Near-Wellbore Formation Damage Effects
on Well Performance: A Comparison
Between Underbalanced and
Overbalanced Drilling
Y. Ding, SPE, B. Herzhaft, and G. Renard, SPE, Inst. Français du Pétrole
Summary
Prediction of formation damage that occurs while drilling horizon-
tal wells is a critical point for optimizing an oil field’s develop-
ment. The economic impact of near-wellbore drilling-induced
damage and cleanup efficiency has led to significant progress be-
ing made in both experimental and numerical studies to assess
wellbore flow properties during oil production. As a result, a nu-
merical model has been developed to study the impact of various
parameters related to the properties of drilling fluids on well in-
flow performance.
This paper describes a numerical approach developed in this
model to simulate near-wellbore formation damage caused by un-
derbalanced drilling (UBD). It is generally expected that UBD will
be of benefit by preventing formation damage. However, this ben-
efit can be lost for various reasons. For instance, an overbalanced
pressure can be applied on the formation during short periods of
time for various operational reasons and can cause severe forma-
tion damage because of the absence of external cake protection and
huge filtrate invasion. Another possible cause of formation damage
in UBD is related to spontaneous imbibition, which induces water-
blocking, which was observed while drilling tight gas reservoirs.
A methodology for the modeling of possible formation damage
during UBD is presented. Crossflow phenomena caused by sponta-
neous imbibition is taken into account to model the filtrate invasion
from the well to the porous media, as the well is in production.
Introduction
It is well known that formation damage caused by drilling fluid has
a huge impact on a well’s oil and gas productivity, especially for
openhole completed horizontal wells. During overbalanced drilling
(OBD), mud and mud filtrate penetrate the near-wellbore forma-
tion because of this overbalanced pressure, altering near-well flow
properties. As a result, well productivity is dramatically reduced. It
is generally recognized that UBD can be used to minimize prob-
lems associated with invasive formation damage. When correctly
performed, UBD reduces or eliminates invasive formation damage,
improves access to reserves, and provides potential for reservoir
evaluation while drilling. Additional benefits of UBD are the reduc-
tion in drilling time, high rates of penetration, and increase of bit life.
UBD has recently proven its efficiency in numerous situations
in which serious problems were encountered with classical drilling
techniques. For example, heavy loss formations or depleted zones
are ideal candidates for UBD. During normal UBD, the negative
pressure drop between the wellbore and the formation prevents
drilling fluids from entering the formation. However, this benefit
can be lost in at least two situations owing to possible sources of
failure such as temporary overbalanced conditions or spontaneous
imbibition. When drilling underbalanced, the fluid system is not
designed to contain cake-building solids as in the case of overbal-
Copyright © 2006 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 86558) was first presented at the 2004 SPE International Symposium and
Exhibition on Formation Damage Control, Lafayette, Louisiana, 18–20 February, and re-
vised for publication. Original manuscript received for review 19 May 2004. Revised manu-
script received 21 July 2005. Paper peer approved 21 July 2005.
February 2006 SPE Production & Operations
anced drilling. Thus, if underbalanced conditions cannot be main-
tained 100% of the time, severe losses can occur, which may result
in formation damage. Overbalanced conditions may result from bit
trips, running in, or other situations in which wellbore intervention
is necessary. Spontaneous imbibition is particularly important in
tight gas reservoirs.
Even though UBD has many advantages over OBD, it is nec-
essary to quantify production improvement and possible formation
damage, which is an important factor in evaluating the economic
feasibility of UBD projects (Bennion and Thomas 1994; Bennion
et al. 1994; Bennion et al. 1998; Cade et al. 2003; Suryanarayana
et al. 2003; Xiong and Shan 2003).
This paper presents a numerical model allowing us to calculate
well productivity reduction owing to possible formation damage
during UBD, such as temporary overbalanced drilling or sponta-
neous imbibition.
The modeling of well performance in OBD has already been
presented (Ding et al. 2002; Ding and Renard 2003). Both internal
and external cakes are considered in the model, and filtrate inva-
sion is calculated using a two-phase flow equation. Polymer ab-
sorption/retention, phase trapping, and wettability alteration are
globally represented using a hysteresis of relative permeabilities.
Nonuniform formation damage along the well is represented by
variable-specific skin factors through an optimization procedure.
The change of well performance can therefore be calculated using
a flow simulator by taking into account these variable skin factors.
In this paper, a methodology for the modeling of possible for-
mation damage during UBD is presented. Formation damage re-
lated to temporary overbalanced pressure is considered. Spontane-
ous imbibition is modeled using two-phase flow simulation with
capillary pressure. When capillary forces are important, counter-
current imbibition occurs with the flow of reservoir fluids toward
the well while the filtrate invades the formation. Spontaneous im-
bibition is particularly important in tight gas reservoirs. Like the
modeling of OBD, a hysteresis of relative permeabilities is used to
represent globally various physics during drilling and backflow.
The impacts of formation damage on well productivity are
simulated by the numerical model and are compared for both un-
derbalanced and overbalanced drilling. The sensitivity to various
parameters related to drilling conditions (underbalanced or over-
balanced) and reservoir parameters is presented. Simulations show
that formation damage in UBD depends on reservoir and applied
drilling conditions. Damage is sometimes severe because of no
filter-cake protection. Therefore, operational precautions should be
taken during UBD to prevent such damage. The proposed numeri-
cal model can be used as a selection guide between OBD and UBD
for both well performance predictions and calculation of the best
economic benefits on long-term production, assuming that
some damage can be done to the near-wellbore formation while
drilling underbalanced.
Description of the Problem
Fluid Invasion During UBD. UBD is a drilling operation in
which the hydrostatic head pressure of drilling fluid is maintained
at a value less than formation pore pressure. Formation damage
caused by conventional OBD with mud and mud-filtrate invasion
can be reduced or eliminated theoretically with UBD. However,
51
this benefit of UBD can be lost in cases of temporary overbalanced
conditions and/or spontaneous imbibition.
During a UBD operation, it is difficult to guarantee that the
drilling fluid pressure is always in underbalanced conditions. An
overbalanced pressure can be applied on the formation during
short periods of time for various operational reasons, such as the
case with bit trips or well intervention, and this can cause severe
formation damage because of the absence of external cake protec-
tion and huge filtrate invasion. Moreover, underbalanced fluids
such as foams do have large amounts of tensioactive molecule in
their formulation in order to stabilize the bubbles by reducing the
surface tension. These surfactants may change the wettability of
the formation by modifying the fluid contact angle, leading to an
impairment of the relative permeability. Even though laboratory
tests help the selection of drilling fluids to minimize the effect in
chemical incompatibility of invading fluid with in-situ rock matrix
and in-situ fluids, filtrate invasion is characterized by phase trap-
ping, fine migration, polymer absorption/retention, and wettability
alteration. All these phenomena reduce near-well permeability and
oil mobility. They can be globally represented by a hysteresis of
relative permeabilities during backflow production.
A Numerical Model
As with OBD, a two-phase flow model is used for the modeling of
invasive formation damage during UBD. To simulate temporary
overbalanced periods of time, the model developed for OBD (Ding
et al. 2002) can be directly used by reducing the drilling time to the
overbalanced duration. To simulate spontaneous imbibition,
counter-current flow has been modeled using capillary pressure.
The two-phase flow equation is given by
冋 册
冦
⭸ ␳f Kkrf
共␾␳f Sf兲 = div 共ⵜPf − ␳f gⵜz兲
⭸t ␮f
冋 册
, . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
⭸ ␳Kkrh
共␾␳hSh兲 = div 共ⵜPh − ␳hgⵜz兲
⭸t ␮h
where S is the saturation (subscript f for filtrate and h for hydro-
carbon), P is the pressure, K = 冉 冊 kx
ky
kz
is the absolute per-
meability of the formation, kr is the relative permeability of each
fluid as a function of Sf , g is the gravity factor, ␾ is the porosity,
␳ is the density, and ␮ is the viscosity. The pressures in filtrate and
oil phases are related by using the capillary pressure:
pc共Sf兲 = ph共Sf兲 − pf 共Sf兲 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
It is represented as a function of filtrate saturation Sf.
The preceding equation is closed by the saturation relationship:
Sf + Sh = 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
As discussed in the previous section, relative permeability hys-
teresis is used to globally represent the various physical pheno-
mena induced by filtrate during backflow that act on near-wellbore
flow behavior.
Because of capillary pressure, pressure gradients between fil-
trate and oil may be in opposite directions, leading to countercur-
rent flow. As a result, during UBD, filtrate can invade the forma-
tion, while oil is produced from the well. The well flow rate in
each phase is calculated using the phase pressure difference:
krh
qh = PI共ph − pw兲 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (4a)
␮ sented in Fig. 1. Permeability of the external cake is 0.02 md with
krf
qf = PI共pf − pw兲 , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (4b)
␮
where q is the well flow rate, PI is the numerical well index, ph is
the hydrocarbon pressure in the formation, pf is the filtrate pressure
in the formation, and pw is the bottomhole-well flowing pressure.
Because of the presence of capillary pressure, the hydrocarbon
52
pressure ph is usually higher than the filtrate pressure pf in the
formation. But the well flowing pressures are the same for these
two phases because there is no capillary pressure in the wellbore.
For UBD, the well flowing pressure is lower than the hydrocarbon
pressure, so we produce hydrocarbons while drilling. Generally,
hydrocarbon pressure is close to well flowing pressure in the well
vicinity. If the capillary pressure is strong, well flowing pressure
becomes higher than the filtrate pressure in the formation. As a
result, countercurrent occurs, and filtrate invades the reservoir.
In a standard reservoir simulator, phase flow rates are generally
calculated using the same pressure difference: namely, reference
pressure, which is usually the oil pressure. In this case, counter-
current flow between the reservoir and the well cannot be simu-
lated because the filtrate flow rate in Eq. 4 is calculated using the
same pressure difference as for the hydrocarbon one.
For the evaluation of formation damage around a horizontal
well, the permeability anisotropy effect should be considered. The
modeling of fluid flow in the vicinity of the horizontal well in
anisotropic media is described in Ding and Renard (2003). A ra-
dial/elliptic-type grid, which follows near-well streamlines, is used
for numerical simulation.
Skin Calculation
Formation damage is usually characterized by skin factors. Skin
factor is a criterion for well-performance evaluation. It can also
be used in the reservoir simulator for well-productivity calcula-
tions. To better describe nonuniform damage along horizontal
wells, specific-variable skin factors along the well length need to
be determined.
A technique to determine specific skins along the well is de-
veloped based on an optimization procedure. Formation damage is
first simulated using the model presented previously. Then, a clas-
sical reservoir simulator, which does not integrate the modeling of
formation damage mechanisms, is used to match the flow rate
along the well calculated by the formation damage model. The
unknown parameters to be determined are skins associated to each
wellblock of the reservoir simulator. The objective function to be
minimized is defined as follows:
J共S兲 =
NP
兺 关Q − q 共S兲兴 ,
i=1
i i
2
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (5)
where Qi is the well flow rate at perforation i simulated using the
formation damage model, NP represents the number of perfora-
tions (wellblocks), and qi is the well flow rate calculated with the
standard reservoir simulator. The unknown parameters are the skin
factors S in each wellblock. Specific skins can therefore be deter-
mined along the well.
Numerical Comparison Between UBD and OBD
Example 1: Cross Section in an Oil Reservoir. Formation dam-
age is studied on a cross section of a horizontal well in an oil
reservoir. The considered cross section is 10 m. The reservoir
permeability is homogeneous on the cross section with a value of
8 md. A radial grid is used for numerical discretization, and a
constant pressure is imposed as an outer boundary condition. Ini-
tial reservoir pressure is 320 bar. Wellbore radius is 0.108 m. Both
UBD and OBD are considered in simulations under different drill-
ing conditions summarized in Table 1:
1. Case 1: OBD; the overbalanced pressure is 15 bar (drilling
pressure at 335 bar) for a drilling period of 2 days. To simulate
well productivity with OBD, it is necessary to put cake properties
in the model (Ding et al. 2002). Permeability reduction in the zone
occupied by internal cake measured from the laboratory are pre-
a thickness of 4 mm.
2. Case 2: UBD; the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar (drilling
pressure at 300 bar). During operation, a temporary overbalanced
pressure of 15 bar occurs accidentally for a period of 5 minutes.
3. Case 3: UBD; the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar. During
operation, a temporary overbalanced pressure of 15 bar occurs for
a period of 15 minutes.
February 2006 SPE Production & Operations
 Fig. 2—Capillary pressure between filtrate and oil in reservoir.

quence, flow efficiency is reduced to 84% with 5 minutes over-

balanced pressure (Case 2) and 75% with 15 minutes overbalanced
pressure (Case 3). Important productivity losses are observed with
Fig. 1—Permeability reduction in internal cake. temporary overbalanced pressure owing to no filter-cake protec-
tion to prevent filtrate invasion for UBD. Therefore, precautions
should be taken to avoid temporary overbalanced pressure during
4. Case 4: UBD; the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar for 2
UBD in high-enough permeability reservoirs.
days. A capillary pressure between drilling fluid and oil in place
For OBD, filter cakes are formed to prevent filtrate invasion.
with a maximum of 5 bar is considered (Fig. 2).
Comparing the cases with a permeability of 100 md and 8 md, flow
In Cases 2 and 3, no capillary pressure is considered. In Case 4,
efficiency is only slightly reduced from 59 to 57%. In the presence
pressure is always underbalanced with –20 bar. Hysteresis of rela-
of capillary pressure, filtrate invasion is not deeper when compar-
tive permeability curves are considered to simulate well produc-
ing the two cases, because the maximum capillary pressure is
tivity loss. To compare formation damage caused by different
smaller than the difference between the initial pressure and the
drilling procedures, relative permeability curves are assumed to be
applied underbalanced pressure. An equilibrium is automatically
the same for all previous cases (Fig. 3). In the figure, the index i
attained with the depth of filtrate invasion.
represents imbibition curves during the drilling period and d rep-
resents drainage curves during backflow. The initial connate water
Example 2: Cross Section in a Gas Reservoir. In this example,
saturation is 0.2. After drilling, the irreducible water saturation in
formation damage is considered in a tight gas reservoir. The well con-
the invaded zone is increased to 0.35 because of waterblocking.
figuration is the same as in the previous example. The reservoir perme-
Fig. 4a presents simulated well-productivity indices in which
ability is 1 md with an initial reservoir pressure of 320 bar. Seven cases
Case 0 denotes the case without any formation damage, and Fig.
summarized in Table 2 are compared for OBD and UBD:
4b shows the flow efficiency, comparing this reference case to the
1. Case 1: OBD; the same condition as in the previous example
cases with formation damage. The flow efficiency is defined as the
with the overbalanced drilling pressure of 15 bar for a drilling
ratio of productivity index between the damaged well and the
period of 2 days. Internal cake properties are given in Fig. 1, and the
undamaged well. Fig. 4c presents the corresponding skin factor
external cake permeability is 0.02 md with a thickness of 4 mm.
obtained using the inversion procedure. Simulations show that
UBD can damage the near-wellbore formation. Temporary over-
balanced pressure during drilling also damages the well, and well
productivity loss depends on overbalanced duration. In the pres-
ence of capillary pressure, damage can occur even when the maxi-
mum capillary pressure value is lower than the pressure difference
between the initial reservoir pressure and the applied UBD pres-
sure. In fact, reservoir pressure in the well vicinity decreases rap-
idly because of the production of reservoir fluid during UBD. The
pressure difference in the near-well region and in the wellbore can
be lower than the capillary pressure. In this case, countercurrent
occurs, but filtrate cannot go very far. Productivity losses in UBD
are not very high (flow efficiencies are 95, 91, and 91% for Cases
2 through 4). However, OBD causes much higher loss of well
productivity, with a flow efficiency of 59%.
The volume of filtrate invasion depends on reservoir perme-
ability. Fig. 5 presents the comparison of well productivity indices,
flow efficiencies, and skin factors for both OBD and UBD for the
reservoir permeability of 100 md (instead of 8 md). When pressure
is temporarily overbalanced during UBD, filtrate invasion is more Fig. 3—Relative permeability in hysteresis during drilling
important because of high formation permeability. As a conse- and backflow.

February 2006 SPE Production & Operations 53

Fig. 4—Comparison of well productivity in oil reservoir for OBD and UBD with K=8 md (Example 1). Comparisons of (a) productivity
index, (b) flow efficiency, and (c) skin.

Fig. 5—Comparison of well productivity in oil reservoir for OBD and UBD with K=100 md (Example 1). Comparisons of
(a) productivity index, (b) flow efficiency, and (c) skin.

54 February 2006 SPE Production & Operations

Fig. 6—Shape of capillary pressure between filtrate and gas
in reservoir.
Fig. 8—Comparison of well productivity in tight gas reservoir
for OBD and UBD (Example 2). Comparisons of (a) productivity
index, (b) flow efficiency, and (c) skin factor.
February 2006 SPE Production & Operations
Fig. 7—Relative permeability in hysteresis between filtrate and
gas in reservoir.
2. Case 2: UBD; the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar (drilling
pressure at 300 bar). During operation, a temporary overbalanced
pressure of 15 bar occurs accidentally for a period of 5 minutes. No
capillary pressure is considered.
3. Case 3: UBD, the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar. During
operation, a temporary overbalanced pressure of 15 bar occurs for
a period of 15 minutes. No capillary pressure is considered.
4. Cases 4 to 7: UBD; the underbalanced pressure is –20 bar for
2 days. A capillary pressure between drilling fluid and oil in place
is considered. The form of the curve is given in Fig. 6. The maxi-
mum value is 8 bar for Case 4, 20 bar for case 5, 50 bar for Case
6, and 100 bar for Case 7.
In Cases 2 and 3, capillary pressure is not present. In Cases 4
through 7, drilling pressure is always underbalanced. In a tight gas
reservoir, capillary pressure is generally very high (Bennion and
Thomas 1994; Bennion et al. 1994; Bennion et al. 1998). Relative
permeability curves in hysteresis are given in Fig. 7. The initial
connate water saturation is 0.1. The final irreducible water saturation
in backflow increases to 0.3 because of water-blocking phenomena.
Fig. 8a presents a well productivity index for all cases. Case 0
corresponds to the case of no formation damage. Fig. 8b shows the
flow efficiency, and Fig. 8c shows the skin factor. In a tight gas
reservoir, formation damage is generally serious. For an accidental
temporary overbalanced pressure of 15 bar lasting 5 minutes, flow
efficiency is reduced to 84%. If the duration is 15 minutes, flow
efficiency is reduced to 79%. Because no filter-cake protection
exists, the risks of damage during UBD cannot be omitted.
Cases 4 through 7 correspond to formation damage caused by
capillary force in UBD. Because capillary pressure is generally high
in a tight gas reservoir, filtrate invasion is important with countercur-
rent flow. Well productivity can be halved for high capillary pressure.
In spite of important formation damage during UBD, it is still
considered a good choice in this example because formation dam-
age with OBD is greater. In the OBD, well productivity is reduced
to 44%, even without the presence of capillary forces.
Although UBD is generally better than OBD, precautions
should be taken in fluid selection and in drilling conditions. It
seems that formation damage can be minimized by careful labo-
ratory experiments in fluid selection to minimize capillary pressure
and to improve the hysteresis effect in relative permeability by
reducing water-blocking phenomena.
Example 3: Horizontal Well in an Anisotropic Medium. In this
example, we consider a horizontal well with a length of 1000 m in
a tight gas reservoir. Permeability in the horizontal direction is 1
md. The vertical to horizontal permeability ratio is 0.1. The well-
bore radius is 0.108 m. Fluid properties (cake properties for OBD,
relative permeability, capillary pressure) are the same as in Ex-
ample 2. A radial grid is used for numerical discretization with 14
blocks along the well length, 6 blocks in the angular direction, and
30 blocks in the radial direction. The well is drilled with an aver-
55
age speed of 20 m/hr. Approximately 2 days are necessary to drill
the well along its full length of 1000 m. Drilling speed is taken into
account in the simulation by opening the perforations one after
another in the model. This creates the well-known cone-type for-
mation damage along the well. The following cases summarized in
Table 3 are compared in OBD or UBD:
1. Case 1: OBD; the overbalanced pressure is 15 bar.
2. Case 2: UBD; the pressure is temporarily overbalanced: 15
bar during 15 minutes at the end of drilling.
3. Cases 3 and 4: The same as Case 2, but the overbalanced period
occurs when the drilled length is 800 and 500 m, respectively.
4. Cases 5 through 8: UBD; capillary pressure is considered
with a maximum of 8 bar (Fig. 6) for Case 5, 20 bar for Case 6, 50
bar for Case 7, and 100 bar for Case 8.
5. In Cases 2 through 4, no capillary pressure is present. In
Cases 5 through 8, drilling pressure is always underbalanced with
–20 bar. Fig. 9 presents a comparison of well productivity index
Fig. 9—Comparison of well productivity for horizontal well in
OBD and UBD in a tight gas reservoir (Example 3). Comparisons
of (a) productivity index and (b) flow efficiency.
56
and flow efficiency for the considered cases. Temporary overbal-
anced drilling of 15 minutes can reduce the well productivity 6 to
10%. The presence of capillary pressure can reduce well produc-
tivity from 16 to 50%. Formation damage in this example is less
serious than that in Example 2 because average drilling time is
only 1 day with high fluid exposure time near well heel (approxi-
mately 2 days) and low exposure time near well toe.
Cone-type filtrate invasions are observed along the well length,
because of different exposure times between the drilling fluid and the
formation. Filtrate invasion is deeper near the heel and less so near the
toe. As a consequence, productivity near the toe is higher than that near
the heel. In our case, the pressure drop in the well is omitted. Fig. 10a
gives production profiles along the well for Case 1 and Cases 5 through
8, and Fig. 10b shows the corresponding specific skin factors along the
well. The phenomenon of nonuniform formation damage is not very
significant for UBD when capillary pressure is low.
Conclusions
UBD is often presented as a solution to eliminate formation dam-
age. But in cases of temporary overbalanced periods, deep inva-
Fig. 10—Nonuniform formation damage along the well. (a) Flow
rate distribution along the well; (b) specific skin along the well.
February 2006 SPE Production & Operations
sion of the reservoir by the drilling fluid can occur because there
is no filter-cake protection. Even in constant underbalanced con-
ditions, the effect of capillary pressure may induce spontaneous
imbibition and generate damage of the near-wellbore formation.
Numerical modeling is presented to quantify the near-wellbore
formation damage. The productivity losses are compared in ex-
amples for UBD and OBD, considering temporary overbalanced
periods and effects of capillary pressure for underbalanced drilling.
The results obtained show that formation damage can be signifi-
cant in UBD, especially for high capillary pressures or high-
permeability reservoirs. Although UBD is generally better than
OBD, precautions should be taken in fluid selection and in drilling
conditions. It seems that formation damage can be minimized by
careful laboratory experiments in fluid selection to minimize cap-
illary pressure and to improve the hysteresis effect in relative
permeability by reducing water-blocking phenomena.
Nomenclature
g ⳱ gravity factor
kr ⳱ relative permeability of each fluid as a function of Sf
q ⳱ well flow rate
qi ⳱ well flow rate calculated with the standard reservoir
simulator
Qi ⳱ well flow rate at perforation i simulated using the
formation damage model
NP ⳱ number of perforations (wellblocks)
pf ⳱ filtrate pressure in the formation
ph ⳱ hydrocarbon pressure in the formation
pw ⳱ bottomhole well flowing pressure
P ⳱ pressure
PI ⳱ numerical well index
S ⳱ saturation (subscript f for filtrate and h for
hydrocarbon)
␮ ⳱ viscosity
␳ ⳱ density
␾ ⳱ porosity
References
Bennion, D.B. and Thomas, F.B.: “Underbalanced Drilling of Horizontal
Wells: Does it Really Eliminate Formation Damage?” paper SPE
27352 presented at the 1994 SPE Formation Damage Control Sympo-
sium, Lafayette, Lousiana, 7–10 February.
Bennion, D.B. et al.: “Underbalanced Drilling and Formation Damage—Is
It a Total Solution?” paper presented at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the
Petroleum Society of CIM, Calgary, 12–15 June.
Bennion, D.B. et al.: “Underbalanced Drilling: Praises and Perils,” SPEDC
(1998) 13, No. 4, 214.
February 2006 SPE Production & Operations
Cade, R. et al.: “Does Underbalanced Drilling Really Add Reserves?”
paper SPE 81626 presented at the 2003 IADC/SPE Underbalanced
Technology Conference and Exhibition, Houston, 25–26 March.
Ding, Y. et al.: “Modeling of Both Near-Wellbore Damage and Natural
Cleanup of Horizontal Wells Drilled With a Water-Based Mud,” paper
SPE 73733 presented at the 2002 SPE International Symposium and
Exhibition on Formation Damage Control, Lafayette, Louisiana, 20–21
February.
Ding, Y. and Renard, G. : “Modelling of Near-Wellbore Formation Dam-
age for Openhole Horizontal Wells in Anisotropic Media,” paper SPE
82255 presented at the 2003 SPE European Formation Damage Con-
ference, The Hague, 13–14 May.
Suryanarayana, P.V. et al.: “Development of a Probabilistic Model To
Estimate Productivity Improvement due to Underbalanced Drilling,”
paper SPE 81639 presented at the 2003 IADC/SPE Underbalanced
Technology Conference and Exhibition, Houston, 25–26 March.
Xiong, H. and Shan, D.: “Reservoir Criteria for Selecting Underbalanced
Drilling Candidates,” paper SPE 81621 presented at the 2003 IADC/
SPE Underbalanced Technology Conference and Exhibition, Houston,
25–26 March.
SI Metric Conversion Factors
bar × 1.0* E+05 ⳱ Pa
ft × 3.048* E–01 ⳱ m
*Conversion factors are exact.
Yu Ding is a senior research engineer at Inst. Français du Pé-
trole (IFP) in Rueil Malmaison, France. His research interests in-
clude numerical modeling, reservoir simulation and character-
ization, complex wells, and near-well flow. He holds a BS de-
gree in mathematics from Peking U. and MS and PhD degrees
in applied mathematics from U. de Paris. Benjamin Herzhaft
has been a research engineer at IFP since 1997. His research
interests include projects on mud logging and well productiv-
ity. He is coauthor of several SPE papers, mainly on drilling fluids
for different applications as foams for underbalanced drilling,
rheological properties of muds, and hydrates in drilling muds.
He holds an Msc degree from ESPCI in Paris and a PhD degree
in physics from the U. of Paris VI. Gerard Renard is a principal
research engineer at IFP. His research interests are in reservoir
engineering aspects of horizontal wells and EOR, especially in
thermal recovery methods. He holds degrees in fluid mechan-
ics from the École Natl. Supérieure d’Electronique, d’Electro-
technique, d’Informatique, et d’Hydraulique de Toulouse and
in petroleum engineering from the École Natl. Supérieure du
Pétrole et des Moteurs.
57