Building a Geomechanical Model for Kotabatak Field with Applications to Sanding Onset and Wellbore Stability Predictions

Abstract

Abstract Kotabatak field, Sumatra, Indonesia is a heavily-faulted field undergoing an aggressive drilling and development campaign. Nine horizontal wells had been drilled with four more planned in 2008. One of the horizontal wells recently experienced well collapse (and sudden productivity decline) after some time on production, with cavings being flushed out during coil tubing workover operations. In addition to horizontal well drilling, feasibility of open horizontal well completions, hydraulic fracturing design and sanding onset prediction also warranted rock mechanics analyses. To make sound decisions on those issues, building a well-calibrated geomechanical model was critical. In this study, we reviewed the drilling, completion, logging and production information from several wells across the field. We found that (1) The Kotabatak field has a general maximum horizontal stress orientation of NE- SW. However, there could be localized stress orientation variations depending on structure complexity near a specific well. (2) There was no consistent evidence indicating a significant contrast between the maximum and minimum horizontal stresses. Using a maximum/minimum horizontal stress ratio of 1.05 yielded a consistent calibration result for the wells studied. (3) Sand minimum horizontal stress for the Kotabatak field was calibrated against available closure stresses from hydraulic fracturing and mini-frac data. (4) Rock mechanical properties were calculated with openhole logs based on a Rock Mechanics Algorithm that is closely linked to Chevron's worldwide rock mechanical property database. Consequently, even though there were no core test data available from the Kotabatak field to calibrate rock mechanical properties directly, the log data set provided the means to estimate reliable formation mechanical property values that are consistent with Chevron's worldwide database. Furthermore the entire geomechanical model was calibrated against offset drilling performance measures resulting in a high degree of confidence in the predicted values. Using the calibrated geomechanical model, horizontal well stability predictions were performed and indicated that horizontal sections can be drilled with low mud weight allowing the well to have some yield/failure. Open horizontal well sanding onset prediction indicated that the depth and width of a breakout (or plastic zone if reservoir sand behaves plastically) increase with increasing pressure drawdown. Since water flooding is used in the field to maintain reservoir pressure, sand control may not be needed if an appropriate Bottomhole Flowing Pressure (BHFP) is applied.