CASING

DESIGN IN HORIZONTAL WELLS

OUTLINE
! Introduction

! Anticipated casing loads

! Design strategies

! Design Procedures

! Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION
Horizontal Drilling is a well established technique that allows one wellbore
to exploit reservoirs that have an extensive lateral dimension
! Introduction
An Horizontal well could be long, medium, or short radius based on the
build-up rate.
! Anticipated casing loads
Short radius wells could be 3/ft from Vertical wellbore geometry to
Horizontal in 20 ft. Most of these Horizontal sections are completed as
open hole because of the challenges of unknowns of casing design
! Design strategies
and cementing.

Horizontal wells with open hole comple@on have restricted produc@on rate
! Design Procedures due to possible hole stability problem and borehole failure.

Open hole comple@on limits boDom hole pressure that can be applied and
! Conclusion also the pressure drawdown.

Pumping technique for produc@on from an open horizontal wellbore poses

problems

Lots of casing failures and inability to get casing down to nal TD have been
reported in horizontal wells

Our objec@ve is to prevent all these challenges with some special casing
design considera@on in horizontal wells.
 An3cipated Casing Loads
There are a number of areas horizontal well casing design requires a
! Introduction dis@nct dierence in load magnitude compared to conven@onal wells.
These areas include:

! Anticipated casing loads Forma@on stability and overburden load (i.e. forma@on subsidence)

Bending load
! Design strategies
Torque and Drag

Perfora@on load
! Design Procedures

! Conclusion
 Design strategies
Divide your well trajectory into 3 dierent sec@ons: ver@cal, build and
! Introduction horizontal sec@ons

Dene all the an@cipated loads and their magnitudes for each of the sec@ons
! Anticipated casing loads
Clarify the eects of these loads on the resistance of the casing strings

! Design strategies Select casing strings that meet all the loads considering also corrosions and
wear

! Design Procedures

! Conclusion

 Design strategies (contd)
In Horizontal Sec3on
! Introduction
Besides the tradi3onal loads of conven3onal procedures, this sec3on is
subjected to Torque & Drag, forma3on subsidence, and perfora3on eects
! Anticipated casing loads on collapse resistance.

1. Torque & Drag

This is the sliding fric3on forces caused by the contact of the
! Design strategies
casing with the borehole wall.

Magnitude depends on:
! Design Procedures Normal contact force (i.e. eect of Casing weight; and tension and
compression e.g. buoyancy force applied on the casing)

! Conclusion Coecient of fric3on (i.e. eect of contact materials e.g. mud, and
its degree of lubrica3on on the casing. It varies from 0.2 0.4
depending in the mud and forma3on type.

 Design strategies (contd)
Drag Force
! Introduction Use computer program to generate the Drag Force (Ibs) Vs. Horizontal distance


! Anticipated casing loads

! Design strategies

! Design Procedures

! Conclusion

Fig: Running load applied at the heel of the horizontal sec@on

This load can actually cause casing damage, and should be considered in the axial load of casing design.
 Design strategies (contd)
Torque:
! Introduction Use a computer model to generate the maximum Torque Vs. Running Depth
.

! Anticipated casing loads

! Design strategies


! Design Procedures

! Conclusion

This is cri@cal in selec@ng the torque ra@ng of your casing and connec@on in casing design
 Design strategies (contd)
2. Forma3on Subsidence
! Introduction
This is simply the seDling of the overlaying forma@on on the casing string.

! Anticipated casing loads It results in a non-uniform load equivalent to the overburden on the casing
especially, where theres poor cement job.

Collapse ra@ng of the pipe under overburden load can reduce to as low as 25%.
! Design strategies


To avoid collapse failure due to this, proposed Collapse (forma@on subsidence)
! Design Procedures design factor of 2.0 should be used in casing design.


! Conclusion

Fig: Collapsed casing
 Design strategies (contd)
3. Perfora3on Intensity
! Introduction

This is the number of perfora@ons per longitudinal foot
! Anticipated casing loads
Perfora@on intensity higher than 4 perfora@ons per foot has been shown to
reduce the collapse resistance of a casing by 10 60% of the original ra@ng.
! Design strategies
Based on the perfora@on intensity, Perfora@on (Collapse) design factor
should be applied to casing design to correct for the collapse resistance in the
horizontal sec@on
! Design Procedures


! Conclusion

 Design strategies (contd)
In Build-up Sec3on
! Introduction
The loads at the sec3on could be modeled as a conven3on load using
applica3on like StressCheckTM or WellCatTM. Such Cri3cal loads include:
! Anticipated casing loads
Running load: 1 3c/sec is ideal for the running speed simula3on.

Bending Load: The curve sec3on of the wellbore generates compression

! Design strategies
load on the convex side of the pipe, and tension load on the concave side,
especially when reciproca3ng the casing string.
! Design Procedures Overpull: 100,000 Ibs is adopted for conven3onal casing design, 150,000
Ibs should be considered for a build rate sec3on of 20/100 c or above.

! Conclusion

 Design procedures
The design method should be based on Triaxial collapse resistance of the
! Introduction casing string, which incorporates the conven@onal loads, and the loads due to
the horizontal congura@on

! Anticipated casing loads 1. Calculate the overburden load at the boDom of the well. Overburden
gradient of 1.0psi/_ is commonly used in salt.

2. Apply a collapse design factor of 2 for the horizontal sec@on of the pipe
! Design strategies
due to overburden; 1.25 collapse design factor due to perfora@on

3. Plot the correct value of triaxial rela@onship curve i.e. Collapse load Vs
! Design Procedures Burst and axial loads

4. Calculate the bending load through the build-up sec@on

! Conclusion
5. Use the conven@onal loads for the ver@cal sec@on

6. Choose the grades and connec@ons that posses a resistance curve and
torque covering each sec@on.
 CONCLUSION
The drag force, forma@on subsidence, eects of perfora@ons, and bending
! Introduction loads as well as the conven@onal loads are major loads applied on casing
strings in the horizontal sec@on. These loads can cause major failures if they
are ignored in casing design.
! Anticipated casing loads
Forma@on subsidence produces non-uniform overburden load ac@ng as a
point line load on the pipe and reduce the collapse resistance dras@cally.

! Design strategies
Perfora@on intensity results in a reduc@on of 10 60% of the collapse
(crushing) resistance of the casing string depending on the number of
perfora@ons per longitudinal foot.
! Design Procedures
This presenta@on proposes that special considera@ons should be given to
horizontal casing string design with design factor of 2.0 for forma@on
! Conclusion subsidence, and 1.10 for perfora@on eect.

Thank You!