SPE-202512-MS

Well Planning and Operational Practices to Decrease Differential Sticking

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Risk in Tengiz Field, Kazakhstan

Ilyas Tussupbayev, Nurbolat Tlepbergenov, Kyle Jonathan Jung, Inzhu Issayeva, Marat Sargunanov, and Ruslan
Manakhayev, Tengizchevroil

Copyright 2020, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference originally scheduled to be held in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, 21 – 22 October
2020. Due to COVID-19 the physical event was not held and was changed to a virtual event. The official proceedings were published online on 21 October 2020.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE 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 and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, 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 is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Drilling in a mature reservoir can involve multiple added risks over time including reservoir depletion that
may cause serious drilling problems and significant cost increase. Effective management of these problems
during well planning stage and during execution is crucial to prevent issues with drill pipe, casing and
logging tools that are at a higher risk for differential sticking,
Differential sticking has the potential to become a significant issue for drilling operations because of the
wide variation in pressure in different parts of the Tengiz reservoir. The degree of depletion depends on
the variability of the reservoir, which itself is dependent on the properties of the different geological facies.
Reservoir hole section can have different pressure regimes, which require higher mud weight and thus high
potential for differential sticking problems. Consequently, as the Tengiz reservoir pressures depletes, the
risk of differentially stuck pipe, casing or logging tool increases. During current drilling campaign there
were three wells that experienced major issues caused by differential sticking and lead to significant cost
associated with sidetrack operations and lost in hole charges.
Pore pressure predictions and proposed well trajectory are some of the most important factors for
prediction of differential sticking issues. For predictions during well planning "differential factor" was
defined, which incorporates well angle and reservoir pressure. As a result, it helps to understand if
differential sticking risk is high and use preventative measures if needed to reduce it. Guidelines were
developed to help to mitigate potential problems while drilling across differentially pressured zones and
include identification of signs of sticking, bottom hole assembly design considerations, preventative mud
treatments and reactive measures to optimize ability to drill wells and reduce non-productive time associated
with differential sticking. After implementation of above mentioned measures there were only two minor
differential sticking events observed.

Introduction
Drilling is vital part of any field management and comprises significant part of field development cost.
Consequently, all major oil and gas companies seek to ensure that all drilling activities are properly planned
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and optimized. Though, due to unexpected problems encountered during drilling operation the overall
drilling cost and non-productive time is usually increased. Stuck pipe is one of the major problems that
occurs during drilling.
Differential pressure sticking happens when drilling equipment is unable to move upon being emerged in
the filter cake built up in on a borehole wall within a permeable formation, having hydrostatic pressure of the
mud to be significantly higher than pore pressure (Helmick and Longley 1957). As a result of this imbalance
there is the tendency for fluid to be drawn into the formation. The higher differential force in the well pushes

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the drill-string, wireline or other equipment toward the borehole wall. Accurate pore pressure prediction can
help planning team to identify any potential problem at early stages. Additionally, differential sticking can
only happen in the presence of a permeable formation. The contact area between the drill-string, wireline or
other equipment and formation is associated to be the dominate force contributing to differential sticking.
Drill-string design to reduce contact area is one of the most effective ways to reduce sticking concerns.
Most drilling fluid formulations include components designed to build a filter cake on the borehole wall
which prevent hydraulic communication between the wellbore fluid and formation fluid. As a result, a
perfect, impermeable filter cake will eliminate the risk of differential stuck pipe. Unfortunately, this is rarely
achieved in practice due to factors such as poor filtration control, thick filter cake, mechanical removal of the
filter cake through pipe movement, and the time required to form the filter cake after drilling new formation.
Differential pressure sticking is usually indicated when the pipe cannot be rotated or reciprocated but full
circulation at normal pressure can be established. Conditions contributing to the likelihood of differential
pressure sticking are listed below:

• Highly permeable formation

• Significant differential pressure between wellbore fluid and formation

• Hole deviation

• BHA / drill-string and formation contact area

• The relative geometry of the pipe and the wellbore

• The period of time the drill-string remains stationary

• The degree of drill collar stabilization

• Poor particle size distribution in the mud leading to poor filtration properties and the formation of
a thick, high permeability filter cake

Tengiz Background and Challenges

Tengiz is a super-giant carbonate field located in the Precaspian basin in western Kazakhstan. It is
geographically located in northeastern side from present Caspian Sea (Figure 1). Tengiz is a carbonate
buildup reservoir. It is shaped with flat "platform" top and slopes on the sides. Areal extent is as high as
~400km2 at the base. Maximum depth at the base is approximately −5,450 m below subsea level with oil
column thickness of ~800 m (Kenter et. al., 2006).
SPE-202512-MS 3

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Figure 1—Map of Tengiz and Korolev fields

The central platform rock type is dominated by the matrix porosity and permeability and contains few
fractures. Conversely, the productivity of the slope region is dominated by fracture permeability. This region
is characterized by significant bit-drops and massive lost circulation while drilling, which in turn creates
difficulties in bringing new wells to production (Bopiyev et. al., 2018).
Since 2012 Tengiz field was actively being drilled and incident rates of stuck pipe events were
insignificant, due to lower porosity and permeability observed within reservoir, low angle wells and less
depletion observed. Differential sticking problem was overlooked until increase in events occurred in recent
years due to depletion of the reservoir and high angle wells drilled. Within 2018-2019 Tengizchevroil (TCO)
has experienced 3 types / situations of differential sticking:

• The 1st relates to the slope of Tengiz, where the isolated highly pressured pockets of low-quality
reservoir rock require the use of a high mud weight creating considerable delta-P with pore pressure
of underlying facies. This resulted in two incidents of stuck pipe, of which one ended up with
leaving bottom hole assembly in hole and one was able to release bottom hole assembly by
significantly lowering mud weight.
• The 2nd relates to platform interior well, entering Unit 2 below the volcanic tuff zone. In this case,
pressure difference between depleted Unit 1 and less depleted Unit 2 required a higher mud weight
creating a considerable delta-P. A kick from less depleted Unit 2 resulted in the need to increase
the mud weight which resulted in differential sticking and eventually led to drilling a side-track.
• The 3rd relates to a subsequent platform interior well with different pressure regimes due to
presence of baffles within Visean formation. Typically, Visean B formation is less depleted than
the Visean A, which results in requirement to increase mud weight and consequent differential
sticking issues.
After several stuck pipe events which resulted in significant cost increase of drilling and completion
of the wells, it was inevitable to develop tools and guidelines to help to predict and prevent these from
happening. Initially, database of wells with high deviation and high-pressure differential was created and
maintained. After certain number of wells was in database, analysis was conducted, and certain guideline
were developed both for planning and execution phases.

Planning phase
Any well design should start with thorough research of the reservoir geology. Input from geologists,
reservoir, and production groups to validate the formation pressures is critical. Bottom hole pressure surveys,
wireline pressure measurements, gas shows during drilling and any other relevant data should be thoroughly
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investigated in all offset wells. Special attention should be addressed to review of offset wells on potential
high-pressure pockets associated with permeability barriers.

Differential factor
Accurate pore pressure predictions provided by TCO’s Reservoir Management Group geologists, are the
most important document for prediction of differential sticking issues. Once the pressure data has been
verified by all involved stakeholders and the pore pressure prediction completed, the anticipated differential

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pressures across the reservoir section should be calculated. In order, to decrease risk of sticking "differential
factor" was modified from Weakley which incorporates sine of well deviation and pressure difference
between predicted pore pressure and hydrostatic pressure:

where α – proposed well deviation, ΔP – pressure difference between predicted pore pressure and hydrostatic
pressure.
Differential factor equation should be adjusted according to drilling observations. One of the limitations
of the equation is that for completely vertical wells risk differential factor would always be zero. So, in
order to overcome this problem, drilling team should decide on upper limit of differential pressure under
which no drilling should occur. It is also evident that well can’t be completely vertical, so 5 deg deviation
is assumed for all vertical wells.
Based on empirical observations of highly deviated wells and high pressure difference wells that
experienced differential sticking during tripping or logging, following relationships were detected: well
with a differential factor ≤ 0.35, relates to low risk of differential sticking. Wells between 0.35 < differential
factor ≤ 0.5, relates to medium risk, and finally differential factor > 0.5 relates to high risk of stuck pipe.
Graphical description is can be seen on figure 2.

Figure 2—Differential factor chart

Calculation of differential factor for individual well helps to identify potential problems at early stages
of well planning and take course of action to mitigate them, either by changing casing design, adjusting
mud program or correcting well deviation.
SPE-202512-MS 5

BHA and Drill String Design Principles

Contact area is defined as the area of the drill-string that is pressed into the wellbore. Some drivers for
contact area include standoff, length of drill-string and drill-string component vs hole size diameter. The
larger the contact area the greater the risk of differential sticking. There is no effective way to eliminate
differential sticking completely. Therefore, the design principles presented below are aimed to reduce the
contact area and mitigate differential sticking concerns. Due to BHAs being comprised of Drill Collars
(DC) and DC acting components, a fully stabilized BHA is required. These components include motors,

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M/LWD equipment, Rotary Steerable Systems (RSS) and other larger OD tools. These BHA components
have smaller clearances to hole size. Due to this small clearance a large contact area is created when the
components can come into contact with the wellbore. The stabilizers are positioned to effectively keep all
BHA components from coming into contact with the wellbore. It is recommended to have no more than
two unsupported components (~18m) in the BHA. It is also recommended to have a maximum of one DC
above the last stabilizer.
Drill collars have a large contact area and therefore a higher exposure to differential sticking. This large
contact area is driven by their outside diameter (OD) being uniform and contacting the wellbore along their
entire length ~9.1m. Compared to HWDP whose contact area is driven by the tool joints and wear pad
which account for ~1.8m of length. DCs primarily have been used to provide weight on bit (WOB) and
reduce buckling of the string. Heavyweight Drillpipe (HWDP) run in compression will also provide WOB
and is common practice in TCO. HWDP will have a lower buckling resistance but this has proven to be
acceptable in TCO. To account for the loss of available WOB from the removed DCs additional HWDP
must be picked up. If drill collars are necessary, combination of spiral drill collars and heavyweight drill
pipes are recommended to use. Spiral shape of a collar will reduce the pipe and formation contact area which
consequently reduces the risk of differential sticking.
Standoff devices are also designed to keep drill-string components from coming into contact with the
wellbore. In TCO these components are the drilling jars and slinger. Currently two options exist in TCO
related to jar standoff. The first are standoff subs that are ran above and below the jars. These subs act
like stabilizers in the BHA and keep the jars from touching the wellbore. The second is the build-up of
hard banding material just below the tong area near both the pin and box end connections. Apart from
BHA design, standoff for wireline logging tools can also be utilized to minimize contact area, which were
somewhat successful when used in TCO.

Mud Treatment Plan

Differential sticking can be a major challenge when drilling pressurized, permeable formations and is worse
when the filtercake quality is poor. High fluid loss leads to thicker filter cake which is a major cause of
differential sticking because it also increases the contact area. Low filtrate values do not necessarily mean
that filtration rates will be low downhole at increased temperature and pressure. The drilling fluid should
be tested routinely at elevated temperatures and pressures to determine filter cake compressibility. The high
temperature high pressure (HTHP) fluid loss test is recommended for this. When drilling through potentially
problematic zones, care should be taken to maintain the mud weight at the low end of the acceptable range
and not allow it to drift higher. Filter cake and HTHP fluid losses should be monitored by drilling fluid
service provider, and drill site representative while drilling the reservoir section.
The mud should be pretreated with background bridging material at the Liquid Mud Plant, but it can
also be added at the rig site if necessary. Actual concentrations will depend upon wellbore conditions, but
bridging particles should be used in all fluids that will be used to drill the reservoir section unless the offset
data shows otherwise.
However, most accurate pressure predictions, best BHA design and proper mud treatments still do not
guarantee that differential sticking issue will be avoided. It is matter of vital importance to recognize the
signs of differential sticking early during drilling operations.
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Execution phase
Drilling Practices
Drag and overpull monitoring is the most reliable method of predicting differential sticking. Persistent
overpulls while starting from slips and increase in torque and drag are the most common signs of possible
differential sticking / stuck pipe issues. Rig crew should be aware of potential problem zones and what action
to take in the event of problem. The following recommended practices were developed by TCO drilling

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team to minimize stuck occurrence:

• Maximize pipe motion

∘ Rotate string at 10-20 rpm during flow checks.
∘ Reciprocate and rotate the drill string while circulating bottoms up.
∘ Ensure the time taken for survey is not excessive. Consider options to keep pipe rotating while
surveying.
• Monitor closely torque and drag (compare actual values vs modeling). Significant changes in trend
and any evidence of differential sticking on connections should be reported immediately.
• Minimize connection time.
• Connection practices to address differential sticking:
∘ Sets slips high enough to allow for downward movement
∘ Rotate first after a connection (no up-down movement of the string).
∘ Stage up pumps to establish circulation.
∘ Weight down (slack-off).
• Maintain mud parameters as per mud treatment plan
∘ Engineer shall monitor and record the Particle Plugging Test (PPT) values using a Particle
Plugging Apparatus (PPA)
Despite the above precautions, stuck pipe may still occur. Firstly, it is necessary to determine and ensure
that the stuck pipe mechanism is differential and not mechanical. Mechanically working / jarring BHA loose
while applying torque to try to work the pipe free. The first action should be to apply right hand torque and
slack off string weight to cock the jars and jar down. The jars supplied to TCO are designed to jar down
with torque applied. Pulling up can cause the pipe to be further pressed against the wellbore / filter cake
making matters worse. Another alternative is the reduction of hydrostatic pressure by spotting or u-tubing a
column of fluid of lower density than the mud in use. However, lowering hydrostatic pressure might cause
other well control issues, such as kicks or blow outs, so it has to be done very carefully.
Differentially stuck pipe, unlike mechanically stuck pipe, cannot usually be removed by working the pipe
free and this means that differentially stuck pipe normally requires the use of spotting fluids that disrupt
and degrade the filtercake (reducing its surface area or shear strength) and thus aid in freeing the pipe.
One technique for freeing stuck pipe in carbonate formations is to spot hydrochloric acid (HCl) opposite
to the stuck zone. The acid will react and degrade / dissolve the formation. This reduces the pipe / formation
contact area and should allow the pipe to be jarred free. The pill should be spotted around the BHA and left
to soak. During this soaking period, torque should be applied to the string and occasional attempts made to
jar the pipe free should any sign of torque reduction occur. However, laboratory testing with TCO specific
drilling fluids showed that the most effective pill contained 15% v/v of neat (36-38%) w/w hydrochloric
acid. The main disadvantage of HCl is its high corrosivity, especially at high downhole temperature (above
250°F), where the reaction rate between HCl and steel tubulars is even faster and more difficult to control.
High strength acids such as 36-38% w/w HCl should be pre-treated with suitable corrosion inhibitors as per
SPE-202512-MS 7

before adding it to the mix. Maximum contact time with BHA for this type of acid pill should be limited
to prevent corrosion of steel components.

Results
In a six-year period from 2012 through 2018 TCO drilled twenty wells with high deviations and in high
pressure differential environment. Three major and nine medium events of differential sticking occurred

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during this period. One major event led to inability to retrieve BHA and leaving it in hole. During second
event BHA was released by significantly reducing hydrostatic pressure through decreasing mud weight.
Nine medium events were mainly associated with overpulls during tripping out of hole up to 70,000lbs,
but did not lead to stuck pipe events. Figure 3 shows wells from the database prior to any changes in early
planning and drilling practices, on a differential factor chart that was discussed in previous section.

Figure 3—Pre guideline application wells

As can be seen from Figure 3, it was necessary to take measures to prevent differential sticking, as
more than 50% of the wells drilled through depleted reservoir section experienced differential sticking
issues. Guidelines were developed based on TCO/Chevron and industry wide experience in drilling
depleted reservoirs, which included early well planning adjustments into casing design, mud program, BHA
design and during drilling execution. Main objectives of this document were to standardize technical and
operational procedures to safely mitigate potential problems while drilling across differentially pressured
zones where differential sticking can be expected.
Additionally, it was aimed to manage operations when differential sticking occurs and identify what
actions are needed to free pipe. TCO’s systematic approach to apply guidelines and train drilling crew
resulted in significant decrease of incidents of differential sticking events. As can be seen in figure 4,
there was only one major sticking event, however it was not associated with drilling or tripping out of
hole, but rather with sticking of wireline tools while logging. Other two medium were also associated with
observation of wireline tools sticking. One of alternatives to avoid differential sticking of wireline tools in
highly deviated wells, is to use logging-while-drilling (LWD). Since little can be done to change wireline
tools design, whereas BHA design can be significantly improved as discussed in previous sections. This
is also reflected in figure 4. Before and after differential sticking guidelines application is better shown on
Figure 5.
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Figure 4—Post guideline application wells

Figure 5—Comparison before and after guidelines were applied

Conclusions
The current low number of sticking incidents reflects tedious work performed by various groups including
drilling fluid engineer, planning drilling engineers, drill site managers and geologists to increase operational
awareness of risks associated with differential sticking. Sticking risk still exists in wells drilled with high
deviation and through depleted intervals and it is impossible to completely eliminate it. However, goal of
differential sticking guidelines was to increase awareness of the drilling crew and maintain conditions at
which it is still possible to deliver enough force to stuck pipe to release it. Although it is quite ambitious,
recent statistics of drilled wells shows that it is attainable.

Acknowledgements
The authors of this manuscript would like to acknowledge TCO management and TCO partners: Chevron,
ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., KazMunaiGas and LukArco for their permission to publish this
paper.
SPE-202512-MS 9

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