Improving Well Delivery by Integrated Geomechanical Understanding with Robust Well Planning and Execution: A Successful Case Study from a Development Drilling Campaign in Offshore Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a case study on usefulness of having geomechanical understanding to avoid drilling risks and minimize costs in a Drilling campaign, Offshore Peninsular Malaysia. Significant drilling issues related to wellbore stability were encountered in the four exploration wells drilled during previous campaigns. The development wells were planned to drill with high inclinations (up to 700), through weak coal layers and cross major fault. The drilling problems of the offset wells were critically analyzed to understand the mechanisms of failures. A geomechanical model was built using the offset well information. The well-calibrated stress model was then used for the wellbore stability modeling for the planned trajectories. The outcome of this study was used as key input for casing and mud design. With the help of the reccomendations based on this study, six highly inclined development wells were drilled through low pressure and narrow mud window intervals without operational problems. Reducing non-productive time (NPT) for the entire drilling campaign was one of the key focus for delivering the wells safely within schedule and budget. This paper documents the entire workflow and methodologies used for this entire study.