Kick Detection at the Bit: Early Detection via Low Cost Monitoring
- National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Albany, OR (United States). Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education (ORISE)
- National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Albany, OR (United States)
- Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Petroleum Engineering
Formation fluid influxes (i.e. kicks) pose persistent challenges and operational costs during drilling operations. Implications of kicks range in scale but cumulatively result in substantial costs that affect drilling safety, environment, schedule, and infrastructure. Early kick detection presents a low-cost, easily adopted solution for avoiding well control challenges associated with kicks near the bit. Borehole geophysical tools used during the drilling process as part of the logging-while-drilling (LWD) and measurement-while-drilling (MWD) provide the advantage of offering real-time downhole data. LWD/MWD collect data on both the annulus and borehole wall. The annular data are normally treated as background, and are filtered out to isolate the formation measurements. Because kicks will change the local physical properties of annular fluids, bottom-hole measurements are among the first indicators that a formation fluid has invaded the wellbore. This report describes and validates a technique for using the annular portion of LWD/MWD data to facilitate early kick detection using first order principles. The detection technique leverages data from standard and cost-effective technologies that are typically implemented during well drilling, such as MWD/LWD data in combination with mud-pulse telemetry for data transmission.
- Research Organization:
- National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- Contributing Organization:
- Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 1327810
- Report Number(s):
- NETL-TRS-2-2016
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Slimhole early kick detection by real-time drilling analysis
Borehole influx detector and method