Organization
Gudong Oil Production Plant, Shengli Oilfield Company, SINOPEC, Dongying 257000, China
MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Resource and Prospecting, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Research Institute of Yanchang Pertroleum (Group) Co.Ltd., Xi′an 710075, China
Abstract
Wellbore instability is a main problem during the drilling of shale gas horizontal well in Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin. Through analyzing the physical and chemical properties of the formation in this paper, the main factors causing shale wellbore instability are obtained, that is the decrease of rock strength has a direct relationship with I/S ratio expansion caused by the fact that the filtrate of drilling fluid goes into the formation along the micro fracture. Therefore, a technical countermeasure of using water in oil emulsified drilling fluid is put forward. A new system of emulsified drilling fluid for shale gas horizontal well is developed through a large quantity of laboratory experiments. The experiment results show that emulsion-breaking voltage is more than 800 V and the drilling fluids with high plugging breakthrough pressure of 7.28 MPa can be weighed to 1.60 g/cm3 and resist 120 ℃. Also the compressive strength of shale cores changes little after soaking in the emulsified drilling fluid, which can effectively inhibit shale expansion and plug the fissured formation so as to directly solve the wellbore instability problem during the drilling of shale gas horizontal well in this region.