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Summary
Because a borehole in a limestone formation is more stable than
expected, an openhole completion without a slotted/perforated
liner has become popular recently. However, the following three
items are not clear: (1) Why a borehole in a limestone formation is
so stable, (2) why a borehole in a limestone formation can be
completed without a liner regardless to the formation strength, and
(3) the question of stability after acid treatments. To answer these
questions, two types of laboratory experiments are conducted. One
of them is a series of borehole stability experiments using 1.5- and
2.36- to 2.39-in.-diameter borehole in a 10.510.517.5-in. limestone blocks with polyaxial confining pressures simulating a horizontal well with three different principal in-situ stresses. Two
types of limestones are used with and without borehole acid treatments and two borehole sizes are used to check the size effect.
Another type of experiment is the acid squeezing experiment, in
which 15% HCl acid solution is squeezed from one end of a
cylindrical core and the change of porosity, permeability, and
hardness are measured throughout the cores.
The results showed the following new discoveries:
1. The limestones have two distinct failure envelopes. The failure plastic strain is relatively small for normal shear failure, while
it becomes as much as 10 times larger when a shear failure is
induced after pore collapse.
2. One of the limestones used in these experiments has only
1,751 psi UCS, yet the borehole was unexpectedly stable. The
reason was that the borehole failure is induced by a shear failure
after pore collapse. It is well known that pore collapse is induced
within a formation during compaction; however, a shear failure
after pore collapse has never been observed when one boundary is
open like an open hole.
3. The confining stress inducing borehole failure was not significantly different between hydrostatic and directional loadings.
According to the Kirschs solution, the directional load should
significantly increase the stress concentration. It is well known that
the nonlinearity of rock reduces the stress concentration induced
by directional loading; however, the present experiments showed
that the magnitude of the reduction of stress concentration was
larger than expected.
4. Wormholes stabilize boreholes even though acidizing weakens formation. Therefore, enhancing wormholes is recommended
when a borehole in a limestone formation is acidized.
Normally, because limestones are relatively strong, open holes
are likely stable; however, the strength must be checked if they
need to be completed without a linear protection. To help a reader
applying the laboratory results to field problems, a guideline to
complete an open hole without a liner protection in limestone
reservoirs is provided, with calculation results using a nonlinear
finite-element model.
Introduction
When an openhole completion was selected in a limestone reservoir, the well used to be completed with a perforated/slotted liner.1
Figs. 3 through 6 show the stress strain curves and yield and
failure curves for 1,751-psi rock. These limestones have two distinct failure envelopes. The failure plastic strain is relatively small
for normal shear failure while it becomes as much as 10 times
larger when a shear failure is induced after pore collapse. Fig. 6
shows that the critical plastic strain with a confining pressure less
than 500 psi was as small as 0.002, while it jumps up to 0.03 for
higher confining pressures. Fig. 4 plots the shear yield points and
pore collapse yield points. The pore collapse yield point is elliptical, while the shear yield points flatten at a higher confining
pressure. The following mechanical properties peculiar to limesones may partially give abnormal borehole stability:
1. The critical plastic strain becomes significantly large if the
stress state exceeds a pore collapse point.
2. Pore collapse is induced with a relatively low mean stress.
Rock Property Change During Acidflooding. Two pore volume
of 15% HCl solution are injected into the samples. The description
of the samples is shown in Tables 1 and 2. Solid cylindrical cores
and sliced cylindrical cores are used for testing. The solid cores are
used for the hardness tests because the hardness tests require a
reasonably large sample. The sliced cores are used to measure the
porosity and permeability change through the cores. The injection
pressure is 5 atm, which may be common during field acid treatments. The injected acid volume is approximately 27 and 47 cc for
Limestone A and B, respectively, and their pore volumes are approximately 13.68 and 23.65 cc, respectively. The weight and
length losses were 9.5 and 5.24 g, or 0.15 and 0.083 in. for the
solid and sliced 3-in. Limestone A samples. The weight and length
losses were 24.04 and 11.25 g or 0.43 and 0.2 in. for the solid and
sliced 3-in. Limestone B samples.
Fig. 7 shows Limestone A sample after being sliced to check
the penetration of acid. The face contacting the acid solution be-
107
Fig. 12 compares the borehole stability for the hydrostatic loading and nonhydrostatic loading with 5 kpsi confining pressure.
According to the Kirschs solution, the stress concentration should
be significant for nondirectional loading. However, amazingly, the
deformation curves are similar between hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic loadings. In addition, the borehole strengths are also not
significantly different. It is true that nonlinearity of rock deformation should reduce the stress concentration; however, Fig. 12
shows that the magnitude of the reduction is more than expected.
After acidizing boreholes, borehole stability tests are conducted
for a hydrostatic loading path and for a directional loading path.
Five acidizing tests are conducted as shown in Table 4 for Sample
A. During acid circulation, the boreholes were enlarged, and the
surface became slightly wavy. To ensure deep acid penetration,
dry rock samples are used during acidizing. 1000- or 2000-cc HCl
solutions are completely reacted with the limestones while they are
stirred in the borehole. After acidizing, the rock samples are saturated
with 3% NaCl water before borehole stability tests are conducted.
Figs. 14 and 15 show the borehole test for a sample with
2000-cc HCl solution reaction. The borehole strength seems to
slightly be lowered compared to nonacid-treated cases, but the
reduced strength is not significant. As shown in Fig. 15, the borehole is enlarged because of acid reaction with a wavy surface.
When the stress is reduced after testing, the borehole surface is still
intact; however, small application of shear stress yields rock fragments from the borehole surface as shown in Fig. 16. The fragments have a reasonable strength. Figs. 14 and 17 show the results
with 2000-cc HCl flooding with directional loading path. The
borehole strength is slightly reduced compared to the nonacid
borehole; however, the strength reduction was trivial. The borehole breakout occurred in parallel with the smallest horizontal
stress direction. Fig. 14 also shows that the deformation curves and
borehole strengths are similar between hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic loadings.
Table 4 shows the conditions of the borehole stability tests for
Sample B. Although all the samples look similar, some strength
difference is observed because of rock heterogeneity. B1 and B2
samples seem to be slightly stronger than other rocks, although B1
and B3 experiments are conducted with the same condition with a
slightly different borehole size.
Fig. 18 shows the borehole stability tests without acidizing.
The borehole surface slightly protrudes inward while the surface
sporadically breaks because of shear failure. Fig. 18 shows that for
directional stress, the borehole diameter slightly enlarges during
initial application of a horizontal stress in one direction, although
after further directional stress application, the borehole size shrinks
in all directions regardless of the directional loading. Fig. 18 also
shows that the deformation curves and borehole strengths are similar between hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic loadings.
Fig. 19 shows the borehole deformation with a 2000-cc HCl
solution reaction with hydrostatic and directional loadings. The
borehole deformations reach as much as 20% of the borehole
diameter without borehole collapse. However, after releasing the
June 2005 SPE Journal
finite-element model used in this analysis. Because the experiments are conducted with symmetrical boundary conditions, 14 of
the domain is simulated. The constitutive relation used for the
model consists of poroelastic-plastic stress strain with pore collapse and shear nonlinear plastic strains simulating the empirical
triaxial curves shown by Figs. 3 through 5.
A model simulation is conducted for the Sample A condition.
Because the rock deformation properties for acidized section could
not be measured (it was not possible to make uniform acidized
samples for triaxial tests, because acid only reacts at near-rock
surface), it is assumed here that the acidized section (approximately 0.22 in. from the borehole surface) behaves like Sample B.
Note that Sample A has 0.159 porosity and Sample B has 0.267
Analysis
To interpret the experimental results, a numerical analysis is conducted using a nonlinear finite-element model. Fig. 20 shows the
Fig. 12Borehole deformation (Lime A11, Dw=2.36 in., hydrostatic; Lime A12, Dw=2.36 in., Pc=5 kpsi, nonhydrostatic).
porosity and the UCS strengths are 4,716 and 1,751 psi, respectively. As Fig. 21 shows, the stress path first reaches a shear
envelope at the borehole without a surface load, expands the shear
envelope, and finally reaches the pore collapse plastic strain. The
stress state locates on both the shear-failure and pore collapse
plastic envelopes, expanding both until reaching a shear-failure
stress state. Comparing Fig. 21 with nonacidized cases, the failure
points are almost identical, although the acidized formation at the
inner surface is significantly weaker. The reason is that because the
acidized formation has a smaller Youngs modulus because of a
high porosity, the tangential stress at the borehole surface does not
significantly increase. The load is mostly supported by the surrounding formation with a higher Youngs modulus. The maximum confining stresses to induce borehole failure are not significantly different between hydrostatic and directional loading paths
because significant nonlinearity reduces the stress concentration
for directional loading.
Field Application
Using a nonlinear finite-element borehole stability model, the reservoir depletions inducing borehole collapse are calculated using
the constitutive relations constructed for Rock A and B. Constitutive relations matching with the triaxial data (for example, Figs. 3
and 5 for Rock B) are constructed. The critical plastic strain is used
for the failure theory (for example, Fig. 6 for Rock B). The following loading path is assumed as field conditions simulating the
initial condition before drilling until a well collapse during a reservoir pressure depletion:
1. The in-situ stress is given as a residual stress at the initial
condition. The stress in equilibrium to the in-situ stress is applied
to the borehole surface, simulating the condition before drilling.
2. The borehole stress is reduced to the pore pressure to simulate the condition after drilling.
3. The reservoir pressure is reduced until the borehole plastic
strain reaches the failure plastic strain. When the pore pressure is
reduced, the horizontal and vertical effective stresses are increased
with a specified Poissons ratio during reservoir depletion
with a specified horizontal/vertical effective stress ratio given by
E12m
Ve +
p with a small grain compressibility,
He =
1
1Em
E(12m)/[(1)Em]0.
4. The drawdown is ignored.
Tables 5 and 6 show the calculated reservoir depletions inducing borehole collapse for 4,716- and 1,746-psi UCS limestones.
Overall analysis of the results is as follows:
1. The final failure effective in-situ stress is high for a higher
initial in-situ effective stress. The reason is that the loading paths
are different between releasing from the initial in-situ stress and
adding effective stress by depleting reservoir pressure. A borehole
is generally very stable when a borehole stress is released from the
initial in-situ stress to the borehole pressure after being drilled.
2. Vertical wells are normally stable because the load applied
during reservoir depletion is in the borehole axis direction.
3. When the stress path shifts from the shear yield curve, to
elastic region, to pore collapse yield curve, and finally to the shear
yield curve, the borehole collapse condition becomes very come
/Ve0.25 and 0.3 for a vertical well in
plex as observed at H
Table 6.
June 2005 SPE Journal
Fig. 14Borehole deformation (Lime A7, Dw=2.39 in., hydrostatic, 2000 cc HCl; Lime A8, Dw=2.39 in., nonhydrostatic, Pc=5 kpsi,
2000 cc HCl).
111
Fig. 18Borehole deformation (Lime B3, Dw=2.39 in., hydrostatic; Lime B2, Dw=2.34 in., Pc=3 kpsi, nonhydrostatic).
Evaluation:
e
1. H
/Ve 0.5, and the final maximum effective stress is
Ve 8 kpsi.
2. The ratio Ve/UCS4.
3. According to Table 5 or 6, the average value of Ve/UCS at
collapse is approximately 2.6 for 0.2 Poissons ratio. Therefore,
borehole collapse is likely without a protective liner for the given
field conditions.
Field Example 2. This is the same condition with Example 1
except UCS4 kpsi.
1. The ratio for this example is Ve/UCS2.
2. Now, because the average ratio of Ve/UCS for Rock A
or B is 2.6, it is possible to complete the well without a
liner protection.
3. Although the rock property is different between limestones,
30% (2.6/21.3) extra rock strength may be sufficient for a borehole even with other limestone rocks.
Fig. 19Borehole deformation (Lime B7, Dw=2.39 in., hydrostatic, 2000 cc HCl; Lime B8, Dw=2.39 in., Pc=3 kpsi, nonhydrostatic,
2000 cc HCl).
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Fig. 21Borehole deformation with acidized material where the formation penetrated with acid behaves like Rock B (0.22 in. from
wall) while the rest of the material is Rock A, directional loading with Pc=5 kpsi.
June 2005 SPE Journal
113
engineering. Tomoki Doi is a sales engineer at NEC Corporation, Fukuoka, Japan. He holds BS and MS degrees in resources
and environmental engineering from Waseda U. Takanori Kinoshita is a rock mechanics engineer at H&B System Corporation, Tokyo. He holds a BS degree in resources and environmental engineering from Waseda U.
June 2005 SPE Journal