Well kicks

Even in the best of all worlds, where a Well Kick is detected at the opportune
time, circulated out of the hole, and the drilling fluid density increased with no
difficulty, there are additional costs for time and mud materials. In addition, the
potential for differential sticking of the drill pipe, lost circulation, and the overall
cost of well kicks can be a large part of the drilling budget. MPD seeks to avoid
the problem of well kicks by carefully monitoring the ECD in the hole and
controlling inflow and outflow or pressure changes in the well bore with
impressed surface pressure. Under carefully controlled conditions, an incipient
well kick caused by ECD change or a transition zone is almost an
indistinguishable bump in dirlling conditions.

Differentially stuck drill pipe

Stuck pipe is a major cost issue in some drilling provinces, as evidenced by the
large volume of literature and number of computer programs dedicated to the
problem. Often a well kick initiates or is the pipe sticking. Differential sticking is
caused by the difference in pressure between the well bore and a permeable
zone.
Here, the mud filter cake retards the flow of liquid into the lower the wall.
Keeping a lower differential pressure between the well bore and the formation
reduces sticking tendencies.
Deepwater drilling
Deepwater drilling with shallow water flows and lost circulation is a major
challenge that becomes more critical more critical as the water depth increases
dual density drilling has evolved a solution to this problem.
In deepwater drilling, the fracture pressure of the soft sediment on the seafloor
is roughly equal to overburden pressure (the pressure of the seawater column
plus the pressure of the sediment),
Within the sediment, sand containing water zones is pressured to near
overburden pressure. The long column of drilling fluid in the riser can be given
the density to control water flows just below the casing shoe, but as the open
hole is deepened, any increase in drilling fluid density required to control the
deeper and more pressured water flow will cause lost circulation at the shoe or
drive pipe.

One solution to this problem is pump and dump. A drilling fluid heavy enough
to hold back any water flows is pumped down the drill pipe and up the annulus
to the seafloor, where it is dumped.
This process has potencial environmental problems
A riserless system pumps the heavier drilling fluid down the drill pipe but
recovers it at the subsea wellhead and, with a subsea pump, recurns it through
an umbilical line connected to the drilling vessel. The subsea pump supports
the column of mud to the surface. This solves the problem of increased
pressure from a long column of heavy drilling fluid in the annulus. A dual
density system uses a subsea pump to return drilling fluid to the surface and
various techniques to change the density of the drilling fluid in the annulus
Basi mathematical ideas behind MPD
Some of the basic managed pressure drilling principle are referenced to further
the understanding of the basics of MPD operations. This section should not be
construed as the final, precise solution to some rather complicated models, but
it does contain the basic information necessary to understand the problem of
MPD
Bottom hole pressure calculations with liquids
The simple terms used to determine bottom hole pressure in well bore filled
with a drilling fluid are reasonably corret as long as the margin of error is
acceptale
Considering the thermal expansion in both water based and oil based mud
can lead to
A lower bottom hole pressure than is calculated by the simple BHP expression,
especially in oil or invert emulsion drilling fluid.
Compression of the oil in a heavy oil base drilling fluid, which can override the
expansion effects of high temperature and increase bottom hole pressure
Hydrostatic pressure calculation in deep wells, with high bottom hole pressure
and temprerature, requires a correction for the fluid density of each interval of
the hole. Increasing temperature decreases the density of fluid, while
increasing pressure increases fluid density. The effect of pressure is especially
significant in synthetic and oil based mud
Expansion (or compression ) of a gas bubble with no fluid flow
The general gas law shows that the volume of a gas bubble will expand by 100
% every time the absolute pressure is reduced by 50 % (subject to correction
the absolute temperature and the z factor)

Ideal gas law

When a gas bubble under pressure dsplaces up the hole such as with gas
cutting, trip, or connection gas, the pressure/volumen relationship has to take
into effect the reduction in pressure due to gas above the bubble of interest.
The strong white expression for gas cutting proposed in 1962 is an iterative
solution to the pressure reduction and gas expansion. For and ideal gas.
If the amount of gas Is constant c, changing the gas pressure, volume or
temperature does not change the valvu , if two parameters change from initial
condition the third parameter can be calculated by.