Well Completion Exam 1 Study Guide

PETE 489
Well Completion

Exam Date: 3/23/2016

By:

Chapter 1

1 Review of Cost

*Exponential Curve

2 Schematics of a Complete Well

3 Details of Tubing & Well Head

Well Head: is the component at the surface of an oil or gas well that provides the
structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment.
Well Head Purpose:

Christmas Tree: Assembly of valves, spools, and fittings to control flow and gas out of
the well.

Wellhead Components:
Casing Head Always connected to surface casing string. Supports wellhead and
completion equipment.

Casing Spool: Similar to casing head but has a top head used to suspend strings of
casing.

Casing Hangers: Allows the weight or tension load of a casing string to be transferred to
a casing head or spool. (We focus mainly on slip on hangers)

Tubing Head Spools: The top spool of the wellhead, installed after last casing string. It is
used to support the tubing hanger or packoff. The Christmas tree is installed on top of
the tubing head using a tubing head adapter.

Tubing head adaptor: Transitions the wellhead with the Christmas tree. Bottom matches
the tubing head, the top matches the tree.

Christmas Tree Components:

Gate Valves: Either fully opened or closed, not used to control flow or throttling. Usually
placed in casing head, casing spool, tubing spool, or in the tree.
- Annulus Gate valves installed in lower wing of the wellhead is called annulus valve.
Used to kill the well, inject fluids,
-Christmas tree valve are installed in the upper valve, used in conjunction with the bop.

Chokes: Used to regulate flow of gas and oil, located in the trees.

Tree Caps: Found at the very top of the tree. Used as a fitting.

4 Open Hole Completion

Perforated Casing and Liner Completion

Different Reservoir Conditions:

We want to avoid water coning, we drill horizontal.

Topics 6,7,8 are in notes, they just diagrams

Differential Section ??

Chapter 2
Objective: Address the do and donts of drilling fluids and specifications.
Topics:

1 Definitions
Solute: Chemicals that dissolve in a solvent
Solvent: Medium that can dissolve a solute
Solution: Combination of Solute + Solvent
Mole: Unit of chemicals with known molecular weight
Valence: Number of electrons involved in chemical bond formation, or a reference as an
ionic number as oxidation number, like Ca^+2, valence = 2
Molarity: Moles of solute per liter of solution, M = moles of compound / liters of solution
Normality: Chemical equivalent weight of solute per liter of solution
Molality: Number of moles of a chemical compound per kg of kg of solvent
Weight Percent: One gram of solute in one million grams of total solution

2 Characteristics of completion fluid

Liquid Phase, Solid phase(filter cake), Viscosity, Ph Control, Flow Control
7 Functions: Pressure Control, Displacement of plugs, kill fluid, acidizing, packer fluids,
well bore cleaning, Safety

3 Operational Aspects: 1) Pumping 2) Mixing 3) Fluid Compatibility 4) Corrosion

Control 5) effects of temperature or Weight 6) Some components of Fluid 7) Clear
Brines
Pumping: Annular Velocity =

Mixing: Annulus, tubular capacities, storage, mixers, vortex mixers, prevention of fish
eyes, rate of addition of viscosifiers, supported economics of mixing
Fluid Compatibility: Gas control, well tubular, work string cleanliness, picking radioactive
shale clean out, selection of proper and compatible regarding friction and pressure
depth
Corrosion control: Hayatavoudi method of corrosion control
Four Clays: KCL-NACL-NaBr to reduce swelling
Clay 1- Smectite- Swelling
Clay 2- Illite Activated by PH
Clay 3- Chlorite Iron in them
Clay 4 Kaolinite moves
Do not allow FeOH3 or then you get mud in the formation (creates sludge)

4 Components of Fluid: Dont use Freshwater, you must make the free water
compatible with rocks and pore material (Use nonionic)
Viscosifier: Xantham Gum, no guar gum unless found clean and non plugging
Viscosity Breakers: Enzymes, acids, acidizers. (acetic acid) * Do not cause precipitation
of insoluble
5 Bridging materials & Brine = Salt (granular) & Calcium Carbonate
Weight: Acid Solubles FeCo3 Siderite

Bridge Size Distribution

Acid Soluble Weighing Material

Rock Fluid Testing * 5 Steps

-

Thin Section : Pore geometry, pore size distribution, grain size distribution,
estimation of porosity, grain shape & sorting classification (Sphericity, Sorting
coefficient, etc), Dye reaction with minerals (carbonates- red color e.g.)
Use: (Pre XRD (xray diffraction) Analysis, Pore & Grain count, cementing of
grains, gravel pack or not, pore throat size, pore type (vugs, secondary,
primary, fissures, molds)
Then use SEM (Scanning electron miscroscopy), Pore lining, Pore throat
lining, Authentic minerals or not, throat bridging or no?,-> Scale & precipitate
analysis of a given location, map distrubtion of elements within a cluster of
minerals, genesis of reactions, & precipitates at a given location
Use edx (energy dispersive xray) to find element quantitative analysis in
terms of bulk or individual components, (clay fraction and specification of
each type), Use hayatavoudi hydration index,
XRF (Xray fluorescence), used to find oxides and writing the chemical
material balance/ reaction equations

Fluid: Read SPE 27367

Mass Balance Theory: Mixing of two or more fluids, use mass balance
Ex:

Use hydrometer to measure specific gravity. Then Specific gravity * 8.345= density of
fluid. (8.345 is the density of h2o)

Sacked Salts: Weight or weigh down, add monovalents, KCL Nacl, etc
Add divalents, c2br2, c2cl2, znbr2,
Must correct for impure weight

Viscosity of brines without gelling agents (viscosifiers):

Viscosity changes with density of fluid and temperature
March funnel used and referred as VIS
Fluid Selection: