Comprehensive Experimental Investigation of Hole Cleaning Performance in Horizontal Wells Including the Effects of Drill String Eccentricity, Pipe Rotation, and Cuttings Size

Abstract

Abstract Extended reach drilling (ERD) wells with a horizontal and highly deviated section are widely applied in the oil and gas industry because they provide higher drainage area than vertical wells and hence increase the productivity or injectivity of the well. Among many issues encountered in a complex well trajectory, poor hole cleaning is the most common problem, which occurs mainly in the deviated and horizontal section of oil and gas wells. There are significant parameters that have a serious impact on hole cleaning performance in high-angle and horizontal sections. These include flowrate, rheology, and density of the drilling fluid, drill string eccentricity, pipe rotation, and cuttings size. It has been recognized that the action of most of these parameters to transport drilled cuttings is constantly a point of controversy among oilfield engineers. In the present study, extensive experiments were conducted in an advanced purpose-built flow rig to identify the main parameters affecting on circulate the cuttings out of the test section in a horizontal position. The flow-loop simulator has been designed to allow easy variation of operational parameters in terms of flowrate, mud density, drill string eccentricity, pipe rotation, and cuttings size. In addition, the study covers the impacts of laminar, transition, and turbulent flow regimes. The goal of such variation in the operational conditions is to simulate real-field situations. The results have shown that drill string rotation and flowrate were the operational parameters with the highest positive influence on the cuttings transports process. In contrast, drill pipe eccentricity has a negative influence on cuttings removal efficiency. The cuttings transportation performance is further improved by pipe rotation at different levels of eccentricity, especially at fully eccentric annuli. It was also shown that larger cuttings appeared to be easier to remove in a horizontal annulus than smaller ones. The experimental results would provide a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between drilling operation parameters and hole cleaning efficiency in ERD operations. This will help the drilling teams to realize what action is better to take for efficient cutting transportation.