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Lost circulation management: new engineering approaches and techniques for better bridging and sealing the fracture
Alhaidari, Saleh A.
Alhaidari, Saleh A.
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2020
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This dissertation delineates a comprehensive study of one of the main problems which contributes to non-productive time (NPT) in a drilling operation, i.e., where operational fluids are lost to the formation. Lost circulation events have been managed in a multitude of ways without a consistent methodology or approach. The focus of this dissertation is to identify the performance of six industry-available Lost Circulation Material (LCM) and establish measuring criteria for better operational performance and plugging efficiency. The implications of performing different laboratory experiments define the stages and pathways of this research framework.There is a variety of information and analysis that must be assimilated and understood to plan the best lost circulation management process. Lost circulation management due diligence is a process of evaluating the material with many factors involved. This work developed a strategy and process for new lost circulation management. It provides an informative tool for the operator to ensure a successful process of managing the lost circulation event. It also discovers the limits of material effectiveness by varying the external factors. Many aspects were vigorously studied to identify the pathway for lost circulation management for better sealing of fractures. This research introduced four significant phases to plan the intended approaches. The first phase is a development of ten carrier fluid systems for the selected LCMs. This phase was done to deeply understand the different types of fluids systems with a wide range of fluid properties and to examine the effect of the fluids on the LCM performance. The second phase is the LCMs comprehensive testing study, including elemental composition, specific gravity, shape, and particles size analysis. This phase examines the physical and chemical properties of the material, and then identifies the factor that affect the material performance in plugging the lost circulation zone. The third phase is the LCMs and fluids interaction analysis. The analysis of this phase includes intensive experimental lab work on each material, including a size degradation study and material properties analysis after interaction with fluids (shape, particle size, and specific gravity analysis). The final Phase is a state-of-the-art new experimental design to measure LCM performance and validate the current bridging theory. The results of this work led to newly developed theories which are custom made for each material by taking into consideration the rate of the degradation, type of material, and correlate the findings with fracture width. These theories demonstrate the material performance based on the dry and wet particle size distribution (PSD) and examine the impact of material and fluids interaction to plug a specific fracture size. The overall impact of this Ph.D. research project proves that applying the new areas of investigation to the current lost circulation management can drive the industry to resolve the problems by effectively and efficiently applying the right LCM to each specific situation. The main contributions of this work are: first, a new experimental design that led to accurately test and analyze the LCM. Second, is a development of experimentally based bridging theories to optimize the material’s plugging capability.
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