Alert Wellbore Stability issues cost industry 8 billion USD/year in Non Productive Time!!

Wellbore stability issues are a major contributor to non productive time during drilling operations. This costs the industry 8 billion dollars a year by some estimates, this is an insane amount of money!.

This issues are more critical when drilling deviated wells, horizontal wells mainly. The key is to drill in the correct direction thus the earth stress direction of the field.

Logically there are other issues to take in consideration, one of the critical ones is the interaction of the drilling fluid with the formations drilled, the design and specification of the correct drilling fluid is key, enviromental laws are getting more stringent this will push the engineers to figure the most optimum fluid to cope with the formation and the legal requirements.

Using geomechanics we can determine the specific mud weight window to drill to keep us safe of wellbore collapse and assuring stability of the wellbore. The geomechanical studies are an extra cost in the AFE but the payout in savings the long term is very substantial. Drilling Engineers are pushed to cut costs on the AFE's, normally this type of studies are not approved by management, this shortcuts are expensively paid with NPT and in the worst case, sidetracks and lost of a well.

On the operations side is critical to have a drilling crew that understands the interaction of the drillstring and bottom hole assembly with the formations drilled is important to let the well dictate the operation. Monitor drag and check drillstring while pulling out of the hole for balling on stabilizers and bit.

Lets focus on the big money drain and this is a big one.

Se you soon!

Driller