Introduction To Well Engineering
Introduction To Well Engineering
Oilwells are being drilled to depths of almost six miles in the continuing search
for the lifeblood of the modern world, fossil fuels. The first oilwell in the U.S. was a
69-ffot hole drilled by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania in 1859. More than 20,000 wells
have now been drilled offshore; ocean-floor completions have been made below
1,500 feet of water, and the capability exists to complete such wells in 4,500 feet of
water or deeper. Rotary drilling rig power has increased from 1 horsepower (hp) a
hundred years ago to the 10,000-hp equipment now used offshore.
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Introduction to Well Engineering
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Shell Intensive Training Programme Well Engineering
Introduction to Well Engineering
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Introduction to Well Engineering
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Introduction to Well Engineering
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Introduction to Well Engineering
Earth Movement: Most rocks are fractured during an earth movement to form joints,
which are actually cracks in the rocks. If the rock layers on one side of a fracture
have moved with respect to the other side, the result is a fault. The displacement of a
fault may range from a few inches to thousands of miles.
Faults may be classified into four major types-normal, reverse, thrust, and
lateral (fig. 1.6). The names are derived from the movement of adjacent blocks.
Movement is up or down in normal and reverse faults but horizontal in both thrust and
lateral faults. A combination of vertical and horizontal movements is possible in all
faults.
Normal and reverse faulting have variations (fig. 1.7). Such rotational faults and up-
thrusts have important effects upon the location of petroleum accumulations.
Earth movements often erase or
prevent the depositing of sediments that are
present elsewhere. Such buried, eroded
surfaces are called unconformities. One
type of unconfomity, a disconformity (fig. 1.8)
is a break or abrupt change in the conformity
or makeup of a formation. The beds above
and below the surface are parallel. Angular
unconformities are those in which the beds
above the unconformity pass over the
eroded edges of the folded beds below.
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Introduction to Well Engineering
surface are completely sealed and the seep is no longer active, as at Coalinga Field,
California. The Athabaska “tar sands” in Canada appear to be a seep of the
Cretaceous age that was buried by later sediments and has now been exposed again
by erosion. Seepage from fractures and faults (lower diagram, fig. 1.9) is common.
The seep may be made up of oil, gas or mud. Examples are the mud volcanoes of
Trinidad and Russia.
The presence of oil seeps on
anticlinal crests was observed as early as
1842. It was not until after the drilling of the
famous Drake well in Pennsylvania in 1859,
however, that it was noted that newly
discovered wells were being located on
anticlines. Little practical use was made of
this information until I.C.White applied it in
search of gas in Pennsylvania and nearby
states in 1885. During the latter part of the
nineteenth century, geologists searched for
oil in the East Indies and Mexico. In 1897,
some U.S oil companies established
geological departments. Many of the great
discoveries made subsequently in the mid-
continent, Gulf Coast, California, and
applying geological knowledge made other
areas.
Exploration Geophysics
By 1920, anticlinal folding was only one of a number of geological factors that
were used to help predict oil and gas accumulations. Surface mapping alone left
much to be desired. Fortunately, geophysical methods of exploration came into
existence about this time. The torsion balance and the seismograph made it possible
to predict subsurface structures. The seismic method introduced the transit time of
sound waves generated by explosion as an oil-finding technique. The transit times
depended on the nature of the rocks that were being penetrated. Today, other
methods as well as explosions are used to create sound waves for seismic testing.
Devices such as the Vibroseis can generate continuous low-frequency sound waves.
Under favorable conditions, a certain geologic bed can be mapped quite accurately by
reflected and refracted seismic waves (fig. 1.10). The gravitometer and the
magnetometer are other geophysical tools that make use of the physical properties of
rocks to find structural conditions favorable to petroleum accumulation.
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Introduction to Well Engineering
Subsurface Geology
The methods and techniques used in the study of subsurface geology have
improved greatly since the 1920s. Today more oil and gas discoveries are credited to
subsurface geology studies than to any other oil-finding methods. Examination and
correlation of cuttings, core samples, and wireline logs of various kinds yield important
subsurface data. This information is used to prepare many kinds of maps and cross
sections. Sub-surface geologic structure can be shown by contour maps (fig. 1.11).
Maps may show variations in the characteristics of the rocks and the structural
arrangements, such as old shorelines or pinch-outs
Of course, maps give only one view. To supplement the maps, vertical cross
sections are made. These vertical cross sections may be designed to show structure
or a particular detail of only a small internal. For example, the section in figure 1.12
shows the effect of a pinch-out of the darker colored sand body on the thickness
between correlation markers A and B above and below it.
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Introduction to Well Engineering
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Introduction to Well Engineering
Origin of Petroleum
According to the organic theory, oil and gas originate from organic matter in
sedimentary rocks. In the absence of oxygen, dead vegetation stops decomposing
and accumulates in the soil as humus and as deposits of peat in bogs and swamps.
Peat buried beneath a cover of clays and sands becomes compacted. As the weight
and the pressure of the cover increase, water and gases are driven off. The residue,
ever richer in carbon, becomes coal.
In the sea a similar process takes place. A rich variety of marine life is
eternally falling in a slow rain to the bottom of the sea. Vast quantities are eaten or
oxidized, but a portion of the microscopic animal and plant life is buried beneath the
ooze and mud of the sea floor. This organic debris collects is sunken areas under a
growing buildup of sands, clays, and more debris, until the sediment is thousands of
feet thick. As the sediment builds, the pressure of deep burial begins to work. The
extreme weight and pressure compacts the clays into hard shales. Within this deep
unwitnessed realm of immense pressure and high temperatures, oil is formed.
Temperature is an important factor in the forming of hydrocarbons. The
process apparently does not take place at temperatures less than about 1500F.
Hydrocarbon generation is most efficient within the range of 2250 to 3500F. Increasing
temperatures convert the heavy hydrocarbons to lighter ones and ultimately to gas.
However, at temperatures above 5000F the organic material is carbonized and
destroyed as a source material. It is known that the earth’s temperature increases as
depth increases. Consequently, if source beds become too deeply buried by
movements of the earth, no hydrocarbons will be produced.
Migration
Next in the process, the scattered hydrocarbons in the fine-grained source
rocks are concentrated into a reservoir. Hydrocarbons tend to migrate upwards.
Compaction of the source beds by the weight of the overlying rock provides the
driving force necessary to expel the hydrocarbons and to move them up through the
porous beds or fractures to regions of lower pressure. These regions of lower
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Introduction to Well Engineering
pressure are usually at a shallower depth. Gravity separation of gas, oil, and water
also takes place in reservoir rocks that have been water-saturated. Gas (the lightest)
rises, oil is in the middle, and water (the heaviest) goes to the bottom. Petroleum is,
consequently, forever trying to rise to the surface until it is trapped or escapes.
Vertical migration via faults and fractures has led to many large oil accumulations.
Reservoir Rocks
A petroleum reservoir is rock containing gas and/or oil, usually in combination
with water. To be commercially productive, a reservoir must have sufficient thickness
and pore space to contain an appreciable volume of hydrocarbons, and it must yield
the fluids at as satisfactory rate when penetrated by a well.
Sandstones and carbonates are the most common reservoir rocks. The degree
of a rock’s porosity (pore space in relation to solid rock) is an important characteristic.
The porosity may be primary, such as the natural intergranular porosity of sandstone.
Or it may be secondary, due to chemical or physical changes such as dolomitization,
solution channels, or fracturing. Compaction and cementation may lessen porosity.
The degree of porosity in a reservoir results from numerous natural processes.
Primarily the mixing of the various sizes of grains controls sandstone porosity,
and by the way the grains are packed together. Porosity is at a maximum when grains
are round and of uniform size; porosity decreases as grains become more angular.
Artificially mixed clean sand has measured porosities of about 43 percent for
extremely well-sorted sands. This figure is almost irrespective of grain size. The
porosity decreases to about 25 percent for poorly sorted medium- to coarse-grained
sands, while the fine-grained sands may have over 30 percent porosity. Many sands
have only 10-20 percent porosity.
The ease with which fluid moves through the interconnected pore spaces of a
rock is called the permeability of the rock. In 1856 Henry Darcy, a French engineer,
devised a means of measuring the relative permeability of porous rocks. For this
reason, numerical expressions of permeability are measured in darcies. Most
reservoir rocks have average permeabilities considerably less than 1 darcy.
Therefore, the usual measurement is in millidarcies (md), or thousandths of a darcy.
Permeability varies form 475 md for a highly porous, well-sorted, coarse-grained sand
to about 5 md for a fine-grained sand.
Compaction by the weight of the overburden will squeeze the sand grains
closer together and at greater depths may crush and fracture the grains. The result is
small pores, lower porosity, and a drastic decrease in permeability. Thus, a
sandstone reservoir that could produce petroleum at 10,000 feet might be much too
impermeable to be of any economic value at 20,000 feet. Cementation, which fills
part or all of pore space, also tends to increase with depth.
The porosity, permeability, and pore space distribution in carbonates are
related to both the type of sediment and the changes that have taken place after
deposition. These changes may have formed fluid channels, or fissures.
Traps
Migration is a continuing process once
the hydrocarbons have been expelled from the
source rock. The hydrocarbons may move
through the reservoir rock or though a fracture
system. Obviously, a barrier or trap is needed
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Introduction to Well Engineering
Formation Pressure
In order to understand formation pressures (the pressure of the fluids in the
rock pores), it is necessary to understand the concept of hydrostatic pressure (the
pressure of a fluid at rest). Two factors affect hydrostatic pressure-the weight of the
fluid and the depth at which it is tested. The deeper the measurement is taken, the
greater the hydrostatic pressure becomes. The heavier the fluid is, the more its
pressure will increase with depth. The rate at which the hydrostatic pressure of a fluid
increases is called pressure gradient. Heavier fluids have greater pressure gradients
than lighter fluids. A pressure gradient for a specific fluid can be found out if the
weight (or density) of the fluid is known, by consulting one of the several published
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Introduction to Well Engineering
charts. Once the pressure gradient of a fluid is known, its hydrostatic pressure at any
given depth can be figured; for hydrostatic pressure at any given depth can be
figured; for hydrostatic pressure equals true vertical depth times a fluid’s pressure
gradient. (True vertical depth refers to the depth in feet of the point where the
measurement is taken.)
Normal formation pressures are close in value to the hydrostatic pressure of a
column of salt water. Along the U.S. Gulf Coast, normal formation pressure gains
0.465 psi (pressure gradient) per foot of depth. The geological explanation of normal
formation pressure is that most porous rocks are connected to blanket-type sands,
which have continuity through underground connections with porous formations that
are exposed on the surface. Although the horizontal distance may be exposed on the
surface. Although the horizontal distance may be many miles, the true vertical
distance is the depth of the formation. Pore pressure in porous and permeable
formations, such as sandstones, is thus equivalent to hydrostatic pressure at the
depth involved. By the same reasoning, pore pressure in a shale that is adjacent to a
sandstone having normal pressure will be the same as hydrostatic pressure at that
depth. Water will be squeezed out of the shale by the pressure of compaction until
the pressure of the fluid in the shale equals the pressure of the fluid in the pore space
of the sandstone.
Abnormal formation pressures develop in isolated reservoirs that are not
connected through porous formations to the surface. As the result of compaction of
the surroundings shales by the weight of the overburden of rock, water is expelled
from the shale into zones of lower pressure, perhaps into a wholly confined sandstone
that does not compact as much as the shale. Ultimately, a state of equilibrium will be
reached, when no further water can be expelled into the sandstone, and its fluid
pressure will then be approximately the same as the pressure in the pores of the
shale. Actual pressure will depend on leakage to lower pressure zones, but in any
case it will not exceed the weight of the overburden.
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