CHAPTER 4:

HOLE PROBLEMS
CGE578: DRILLING ENGINEERING II
 Contents
O Hole and Formation Problem

O Pipe and Other Equipment Problem

O Fishing technique and tools

 COMMON DRILLING PROBLEMS
O The problems in drilling are mainly due to hole, formation, pipe or other equipments
problems. It has been observed that the drilling mud is the source of most encountered
hole problems and drilling hazards.

O When such problems happens, drilling operation has to be stopped and the remedies
for these problems are usually costly.

O Among the common drilling problems are:

O Pipe sticking
O Lost circulation
O Verticality of hole
O Drillpipe failures
O Borehole instability/ Shale Problem
O Shallow hydrocarbon zones
O High bottom hole temperature
O Corrosion

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 How to identify pipe sticking???
O While drilling the drill string cannot be rotated and
cannot be pull out. However, the mud pump operates
normally and the mud can be circulated as usual.

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 PIPE STICKING
O A pipe is considered stuck if cannot be freed without damage to the pipe.

Types of Pipe Sticking

Differential Mechanical Pipe

Pressure Pipe Sticking
Sticking

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 Differential Pressure Pipe Sticking
O A drillpipe called differential stuck when it is motionless and forced
against a permeable formation (mud cake) due to excessive
differential pressure (overbalance).
O The higher mud pressure acting on the outside wall of the drillpipe as
compared to formation pressure will push the drillpipe to the borehole
wall.

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 Differential Pressure Pipe Sticking
PRECAUTIONS & PREVENTION!!
To minimize of the differentially stuck, following precautions
should be applied:
1. Minimize the differential pressure (overbalance pressure)
between borehole pressure and formation pressure
(Allowance for surge and swab pressures during tripping
operations)
2. Maintain the efficient of control of the mud properties
(eg: density, fluid loss). Surge Swab
3. Minimize the friction factor (oil based mud & low water
loss mud).
4. Minimize contact area between drillstring and borehole
(Eg: Using stabilizer on the drill collar, using non circular
drill collar, minimize filter cake thickness )

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 Differential Pressure Pipe Sticking
METHODS TO FREEING THE PIPE!!
1. Hydrostatic Pressure Reduction:
The amount of low density fluid to be pumped into drillstring. Reduction
of mud weight is done by dilution or gasifying with nitrogen.
2. Spotting organic fluid:
Eg: a mixture of diesel oil and surfactant is pump to the location where
the drillstring stuck. A mixture of diesel and surfactants is pumped to
the location where the drillstring is stuck. Since the mixture is meant to
reduce the thickness of the mud cake and the friction factor, sucient
time has to be allowed so that the mixture can be dissolved and the
mud cake destroyed.
3. Back off operations (Final Solution) :
Parting the drillstring above the free point part of the drillstring and
fishing the remaining.

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 Differential Pressure Pipe Sticking
Methods for fishing the remaining are:
1. After the drillstring is separated, shing operations
can commence. First so called lead impression
blocks are run to check how the shs surface
looks alike.
2. Afterwards special catching tools like ones listed
below are run.
Overshot dressed with basket grapple,
Overshot dressed with spiral grapple,
Box tap & Taper tap, etc.
3. When the shing operations are not successful, the
well has to be plugged back leaving the sh in the
hole. Subsequent operations are sidetracking or,
depending on the well economics and objectives,
abandoning. 13/11/2014 10
 Mechanical Pipe Sticking
O Mechanical sticking could result from accumulation of soft drilled
cuttings at the drillbit (bit balling), high accumulation of drilled
cuttings in the annulus, the caving or collapsing of the borehole wall
and key seating problem.
O The poor hydraulic system could cause the bit balling problem
whereby soft drilled cuttings will accumulate around the drillbit tooth
and preventing the bit from drilling further.

Bit Balling 13/11/2014 11

 Mechanical Pipe Sticking
O High accumulation of drilled cuttings in the
annulus:
O In the directional drilling, most of the cuttings will
accumulate at the low side of the borehole and
such excessive accumulation will cause pipe
sticking issue.
O Hydraulics system and mud viscosity should be
improved to avoid mechanical sticking related to
drilled cuttings accumulation.
O Drillstring rotation at high enough speed to
agitate any stationary cuttings

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 Mechanical Pipe Sticking
O The caving and collapsing of the borehole
could be more severe when drilling into
shale and salt formation.

O This is due to the plasticity characteristic

of the formation and has tendency to flow
inward causing mechanical pipe sticking.

O In this case, the drilling mud must be

carefully programmed so that it can
provide enough density and viscosity to
avoid such problems.

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 Mechanical Pipe Sticking
O Key seating phenomenon occurs at
the dogleg where a new hole is created
by drill string until the drillpipe is stuck to
the wall
O The key seating mostly happens in soft
formation.
O Can be identified when the drillstring can
be moved downwords but not upwards
O To remove key seating:
O The hole should be reamed
O Organic fluid can be spotted
O Backing off. The fish could be retrieved
after that.
O Prevention:
O Use Stiff BHA- reduce doglegs
O Avoid sudden changes in hole inclination
in deviated well
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 LOST CIRCULATION

Loss of circulation could be either total loss

or partial loss
It is referring to the uncontrolled flow of
mud into the formation
In total loss all the mud flow into formation
and there is no mud return to the surface.
In partial loss, there is some mud return to
the surface but the mud pit volume is
decreasing.
The loss of circulation normally happens in
fractured, depleted or highly permeable
formations.

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 CAUSE OF LOST CIRCULATION
O Causes of induced fractures:
O Hydrostatic mud pressure exceeds the breaking strength of the
rock and raising mud weight quickly.
O Excessive wellbore pressure by high flowrate (high annular
friction pressure loss) or tripping in too fast (high surge
pressure) which lead to high ECD.

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 LOST CIRCULATION SURVEY
Methods to identify and locate zone of lost circulation are:
1. Spinner Survey
2. Temperature Survey
3. Radioactive tracer survey
4. Hot wire survey
5. Pressure transducer survey

Lost circulation material is added to the drilling mud to bridge-off

the large openings of the formations and thus help control it.

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EFFECTS OF LOST CIRCULATION

O Loss of mud (High cost)

O Loss of drilling time (Consequences
cost increases)
O No information on formation being
drilled
O The drop in annular mud level will
cause blowout

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LCM TREATMENT
 LOST CIRCULATION ADDITIVE
List of some of the most commonly used lost circulation additive

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 DRILLPIPE FAILURES
O Drillpipe failures could be twist-off, parting and fatigue

The high torque could cause twist-off if

the shear stress exceeds the materials
rating

Parting happens when the tensile stress is

too high that exceeds the materials rating

Repeated application of cyclic stresses

can cause the fatigue even tough without
corrosion. most common

O The failures of drillpipe normally requires fishing process if it is not possible to 21

pull the drillpipe back to the surface.
 HOLE VERTICALITY
O A straight and vertical hole requires the usage
of proper number and size of drill collars,
optimum rotational speed of rotary table and
good circulation of drilling fluid.
O Proper size of drill collar is used which holds
the drill pipes centrally and puts required
weight on bit
O The rotation of rotary table selected to such
rpm to allow the bit to cut the formation
straight and preventing rotation of bit to one
side.
O The usual method of straightening of crooked
holes, is to ream the hole to largest possible
diameters to give the well casing to align itself
in the hole.

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 BOREHOLE INSTABILITY
O Borehole instability is an undesirable condition of an open hole interval that
does not maintain its gauge size and shape as well as its structural integrity.

Hole
Closure

Hole
Collapse Types
Enlargement

Fracturing
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 BOREHOLE INSTABILITY
O Hole closure
Is a time- dependent process of borehole narrowing, sometimes refer to
as creep, under the overburden pressure.
O Generally occurs in plastic flowing shale and salt formation.
O Problems:
O Increase in potential for pipe sticking
O Increase in difficulty casing landing
O Increase in torque and drag

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 BOREHOLE INSTABILITY
O Hole enlargement
O Commonly termed washout, i.e. hole
becomes undesirably larger than intended
caused by hydraulic erosion in inherently
sloughing shale (brittle shale with micro
fracture in it).
O Problems:
O Increase in difficulty of cementing
O Increase difficulty for potential hole
deviation
O Increase problem for logging operations

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 BOREHOLE INSTABILITY
O Fracturing
O Occurs when the wellbore drilling-fluid pressure
exceeds the formation fracture pressure.
O Problems: Loss circulation

O Collapse
O Occurs when the drilling fluid pressure is too low to
maintain the structural integrity of the drilled hole.
O Problems: Pipe sticking

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 BOREHOLE INSTABILITY
O Prevention:
1. Proper selection and maintenance of mud weight
2. Proper hydraulics to control the ECD
3. Proper level of annular velocity to ensure good hole
cleaning
4. Compatible borehole fluid with the formation being
drilled
5. Use of offset well data
6. Monitoring of trend changes (torque, circulating
pressure etc)
7. Avoid fast trip or swabbing of the hole
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 How to maintain a good
hydraulic system??
1. Effective hole cleaning
Achieved minimum annular velocity for lifting cuttings
The minimum annular velocity depends on the properties of
the mud and cuttings of the particular well. Typically 100 -
200 ft/min.

2. Optimize power usage to drill the hole efficiently

Optimum pressure drop across the bit.
Therefore hydraulic power is optimized by increasing the flow
rate and the improvement on the pressure losses at the bit.

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 FISHING
O Fish is an object left in the well bore during drilling or work that must
be recovered before work can proceed. E.g. Parted drill pipe, lost bit
cones
O Fishing operations are any action taken which attempts to remove
the fish from borehole
O Fishing tool is any and all special pieces of equipment that must be
added to the string to enable the operator to engage and retrieve the
fish
Causes of Fishing Jobs
Preventing of Fishing Jobs
FISHING TOOLS

See Video
 COMMON TYPES OF FISHING TOOLS
1) OVERSHOT
a hollow tool with grapple attached to a fishing string
which is used to latch and pull or push on the fish
 COMMON TYPES OF MILLING TOOLS
2) MILL
used to mill all type of fish in the hole such as
bits, packers, drill pipes, casing for window,
bridge plug, etc

TAPER MILL JUNK MILL

PILOT MILL
 COMMON TYPES OF FISHING TOOLS
3) JUNK RETRIEVERS
to retrieve small objects such as hand wrenchers, bolts,
drill bit cones, clamps, pieces of steel, etc.
Example of junk retrievers : Magnet, Junk basket
 COMMON TYPES OF FISHING TOOLS
4) FORCE MULTIPLYING TOOLS
to generate controlled blows onto a stuck fish.
Example : jars, accelerators, bumper sub
 COMMON TYPES OF MILLING TOOLS
5) WASHOVER STRING
hollow cylindrical milling tool to wash or mill away
formation, contaminated mud or debris from around the
fish
Abandoning Fishing
 Assignment 1
O Choose one type of fishing and milling tools and
discuss on the following items:
O Applications
O Benefits
O Features
O Procedures
O Support your discussion with figures and references.
O Dateline: 20 November 2014, Thursday
(Before 6pm)