1887

Abstract

Summary

In this work, it was investigated if heating of a cased borehole in a shale formation can induce plastic deformations that are sufficiently high to close the annulus between shale and casing and form a hydraulic barrier. This is of interest for plug and abandonment (P&A) of wells. Both laboratory experiments and numerical simulations have been carried out. Borehole heating experiments were performed with hollow-cylinder shale samples, using a novel experimental setup that allows for temperature and pore pressures measurements at different radial positions inside the shale samples. The results show that borehole heating results in a relatively large increase of pore pressure in the shale, inducing rock failure and annulus closure under certain temperature and stress conditions. A finite-element model was used for simulating the experimental data and obtaining relevant thermo-poro-elasto-plastic parameters. Those parameters were used in field-scale finite-element models to assess the possibility of forming shale barriers by borehole heating. The numerical models provide a good description of the experimental data; they indicate that under certain conditions heat induced displacement at the borehole wall is large enough to close the annulus around a casing.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900329
2019-04-28
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. [1]WilliamsS., CarlsenT., ConstableK., GuldahlA. (2009). Identification and qualification of shale annular barriers using wireline logs during plug and abandonment operations. SPE 119321.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. [2]E.Fjær, J.F.Stenebråten, and S.Bakheim (2018). Laboratory test for studies on shale barrier formation, ARMA 18-1146.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. [3]A.Bauer, J.F.Stenebråten, L.Li, E.Fjær (2017). Can heating-induced creep result in shale barriers for P&A applications, ARMA 2017-0818.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. [4]T.G.Kristiansen, T.Dyngeland, S.Kinn, R.Flatebø, and N.A.Aarseth (2018). Activating shale to form well barriers: theory and field examples, SPE 191607.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900329
Loading
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900329
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error