A New Calculation Method for Micro-Hole Collapse Pressure of Shale Gas Reservoirs in Thrust Fault

Abstract

With the ever increasing energy demands, unconventional gas becomes the new force in energy field. However, shale gas horizontal drillings are prone to instability problems because of the brittleness of gas shale. The casing programs of shale gas wells in China and North America demonstrate that the more drilling problems are encountered with the larger borehole sizes. In the thrust faults, based on vutukuri's size effect theory and Mclamore's failure criteria, a new prediction model of collapse pressure in transversely isotropic rock mass is proposed to analyze the critical mud weight of micro-hole in gas shale formations. The trajectory sensitivity analysis is also carried out. The results show that micro-hole drilling technique in thrust faults can significantly reduce the collapse pressure of directional wells by 12% approximately.