of base oils has been demonstrated by Skogestad et al. (2017) as a supplement to
experimental gas loading determination of base oils.
SPE/IADC-184686-MS 3

Figure 1—Phase diagram for methane – refined base oil.

The two-phase envelope is defined by the bubble point curve and the dew point curve, which meet at
the critical point. At pressures above the bubble point curve the mixture exists as a liquid phase, and for
pressures below the dew point curve the mixture exists as a gas phase. Inside the two-phase envelope, the
relative fraction of gas and liquid depends on the combination of p and T.
When both pressure and temperature are above the critical point, the mixture of methane and drilling
fluid exists as dense phase, also denoted the super-critical state. The dense phase is a uniform mixture of
gas and drilling fluid, featuring different density sensitivity to pressure than do the liquid phase.
The transitions between the gas or liquid phases towards the dense phase region are continuous in terms
of fluid properties. This is in contrast to the transitions between the two-phase envelope to the liquid and
gas phases, where the density sensitivity vs. pressure characteristics changes, see Fig. 2.

Figure 2—Mixture density vs. pressure for different GOR of methane-base oil mixtures at 150°C.
4 SPE/IADC-184686-MS

The increase in density sensitivity vs. pressure when reducing the pressure is associated with entering
the two-phase region at the bubble curve. The change in sensitivity is less pronounced the higher the GOR.
Fig. 3 shows that the lower pressure limit for the dense phase is not very sensitive to the actual GOR of
the methane – base oil mixture for lower GOR. This means that when reaching the dense phase for a given
pressure, the mixture remains in the dense phase when increasing the GOR of the mixture. Accordingly, the
dense phase represents unlimited gas loading capability. This is in contrast to the liquid phase where free
gas in equilibrium with liquid will appear when exceeding the max gas loading of the base oil in concern.

Figure 3—The phase envelope and critical points of a mixture of refined base oil and methane at different GOR.

Time Evolution of Gas Influx into Drilling Fluid

In Appendix A the gas diffusion rate from the reservoir via the filter cake to the drilling fluid in the wellbore
in overbalance with the surrounding reservoir is investigated. The mass transfer scenario over the filter cake
is illustrated in Fig. 4.

Figure 4—Mass transfer scenario, gas diffusion from reservoir to drilling fluid via filter cake.
SPE/IADC-184686-MS 5

It shown that for methane - drilling fluid at pressures below the dense phase region the gas mass mG
absorbed into the liquid is described as;

(1)

where H is Henry's constant for the natural gas – drilling fluid, p is the pressure, t [s] is time, A [m2] is the
filter exposure area where the gas influx takes place, k the diffusion constant associated with the filter cake
characteristics and mL is the drilling fluid liquid mass loading for the gas influx section.
Similarly, for the dense phase region of the natural gas–drilling fluid, where the gas loading is unlimited,
we obtain the time linear relation of loaded gas;
(2)

Gas Influx during Flow Check

A flow check is defined as a period where the operations such as drilling, tripping pipe and circulation are
stopped, and the well is monitored in order to see whether the well is static or not. The time for flow check
should be enough to confirm the status of a well. It might be a few minutes or it could be as long as 30
minutes depending on the well situation. Normally, many operators require 15 minutes flow check if the well
is in normal condition. On a particular well operation, a very small influx of gas was observed. Therefore,
the drilling fluid density was increased to the anticipated maximum, and a flow check was conducted for a
few hours. Still influx of gas was observed. This influx, however, was later attributed to diffusion of gas,
similar to the phenomenon suggested by Bradley et al. (2002).

Case Example
In order to draw attention to flow check scenarios and illustrate continuous influx of gas, we have considered
the following influx scenario:

• Process conditions: 600 bar/150 °C

• Influx zone: length 10 m, diameter 8½″, with constant diffusivity 5·10−3 kg·m−2·s−1 for the mud
filter cake throughout the gas influx process
• Gas loading capability, two cases:
1. Gas solubility according to Henry's law, gas loading into liquid. Henry's constant
experimentally determined to 0.414 g/(kg·bar) for the loading of methane into the base oil
of the drilling fluid.
2. Gas influx in the dense phase region; solubility not limiting the gas influx
We observe that for approximately the first two minutes, the loading performance is quite similar for the
liquid phase and dense phase case. However due to the loading limitation for the liquid phase case, the gas
loading for this case arrives asymptotically at slightly above 5 Sm3, whereas for the dense phase case the
gas loading increases linearly with time, reaching 25 Sm3 after 30 minutes.
During the flow check duration the gas influx serves to expand the loaded volume of drilling fluid, but
due to the small liquid volume exposed to gas, the actual volume expansion in the bottom hole is less than
15 litre for the gas loading in the liquid phase, not detectable topside during the flow check duration. For the
dense phase, the local volume expansion is some 70 litre after 30 mins and approx. 500 litre if the flow check
period is extended to 4 hours. For such an influx the volume expansion downhole, representing topside
6 SPE/IADC-184686-MS

gas volume of 230 Sm3, will be on the limit to be detected topside with present methodology (Johnsen et
al., 2014).

Figure 5—Equivalent gas volume loaded in the oil-based drilling fluid vs. time during
stagnant flow check operation. Case study with refined normal base oil and methane.

When circulating after the flow check subject to gas influx, the fully gas saturated drilling liquid will
release free gas immediately as it is exposed to reduced pressure during the circulation. Taking into account
the accuracy of conventional topside kick detection systems (Johnson et al., 2014) this will however not be
immediately detected topside. The situation is clearly worse for the dense phase case, where gas will not be
released until the gas loaded drilling fluid has reached a wellbore position corresponding to bubble point.

Discussion
The diffusivity constant, set to an arbitrary value in the case example above, determines how fast the
asymptotic gas loading level is reached for the liquid case and is in particular influencing the initial gas
loading rate into the liquid phase. For the dense phase case, the rate of the gas loading into the drilling fluid
is proportional to the diffusivity constant. Accordingly, for a flow check operation where a linear volume
expansion is recorded topside and the drilling fluid is in overbalance with the reservoir, this may indicate
that there is a continuous gas influx process in progress in the region where the drilling fluid-reservoir gas
is in dense phase. Accordingly, special precautions should be taken with respect to identifying the drilling
fluid dense phase characteristics when interpreting flow check operations during HPHT drilling.
Conventional kick detection systems rely heavily on monitoring topside pressures and fluid volumes. If a
kick is suspected, a flow check, where pumps are shut down and drilling and rotation stopped, is performed.
We readily observe that in HPHT conditions, there is a potential for substantial amounts of gas to flow into
the well during the flow check procedure (Johnson et al., 2014).
Additionally, the conventional approach does not properly account for fluid expansion and compression
due to pressure and/or temperature effects. Thus, false alarms, and consequently downtime, may be
triggered unnecessarily. In the context of deepwater drilling, Johnson et al. (2014) argue that both better
instrumentation and improved fluid and wellbore modelling should play key roles in advancing kick
detection technology. By coupling downhole instrumentation (Jacobs, 2015) and advanced models taking
SPE/IADC-184686-MS 7

into account fluid compressibility, phase behaviour and gas loading capability, a more robust kick detection
system, allowing for early detection and fewer false alarms, is possible.
Clearly the effects discussed in this paper get more pronounced and become more important the higher
the pressure. To understand the relevance of this, we take a quick look at pressures and temperatures seen
in actual HPHT fields. Worldwide there are many extreme cases where pressure exceeds 1000 bar, and
even some cases the presssure exceeds 1300 bar (IHS, 2016). Less extreme conditions are encountered for
the Norwegian continental shelf, but also in this region there are important fields, e.g. Huldra, Kvitebjørn,
Gudrun, Kristin and Victoria, representing pressures between 750 and 950 bar, and temperatures ranging
from 120 to 200 °C. With reference to data shown in Fig. 3, representing a typical combination of a base
oil and a reservoir fluid, we expect that for many types of drilling fluids we may encounter conditions
where the drilling fluid is deep into the dense phase region as combined with the reservoir gas. For such
cases there is a severe potential for gas loading in the drilling fluid during a long stationary period, and
details of dense phase should hence be both well understood and properly incorporated into state-of-the
art well control mathematical models. This stresses that proper procedures and/or algorithms for tuning of
calculation versus PVT/kinetics measurements at relevant conditions should constitute an important part of
doing accurate calculations.

Conclusions
We expect that for many types of drilling operations we may encounter conditions where the drilling fluid
is deep into the region where there is a severe potential for gas loading in the drilling fluid during a long
stationary period like during a flow check.
It is shown that for flow check operations in overbalance situations the gas loading into the drilling fluid
and the volume expansion recorded topside is affected by the actual state of the gas loaded drilling fluid;
dense phase or liquid phase. For HPHT drilling operations the gas influx during overbalance situation may
become considerable, in particular for the gas loaded drilling fluid being in the dense phase.
The phase diagrams as calculated for mixtures of oil-based drilling fluid–methane demonstrate that there
is a potential of arriving at dense phase conditions already at 400-600 bar onwards, depending on the
temperature and the selection of base oil. The dense phase condition has the potential to maintain unlimited
loading of natural gas caused e.g. by natural gas diffusion from the reservoir to the drilling fluid during an
overbalance situation. This can cause gas influx not easily detectable topside until the gas loaded drilling
fluid has reached wellbore conditions representing the bubble point of the gas loaded drilling fluid.
Due to the high gas loading potential of the drilling fluid at high pressures, also when the drilling fluid
is in the liquid phase, care should be taken for addressing the kick potential and its impact on volume
expansion recorded topside during flow check operations. This is particularly important as the local gas
influx downhole during a flow check operation is not easily detectable with conventional topside kick
detection systems.

Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the Research Council of Norway, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, Lundin Norway,
Statoil and Wintershall for financing the work through the research centre DrillWell - Drilling and Well
Centre for Improved Recovery, a research cooperation between IRIS, NTNU, SINTEF and UiS.

References
Bradley, N.D., Low, E., Aas, B., Rommetveit, R. and Larsen, H.F. 2002. Gas Diffusion – Its Impact on a Horizontal HPHT
Well. Paper SPE 77474 presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, 29
September – 2 October
8 SPE/IADC-184686-MS

Flatabø, G.Ø.; Torsvik A.; Oltedal V.M.; Bjørkvik B.; Grimstad A-A.; Linga H. 2015. SPE-173865-MS. Experimental
Gas Absorption in Petroleum Fluids at HPHT Conditions. SPE Bergen One Day Seminar held in Bergen, Norway,
22 April 2015
IHS Markit. 2016. https://www.ihs.com/Info/en/e/pressure-studies.html Approached 14 November 2016.
Jacobs, T. (2015). Early Kick Detection: Testing New Concepts. J. of Petroleum Technology, Aug. 2015, pp. 44–49.
Johnson A., Leuchtenberg C., Petrie S. and Cunningham D. IADC/SPE 167990. Advancing Deepwater Kick Detection.
IADC/SPE Drilling Conference and Exhibition held in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 4–6 March 2014
O'Bryan P.L., Bourgoyne A.T., Monger T.G. and Kopcso D.P. An experimental Study of Gas Solubility in Oil-Based
Drilling Fluids. SPE Drilling Engineering, pp. 33–42, March 1988
Linga, H., Nilsen F. P., Knudsen, B. L. Prediction Model Optimises H2S Scavenger Injection Strategy. Sulphur 2003,
November 02-05, 2003, Banff, Canada.
Linga, H., Torsvik, A. and Saasen A., 2016. Kick Detection Capability of Oil-based Muds in Well Control Situations.
SPE-180039-MS, presented at the SPE Bergen One Day Seminar, Bergen, Norway 20 April 2016.
Omland, T.H., Saasen, A., Zwaag, C.v.d. and Amundsen, P.A. 2007. The Effect of Weighting Material Sag on Drilling
Operation Efficiency. Paper SPE 110537 presented at the 2007 SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition,
Jakarta, Indonesia, 30 October – 1 November.
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SPE Asia Pacific Drilling Technology, Jakarta, Indonesia, 9-11 September.
Skogestad, J.O., Linga, H., Bjørkevoll K.S. and Saasen A., 2017. Methodology for Predicting Gas Loading Capability
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SPE/IADC-184686-MS 9

Appendix A
Kinetic theory related to gas absorption into liquid
The reaction between sour gas, concentration CG [mole/m3], and the solvent liquid, concentration CL [mole/
m3], in a control volume can be described in terms of a first order reaction within a volume segment of
the reaction volume,

(A-1)

where K is the specific rate of reaction [m3/(mole·s)] its numerical value depending on the actual types of
gas and liquid and the exposure area (phase distribution) of gas towards liquid (Linga et al., 2003). The
terms CG and CL represents driving forces for the reaction between the sour gas and the liquid solvent.

Figure A-1—Schematics, control volume for influx scenario from reservoir to drilling fluid.

Analogously to this, ref. the control volume illustrated in Fig. A-1, the gas diffusion rate from the reservoir
via the filter cake to the drilling fluid in the wellbore, in overbalance with the surrounding reservoir, can
also be described by a first order reaction where the mass transfer rate over the filter cake is given by

(A-2)

where t [s] is time, mG is the gas mass loaded in the drilling fluid, A [m2] is the filter exposure area where
the gas influx takes place, k the diffusion constant associated with the filter cake characteristics, and l is the
gas mass loading in the drilling fluid per unit mass of the drilling fluid [-];

(A-3)

The maximum gas loading capacity for the drilling fluid is expressed in terms of Henry's law for physical
gas absorption in liquid;

(A-4)

where mL is the drilling fluid mass in the control volume, H is Henry's constant for the combination of gas
and liquid, and p is the absolute pressure in the control volume.
Combining Eqs. (A-2)-(A-4), yields, the expression for the gas mass influx rate;
10 SPE/IADC-184686-MS

(A-5)

which can be solved analytically in terms of gas mass absorbed into the liquid;

(A-6)

This expression represents the gas loading evolution into the drilling fluid in an overbalance situation as
driven by gas diffusion over the filter cake.
For the dense phase region, where the gas loading is unlimited, we obtain, using Eq. A-5 and m << mmax;
(A-7)
SPE/IADC-184686-MS 11

Appendix B
Base oil data
The OBDF used as an example is based on a refined mineral oil (OBDFR). The OBDF contains an 80/20
mix of oil and water as well as smaller amounts of other additives. Weight material is added to bring the
densities of the muds to 1.6 Sg.
Some key properties of the OBDF and the base oil (BO) are summarized in Table B-1. In addition to
the hydrocarbon components mentioned in the rightmost column, there are traces of all alkanes from C9
to C25 in the base oil.

Table B-1—Properties of base oil and drilling fluids.

Oil-based Drilling Fluid OBDF Density, std. conditions Base Oil Base Oil Density, std. Main components (BO)
(g/cm3) conditions (g/cm3)

OBDFR 1.600 BOR (refined mineral 0.809 C13-16, n-alkanes, isoalkanes,

oil) cyclics