Pressure Prediction for High‐Temperature and High‐Pressure Formation and Its Application to Drilling in the Northern South China Sea

Abstract

Abstract There are plentiful potential hydrocarbon resources in the Yinggehai and Qiongdongnan basins in the northern South China Sea. However, the special petrol‐geological condition with high formation temperature and pressure greatly blocked hydrocarbon exploration. The conventional means of drills, including methods in the prediction and monitoring of underground strata pressure, can no longer meet the requirements in this area. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation has allocated one well with a designed depth of 3200 m and pressure coefficient of 2.3 in the Yinggehai Basin (called test well in the paper) in order to find gas reservoirs in middle‐deep section in the Miocene Huangliu and Meishan formations at the depth below 3000 m. Therefore, combined with the “863” national high‐tech project, the authors analyzed the distribution of overpressure in the Yinggehai and Qiongdongnan basins, and set up a series of key technologies and methods to predict and monitor formation pressure, and then apply the results to pressure prediction of the test well. Because of the exact pressure prediction before and during drilling, associated procedure design of casing and their allocation in test well has been ensured to be more rational. This well is successfully drilled to the depth of 3485 m (nearly 300 m deeper than the designed depth) under the formation pressure about 2.3 SG (EMW), which indicate that a new step in the technology of drilling in higher temperature and pressure has been reached in the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.