SEMINAR REPORT

ON
DRILL PIPES IN HORIZONTAL WELLS

BY
ASHITA S. HIREGOUDAR
Roll Number: 311006

Under the guidance of

Mr Sanjay R. Joshi

DEPARTMENT OF PETROLEUM AND PETROCHEMICAL

ENGINEERING
MAEERs
MAHARASHTRA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, PUNE
UNIVERSITY OF PUNE
MARCH 2014

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the technical seminar report entitled Drill Pipes in
Horizontal Wells, submitted by Ms.AshitaHiregoudar is a record of the
bonafide work carried out by her, under my guidance, in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the third year course requirement of University of Pune.

Date: 15th April, 2015

Place: Pune

Mr. P.B. Jadhav,

Mr. Sanjay R. Joshi

Head of Department,

Professor,

Department of Petroleum Engineering,

Department of Petroleum Engineering,

MIT Pune

MIT Pune

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who have helped
me with my project, and have seen this project grow and bear fruit. Firstly, I
would like to thank my guide, Mr Sanjay R. Joshi, for had it not been for him,
my project would have remained as a mere idea in my mind. The honesty of his
critics and endless patience in reviewing my project countless times is
something I am deeply grateful for.
I would also like to thank my friends; Mr AtulRaina and Mr Shri Krishna for
their contribution in making my project come alive. I would also like to thank
all the teachers in our department for their counselling and support. Lastly, I
would like to thank our Head of Department, Mr P.B. Jadhav for providing me
with the opportunity and the facilities required by me to do the project.
Before signing off, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my parents, for
their unconditional love and support.

Ashita S. Hiregoudar
Roll number: 311006
TE Petroleum

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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List of Acronyms

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Topic 1: Introduction

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LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ACRONYMS:

KOP- Kick Off Point
OWC- Oil Water Contact

LIST OF FIGURES:
A. Hypnogram

B. Sleeping Positions

1. INTRODUCTION
The need to access more difficult to reach reservoirs in order to obtain oil has
made technology in the Oil and Gas industry advance. New ideas and
innovations are being tried and tested in order to maximise gains. One such
innovation which changed the path of the industry was Horizontal Drilling.
History has it that this drilling technique dates back to the 1920s. But its
widespread application has increased in the recent years.

A. What is a Horizontal Well?

A horizontal well is a high angle well that is drilled to enhance the performance
of the reservoir by drilling a long well section within the reservoir. It is usually a
long horizontal section which runs parallel to the reservoir so that maximum
lateral access can be obtained.

B. Why is it drilled?
A horizontal well is drilled due to a number of reasons:
a. Fluid Flow problems:
Fluid flow problems encountered in vertically drilled and
completed wells during production may be as:
Gas and Water Coning:
Gas and Water coning occurs when these fluids get produced from
a well with reduced oil production. This occurs when the gas and
water infiltrates the productive zone (perforations) in the near well
bore area. With production, the reservoir pressure is drawn around
the wellbore elevating the level of oil/water surface and increasing
the depth of gas/oil surface in the vicinity. The breakthrough of
fluids other than oil happens only after a particular production rate,
which is called the critical production rate. Horizontal wells place
the wellbore near the top of the reservoir, in the case of an oil/water
well, hence well away from the OWC. In a vertical well, the
volume within the cone around the wellbore is the volume of oil
that gets displaced before water breakthrough, whereas in a

horizontal well, the cone becomes a crest. Hence more volume of

oil gets produced before coning.

Low Permeability Zones:

In low permeability reservoirs, an unstimulated vertical wellbore is
incapable of delivering economic production rates. With hydraulic
fracturing, and a significant fracture length, the reservoir can
become economically viable. But if the reservoir is juxtaposition to
formations that will not contain fractures, hydraulic fracturing will
not be successful.
In such cases, a horizontal well can be used to place a flow path
through the reservoir as an alternative to hydraulic fracturing.
b. Heterogeneous Reservoirs:
For achieving success in horizontal well completion, it is important
to understand the heterogeneous character to the reservoir. Let us
look into the following:
Carbonate Systems:
Carbonate reservoirs are difficult to predict and are complex, with
respect to the porosity patterns. A horizontal well will connect the
areas of high permeability rock that are separated by low
permeability sections hence developing the well profitably.

Channel Point Bars:

A point bar is a depositional feature made of alluvium that
accumulates on the inside bend of streams and rivers below the
slip-off slope. They usually contain non-permeable clay layers.
If the orientation of the point bar can be determined, a horizontal
well can be drilled to provide conductivity between these
impermeable shale drapes and the sand wedges.

Braided Stream System:

Braided Streams are basically multiple shallow small channels tht
divide and recombine forming a pattern in a stream. Braided
streams form where the sediment load is heavy such that it deposits
as shifting islands or bars between channels. These bars or lenses
are often of low permeability. In such a case, a vertical well will
produce reserves from a long narrow section of the reservoir with
minimum contribution from channel sands( which are adjacent to
the wellbore in a direction perpendicular to the direction of stream
flow). A horizontal well can penetrate these channel sands by being
drilled normal to the streamss direction of flow, hence accessing
more channels.

Fracture Systems:
If there is no fracture system encountered in a wellbore, the
economic productivity of the well is difficult. Horizontal wells
greatly increase the probability of encountering a fracture system
and significantly reduce the risk of a dry hole.

C. How is a Horizontal Well drilled?

A horizontal well can be built by using three different Build Up rates. These are:
1) Long Radius Well
2) Medium Radius Well
3) Short Radius Well.
a. Long Radius Well
A LRW builds inclination at 2 to 6/100 ft which defines a radius of
1000 to 3000 ft . It requires larger but conventional rotary equipment.
It is drilled by conventional pipe rotation and requires a collar type
MWD Tool. The horizontal interval for such a well is generally 20005000ft.
b. Medium Radius Well

A MRW builds inclination at 8 to 20/100 ft which defines a radius of

285 to 700 ft. It is the most cost effective method as tubulars and
evaluation methods mostly remain the same. It requires drilling
motors and also rotary equipment. It is drilled by limited pipe rotation
and requires a probe type MWD Tool. The horizontal interval for such
a well is generally 1500-2000 ft. High BURs of MRW eliminate many
drilling problems inherent in long radius wells.
c. Short Radius Well
A SRW builds inclination at 1.5 to 3/ ft and can reach 90 in 20 to
60ft. It requires special downhole tools; conventional
downholetubulars, evaluation tools and completion tools cannot pass
through the tight radius section. The horizontal interval for such a well
is generally 300-400 ft. It is drilled using Slide Drilling, which is
drilling without the rotation of drillpipe and only using downhole
motors.

2. PROBLEMS IN DRILLSTRING
During drilling, the drillstring is susceptible to a lot of different hole
conditions and hence it becomes more difficult to operate and can get
damaged. The different problems which are faced in drilling Horizontal
Wells can be listed as below:
A. EXERTING WOB AND RUNNING IN TOOLS
In a vertical well, application of WOB is easier because the axial
component is directly acting on the bit. But in a horizontal well,
with increasing inclination, a large proportion of the applied weight
acts on the side of the borehole, and the axial component exerting
WOB reduces.

Wsin

Wcos

Wsinf

Here, W is the weight of the drillstring. The downward movement

of drillstring will only occur if Wcos is greater than Wsinf(drag).
B. CONTROLLING THE WELL PATH
Due to problems in applying WOB and the tendency of the bit to
be deflected ( by natural features such as bedding planes and
continuous rotation of bit), it is not always possible to keep the
well on course.
Wireline Survey tools are not applicable to Deviated wells which
are highly deviated as the cannot be lowered easily and it is more
hard to retrieve them.
In such cases, MWD tools are the best option as they provide
directional and logging data.
C. HOLE CLEANING
In deviated wells, the drill cuttings tend to settle on the low side of
the well. In horizontal wells, the settling of cuttings causes the
formation of cutting beds which creates problems in tripping out of
hole.
The problems in a drillstring specifically can be
summarised as below:
A.
B.
C.
D.

TWISTOFF
BURSTING AND COLLAPSE
PARTING
FATIGUE

Twistof of Drill Pipe occurs when excessive torque

application or fatigue causes the drill pipe to break off. In
more specific terms, the breaking of the drillpipe when
the induced shear stress caused by high torque exceeds
the ultimate shear stress of the pipe material.
Parting is basically the breaking or tearing of the drill
pipe when in tension. It occurs when the induced tensile

stress exceeds the ultimate tensile stress of the pipe

material.
Fatigue occurs due to cyclic compression and tension of
the drill pipe in bent sections. Fatigue is the dynamic
phenomenon that may be defined as the initiation of
micro-cracks and thus propagation into macro-cracks as a
result of repeated application of stress.
Bursting and Collapse occur at extreme conditions and
hence will not be discussed here.
The MAIN factors that control the damaging of the drill
string are thus:
A. TORQUE AND DRAG
B. BUCKLING
C. STRESSES IN PIPE
These will be discussed in detail.

3. TORQUE AND DRAG

By a textbook definition, torque is the tendency of a force to rotate an
object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. With respect to a drill string, the
torque is the resistive force preventing the drillstring from rotating.
Drag is the frictional resistance to the movement of the pipe in the
wellbore and prevents the application of WOB. Hole Drag is the result of
contact between drill string and the hole wall or casing.
Monitoring the Torque and Drag is essential as they are used to foretell
the onset of hole cleaning problems and stuck pipe problems.
The sliding friction force will be observed as drill string torque, drill
string drag, or a combination of both.Drill string drag ismaximum when
the drill string is pulled out of hole without rotation. If the drill string is
rotated and pulled, then the drag reduces but the torque component
increases.
Essentially both of them are frictional forces and are related as follows:

For c = velocity component due to drillpipe rotation

d= velocity component of downward motion &
r= velocity component of resultant
Downward
Travel

Rotatio
n
V
c
Vr
Vd

Axial
Drag

Friction Drag acts along Vr in the opposite direction. The torsional

component is given by Vc and the axial drag is given by Vd. These velocities
are proportional to the force exerted by the same respectively. When the
Drillpipe is rotated and reciprocated the torque and drag will vary depending
upon the rotational and axial velocity of the pipe.