Summary
Tailoring drilling-fluid hydraulics is one important key to the success of a
drilling operation. Failure to do so, can result in costly problems, negatively
impact equipment longevity and performance, as well as ultimately jeopardize
overall well objectives. In recent years, the industry methods have deviated
from American Petroleum Institute (API) RP13D standard practice (2003,
2006). This departure has been driven primarily by the increasingly onerous
demands of critical wells, coupled with readily accessible computer power.
In 2003, a task group was formed to modernize the existing API recommended
practice (RP) bulletin on rheology and hydraulics. It comprised a
cross-functional team of operators, suppliers, and academics that set an
aggressive target to modernize the existing standard within 2 years. The focus
was to develop simple, yet accurate, methods that could be implemented readily
with basic spread-sheeting skills.
This paper describes improvements made to the existing procedures and
provides an illustration of how these methods can be applied to complex well
designs. The paper also serves to introduce the industry to a modernized API
standard that offers an ideal foundation to inform new engineers of the
fundamental concepts of hydraulic design and optimization.
Introduction
Rheology and hydraulics are central to successful well planning and
execution of drilling operations, and there has been an API RP in place since
the mid-1980s. API RP13D(2003) has served the industry well as a guide
to support these important issues. However, it was widely recognized that the
most recent version of this recommended practice required modernization. The
primary drivers for this included
-
Increased well complexity beyond the
scope of the current document
-
Extensive use of drilling fluids with
physical properties sensitive to high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT)
environments. The need to integrate wellbore engineering technologies to give a
holistic approach.
In addition, a recently published paper(Zamora and Power 2002) concluded
that the timing was right to effectively bridge the widening gap between field
practices and the technology being introduced into advanced hydraulics
software.
By incorporating the fundamentals, it is believed that the revised standard
will serve both as a practical reference and as a training guide. The intended
audience includes the office-based planning engineer and the wellsite
operational staff (drilling engineer and drilling-fluids engineer). A review of
the existing RP13D identified the following areas as the primary focus
for attention in enhancing the document: downhole behavior (rheology and
density), pressure-loss modeling, hole cleaning; drilling optimization;
swab/surge pressures; wellsite monitoring and rheological testing. A full
listing of the revised sections is shown in Table 1.
This paper introduces the modernized recommended practice that was published
recently (RP13D 2006). Also presented are revision improvements and
their application to complex well designs, together with the project planning
and management methods used to complete the new document to meet an aggressive
time line.
© 2007. Society of Petroleum Engineers
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History
- Original manuscript received:
2 December 2005
- Revised manuscript received:
8 February 2007
- Manuscript approved:
27 April 2007
- Version of record:
20 September 2007
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