As many oil & gas reservoirs are depleting every day
around worldwide, the demand for fossil fuel has been dramatic.
Therefore, the international oil & gas companies & operators are
trying to find out new hydrocarbons energy sources for instance,
heavy oil and tight sand gas. Nowadays, tight gas reservoirs are
one of the most attractive new energy sources for oil & gas
companies and researchers as well. Tight gas reservoir refers to
hydrocarbons reservoir that content unconventional gas. Tight
gas reservoir usually possesses low permeability rocks that make
the gas tricky and difficult to produce (Noeth, 2004). Tight gas
reservoirs are distributed in many part of the world for example,
Australia, Asia and North America. However, the largest
accumulations of it are in two major regions, North America and
Russia. Tight gas formation is usually damaged due to its low
permeable rocks. In fact, hydrocarbons formation damage is a
huge operation and economic problems that cause several
operation problems. Therefore, many researchers are attempting
to find out new technics to drill and produce tight gas and avoid
tight gas formation damage for example, adopting especial
drilling fluids, utilizing horizontal drilling technology and
underbalanced drilling technology (Bennion & Thomas, 1994).
Therefore, this review study aims to study the advantages of
underbalanced drilling in minimizing formation damage in tight
gas reservoir during drilling operations. It focused on the
benefits of underbalanced technology in tight gas reservoir for
instance, it inspected the features of underbalanced drilling in
tight gas reservoir drilling and the potential factors that may
cause tight gas formation damage during the well drilling
operation. The study finds out that the underbalanced drilling
may more beneficial than conventional drilling operation in tight
gas reservoir. However, the underbalanced drilling could also
cause some potential technical problems in tight gas wells.
Original Title
The Utilization Of Underbalanced Drilling Technology May Minimize Tight Gas Reservoir Formation Damage: A Review Study
As many oil & gas reservoirs are depleting every day
around worldwide, the demand for fossil fuel has been dramatic.
Therefore, the international oil & gas companies & operators are
trying to find out new hydrocarbons energy sources for instance,
heavy oil and tight sand gas. Nowadays, tight gas reservoirs are
one of the most attractive new energy sources for oil & gas
companies and researchers as well. Tight gas reservoir refers to
hydrocarbons reservoir that content unconventional gas. Tight
gas reservoir usually possesses low permeability rocks that make
the gas tricky and difficult to produce (Noeth, 2004). Tight gas
reservoirs are distributed in many part of the world for example,
Australia, Asia and North America. However, the largest
accumulations of it are in two major regions, North America and
Russia. Tight gas formation is usually damaged due to its low
permeable rocks. In fact, hydrocarbons formation damage is a
huge operation and economic problems that cause several
operation problems. Therefore, many researchers are attempting
to find out new technics to drill and produce tight gas and avoid
tight gas formation damage for example, adopting especial
drilling fluids, utilizing horizontal drilling technology and
underbalanced drilling technology (Bennion & Thomas, 1994).
Therefore, this review study aims to study the advantages of
underbalanced drilling in minimizing formation damage in tight
gas reservoir during drilling operations. It focused on the
benefits of underbalanced technology in tight gas reservoir for
instance, it inspected the features of underbalanced drilling in
tight gas reservoir drilling and the potential factors that may
cause tight gas formation damage during the well drilling
operation. The study finds out that the underbalanced drilling
may more beneficial than conventional drilling operation in tight
gas reservoir. However, the underbalanced drilling could also
cause some potential technical problems in tight gas wells.
As many oil & gas reservoirs are depleting every day
around worldwide, the demand for fossil fuel has been dramatic.
Therefore, the international oil & gas companies & operators are
trying to find out new hydrocarbons energy sources for instance,
heavy oil and tight sand gas. Nowadays, tight gas reservoirs are
one of the most attractive new energy sources for oil & gas
companies and researchers as well. Tight gas reservoir refers to
hydrocarbons reservoir that content unconventional gas. Tight
gas reservoir usually possesses low permeability rocks that make
the gas tricky and difficult to produce (Noeth, 2004). Tight gas
reservoirs are distributed in many part of the world for example,
Australia, Asia and North America. However, the largest
accumulations of it are in two major regions, North America and
Russia. Tight gas formation is usually damaged due to its low
permeable rocks. In fact, hydrocarbons formation damage is a
huge operation and economic problems that cause several
operation problems. Therefore, many researchers are attempting
to find out new technics to drill and produce tight gas and avoid
tight gas formation damage for example, adopting especial
drilling fluids, utilizing horizontal drilling technology and
underbalanced drilling technology (Bennion & Thomas, 1994).
Therefore, this review study aims to study the advantages of
underbalanced drilling in minimizing formation damage in tight
gas reservoir during drilling operations. It focused on the
benefits of underbalanced technology in tight gas reservoir for
instance, it inspected the features of underbalanced drilling in
tight gas reservoir drilling and the potential factors that may
cause tight gas formation damage during the well drilling
operation. The study finds out that the underbalanced drilling
may more beneficial than conventional drilling operation in tight
gas reservoir. However, the underbalanced drilling could also
cause some potential technical problems in tight gas wells.
The Utilization Of Underbalanced Drilling Technology May Minimize Tight Gas Reservoir Formation Damage: A Review Study Ribwar Abdulrahman Faculty of Engineering, Koya University, Kurdistan region. Iraq
Abstract as many oil & gas reservoirs are depleting every day around worldwide, the demand for fossil fuel has been dramatic. Therefore, the international oil & gas companies & operators are trying to find out new hydrocarbons energy sources for instance, heavy oil and tight sand gas. Nowadays, tight gas reservoirs are one of the most attractive new energy sources for oil & gas companies and researchers as well. Tight gas reservoir refers to hydrocarbons reservoir that content unconventional gas. Tight gas reservoir usually possesses low permeability rocks that make the gas tricky and difficult to produce (Noeth, 2004). Tight gas reservoirs are distributed in many part of the world for example, Australia, Asia and North America. However, the largest accumulations of it are in two major regions, North America and Russia. Tight gas formation is usually damaged due to its low permeable rocks. In fact, hydrocarbons formation damage is a huge operation and economic problems that cause several operation problems. Therefore, many researchers are attempting to find out new technics to drill and produce tight gas and avoid tight gas formation damage for example, adopting especial drilling fluids, utilizing horizontal drilling technology and underbalanced drilling technology (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). Therefore, this review study aims to study the advantages of underbalanced drilling in minimizing formation damage in tight gas reservoir during drilling operations. It focused on the benefits of underbalanced technology in tight gas reservoir for instance, it inspected the features of underbalanced drilling in tight gas reservoir drilling and the potential factors that may cause tight gas formation damage during the well drilling operation. The study finds out that the underbalanced drilling may more beneficial than conventional drilling operation in tight gas reservoir. However, the underbalanced drilling could also cause some potential technical problems in tight gas wells.
To keep step with the growth of world oil & gas markets, international oil and gas companies have a duty to find economically solutions for accessing new resources. One current potential target of research is the development of unconventional gas reserves such as tight gas. Although the volumes in place are distributed all over the world, the largest accumulations occur in two major regions, North America and Russia (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). Tight gas reservoirs formed by rocks of low porosity and low permeability, tight gas is a prospect which, to date, remains underexploited outside the United States (Noeth, 2004). Tight gas reservoirs is compared with the middle or high-permeability gas Reservoirs by many researchers, the low-permeability and tight sandstone gas reservoirs possess the characteristics of small pore throat, high water wettability, strong capillary imbibition effect. Therefore, tight gas reservoir is very easy to be damaged during well drilling operation & completion (Feng et al., 2009). The tight gas reservoirs contain large accumulations of hydrocarbons that could be produced by adopting new oil & gas technics. In order to meet global energy demand, oil & gas companies try to access these gas reservoirs and drill deeper and harder to get at hydrocarbon reservoirs requires. However, tight gas reservoir drilling & operation may consider quite costly in recent era. Therefore, it needs more investigation & researches to make it faceable & more economical. Tight gas reservoir usually possesses low permeable rocks that make the gas tricky and difficult to produce. In other word, tight gas reservoir has a formation with permeability of 0.1 millidarcy (mD). As Ghosh & Prelas (2009) defined low-permeability (tight) reservoirs as "Having permeability less than 0.1 millidarcies". Moreover, tight gas reservoir is also called tight gas sands because the reservoir rocks is usually sandstone rocks (Bennion & Thomas, 1994).Therefore, tight gas reservoir may consider a difficult energy source.
. Figure (1): Thin section of a conventional sandstone reservoir (Pinedale, 2013).
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 5 Number 1- Nov 2013
Figure (2): Shows a thin section of tight gas reservoir (Pinedale, 2013).
FORMATION DAMAGE A. Formation damage is considered one of the most obvious oil & gas well drilling problems. It has been described by many researchers & experts as undesirable operation and economic problemthat can occur during the various oil and gas wells operations for instance, well drilling, well completion and work over operation. As Civan (2001) indicated that Formation damage is an undeniable operational and economic problem that occur during various phases of oil and gas recovery fromsubsurface reservoir. Formation damage requires several engineering work for instance, damage assessment, damage control & damage remediation. Indeed, formation damage may lead to many technical problems for example, permeability impairment, decrease of well performance, loss of circulation & skin damage. Formation damage may be occurred during well drilling, hydraulic fracturing and work over operation. As a result, in all well operation phases formation damage will reduce the permeability of hydrocarbons formation. In tight gas reservoir formation damage causes reduction in productivity of low permeable gas reservoirs. Tight gas reservoirs are quite susceptible to formation damage. Because of the nature of its low permeable rocks. Therefore, tight gas revoir incur much more excessive formation damage than other reservoir types. These damage mechanisms predominantly fall into the following three major classifications (Bennion & Thomas, 1994): - Mechanical formation damage mechanisms - Chemical formation damage mechanisms - Biological formation damage mechanism B. This review study will focus on this phenomenon in case of formation damage in tight gas reservoirs during well drilling and completion stages. As mentioned earlier, tight gas reservoir possess low permeable rocks specially in well formation area that make it quite sensitive to any damage. Defiantly, formation damage will cause huge technical problem for the gas well. In fact, one of the most successful solutions to prevent formation damaged problems is adopting underbalanced drilling. Technology rather than conventional drilling operation. Underbalanced drilling, or UBD, is a procedure used to drill oil and gas wells where the pressure in the wellbore is kept lower than the fluid pressure in the formation being drilled. When the well is being drilled, formation fluid flows into the wellbore. Underbalanced drilling will reduce the drilling time & make the process more economical. Moreover, UBD has many advantages for example, increases the rate of penetration & prevent formation damage problems. Underbalanced drilling (UBD) allowed the hole section to be drilled 40% faster than planned, with instantaneous ROP increases of 2-1/2 times (Waterford, 2013). Drilling of tight gas reservoir formation is quite sensitive and it might be damaged easily because the tight gas reservoir possesses low permeable rocks. This is due to the generally unforgiving nature of low permeability rock in that we can tolerate only a minimal amount of damage, due to the already inherently low permeability, and to the fact that low permeability formations generally experience much more severe damage than their higher permeability counterparts because it has a high degree of sensitivity to capillary effects. As mentioned earlier, underbalanced drilling is defined as drilling operations where the drilling fluid pressure in the borehole is less than the pore pressure in the formation rock in the open- hole section. By using light drilling fluids, the driller intentionally keeps the borehole pressure frombalancing the formation pore fluid pressure. The light fluids used in underbalanced drilling are usually air, gas, foam, and aerated water. However, oil, water, and even weighted mud can be used for underbalanced drilling in areas where formation pore pressure gradients are higher than the hydrostatic pressure gradient of water. In conventional drilling or overbalanced, drilling fluid is pumped into the well at pressure higher than in the reservoir. This keeps the oil and gas in the reservoir during drilling, but the high pressure can damage the rock around the wellbore. Underbalanced drilling a type of managed pressure drilling uses lighter fluids or gases so pressure is lower than in the reservoir so that fluids can enter the well shaft (Civan, 2001). This prevents damage to the reservoir rock and allows oil and gas to flow freely, increasing production. Drilling induced formation damage becomes more of an issue when open hole non-fractured completions are contemplated (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). The low permeability gas reservoirs, these types of completions are generally only successful if a large surface area of the formation can be accessed, for example, in a horizontal well, a large vertical pay zone with a conventional well, or an open hole completion in a shorter but naturally micro zone of the formation (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). The physical invasion of International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 5 Number 1- Nov 2013
artificial solids may occur during well drilling, completion, work over or kill treatments if operating in hydrostatically overbalanced conditions. Due to the very small pore throats normally associated with low permeability gas reservoirs, any significant depth of invasion of mud solids into the rock is not normally observed (unless fractures or extremely small solids, which can sometimes be generated by PDC bits, are present) (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). Once again, this is usually only a concern in situations where open hole completions are contemplated due to the shallow nature of the damage. Indeed, the effects of formation damage in tight gas reservoirs are varying in the deferent well operation stages. However, many researchers indicated that the drilling stage may face the majority of this damage. Moreover, the degree of formation damage during drilling process may be related with the type of well drilling for example, directional, underbalanced and overbalanced drilling. In fact, in conventional drilling mud is used in order to clean the borehole fromdrilling cuts and supporting the hydraulic pressure inside the wellbore (Bennion & Thomas, 1994). However, mud solid invitation may occur and damaging the formation. In general these physical invasions of artificial and natural solid particulars occur during overbalanced drilling conditions. Therefore, it seems that the adopting of underbalanced drilling may consider more successful operation than overbalanced drilling in tight gas reservoirs. I. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, this study is attempted to revise & describe the tight gas reservoir features & properties. Moreover, it described the most obvious technical problems that associated with tight gas reservoir drilling & operation problems for example, formation damage. It could be argued that the formation damage is considered the most obvious technical problems during tight gas well drilling, work over and production. However, the majority of formation damage problems in tight gas wells could be occurred during drilling operation and it cause by overbalanced drilling operation due to low permeability of these reservoirs. Therefore, it could be argued that the adopting of overbalanced drilling in tight gas wells is not successful and cause several technical & economic problems. However, the adopting of underbalanced drilling technology may consider more successful & economical to achieve well drilling operation. Moreover, underbalanced drilling technology in tight gas reservoir is also poses more benefits for instance, reduce drilling time & operating cost, increase the rate of penetration and prevents many other technical problems (Weatherford, 2013).
REFERENCES
1- Sheila Noeth (2004) Economics of Petroleum Production: A Compendium. Huston: multi-science publishing. 2- Bennion, D. &Thomas, F. (2000) 'Low Permeability Gas Reservoirs and Formation Damage -Tricks and Traps'. Gas technology symposium. Alberta, 3 April. Alberta: SPE, pp. 1/1-1/9. 3- Pinedale (2013) Tight Gas Reservoirs. [Image] Available at: http://www.pinedaleonline.com. (Accessed: 2 September 2013). 4- Feng, Z., Hongming, T. & Yingfeng, M. (2009) 'Damage evaluation for water-based underbalanced drilling in low-permeability and tight sandstone gas reservoir'. PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT. 36(1), p.p 113-119. 5- Ghosh, T. & Prelas, M. (2009) Energy Resources and Systems. Columbia: Springer. 6- Civan, F. (2001) Reservoir Formation Damage. Burlington: Gulf professional publishing. 7- Weatherford (2013) Underbalanced Drilling Operation Enables Successful Performance. Available at: weatherford.com. Accessed: (12 September 2013).