Development status and prospect of key technologies for high temperature and high pressure drilling

Abstract:

With the increasing demand for deep oil and gas resources in China, drilling in high temperature and high pressure  (HTHP) formations is becoming more and more common in the process of exploration and development, which leads to many  
difficulties and challenges for the drilling industry. In addition to the challenges of high temperature and high pressure, HTHP  drilling must overcome a series of problems, such as difficult formation pressure prediction, complex well structures, difficult  
well control, poor rheology of drilling fluids, low rate of penetration (ROP) and lack of capable downhole tools. Based on a   literature review of HTHP drilling technology at home and abroad, this paper summarizes the development of HTHP drilling   technology from six aspects. These are: formation pressure prediction, wellbore structure optimization, pressure control drilling,   high temperature resistant drilling fluid, bit and efficient rock breaking, MWD and steering tools. This provides a possibility for   the development of various improvements. At present, high temperature is the most challenging problem in the key technologies   of high temperature and high pressure drilling at home and abroad. For China, a downhole temperature of 175 ℃ is a barrier.   Much domestic drilling equipment and technologies will have a series of problems when facing this temperature. Therefore,   large-scale applications of domestic technology are limited, and there is still a gap compared with the advanced levels in foreign   countries. The key technologies of HTHP drilling abroad were mainly developed by the petroleum engineering technology   companies such as Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, and Weatherford. In these companies, series of products with their   own characteristics have been developed and used widely, for example, Schlumberger’s managed pressure drilling system and the   logging while drilling technology HEX codeveloped by Weatherford and Chevron. In general, HTHP drilling technologies have   been developing rapidly in the past few years and made great progress. However, achieving safe and efficient drilling of HTHP   wells is still the common direction of efforts at home and abroad, and research into drilling technology of HTHP unconventional   wells is rare. Therefore, research on HTHP drilling technology should be further strengthened. In particular, China should   continue to follow up and strengthen research to meet the increasing drilling needs. Although the current technical ability cannot   solve all the HTHP drilling problems, it has laid a good foundation for the development of new HTHP drilling technology in the   future.


Key words:drilling technology; HTHP; deep formation; development status; prospects

Received: 2020-07-13

Corresponding Authors:yfeng@cup.edu.cn

Cite this article:罗鸣, 冯永存, 桂云, 邓金根, 韩城. 高温高压钻井关键技术发展现状及展望. 石油科学通报, 2021, 02: 228-244 LUO Ming, FENG Yongcun, GUI Yun, DENG Jingen, HAN Cheng. Development status and prospect of key technologies for high temperature and high pressure drilling. Petroleum Science Bulletin, 2021, 02: 228-244.

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