Abstract
Abstract The drilling of challenging wells, especially those in deepwater, high pressure / high temperature (HPHT), and extended reach environments, is often characterized by a narrow safe operating window between formation pore pressure and fracture gradient.Overstepping the window bounds can lead to unwanted incidents of well control and/or lost circulation. In the drilling literature, the management of the safe operating window while drilling has heretofore focused on the optimization of circulating pressure drop, hole cleaning, and rate of penetration, with little consideration of wellbore geomechanics. Maintenance of wellbore stability (WBS) while drilling is critical to the success of today's challenging wells, yet applications of such modeling have largely centered only on predictions of surface drilling fluid density requirements.In this paper, an integrated approach using the following items is taken to show the utility of incorporating drilling fluid hydraulics and barite sag potential in the wellbore construction process.The use of this technology can help the drilling industry avoid unwanted surprises that can lead to unstable wellbores while drilling in today's technically-challenging environments.
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