Drilling Long Salt Sections Along

the U.S. Gulf Coast

J.W. Barker, SPE, Exxon Co. IntI.; K.W. Feland,* Exxon Co. U.S.A.; and
V-H. 15ao, SPE, Exxon Production Research Co.

Summary

Salt Characteristics

As the petroleum industry has matured along the U.S. gulf coast, the
need to drill long salt sections to reach hydrocarbons has increased.
This paper summarizes the special techniques that have been developed to drill long salt sections and reviews case histories where long
salt sections have been successfully drilled. A new analytical equation to predict the rate of salt creep into a wellbore is also presented.

Salt encountered along the U. S. gulf coast is usually very pure,

often as high as 97% pure mineral halite. The pure salt mineral has
a density of 2.17 g/cm 3; however, in-situ salt density usually averages 2.10 g/cm 3.
Salt is an unusual engineering material because under sustained
constant stress, significant deformation can be expected as a function of time, loading conditions, and physical properties. This behavior is called creep. The rate at which salt will creep is dependent
on temperature, differential stress, confining pressure, grain size,
and presence of inclusions of free water or free gas bubbles. Temperature and stress differentials are the primary factors affecting salt
creep.
Fig. 2 shows the effect of temperature on salt creep. An increase
in temperature caused creep rate to increase. As the figure shows,
creep rate increases sharply for temperatures from 200 to 400F.
Over = 400 F, salt becomes almost completely plastic and will flow
readily if differential pressure is applied. 3
The unique properties of salt make drilling long salt sections very
different from drilling other geologic formations. These differences
include wellbore stability, drilling fluids, cementing, casing design,
and directional control.

Introduction
The U.S. gulf coast basin contains the largest known deposits of salt
in the world. The many possible types of hydrocarbon traps near the
salt structures increase the potential of significant hydrocarbon accumulation. The ability of salt to deform under temperature and
pressure and its very low permeability and porosity make it a very
successful hydrocarbon trap generator. At least 500 salt domes in
the gulf basin have been penetrated in search of these traps, and up
to 80% of proven gulf basin reserves probably are related to salt
structures. 1 Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, salt sheets could be concealing oil- and gas-bearing strata under as much as 60% of the gulf
in < 5,000 ft of water. 2
While drilling through salt structures has been done successfully
for many years, recent experience and methods have improved the
efficiency and reliability of drilling oil wells through long salt sections. The successful drilling of these wells demonstrates that these
recently developed special techniques permit reaching hydrocarbon
sources that may have been unreachable in past years.

Geologic Setting
The Gulf of Mexico basin was formed in the late Middle to early Upper Jurassic periods as North America separated from South America and Africa. Shortly after formation of the basins, evaporate salt
(Louann) was deposited over thousands of years. The original
bedded salt thickness has been estimated to have been 4,000 to
5,000 ft thick. Varying thicknesses of this salt are thought to underlie
the entire present day gulf coast basin except for some localized
areas. After Louann salt deposition, the basin filled with clastics and
carbonates during the Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. During Cenozoic and later periods, the gulf coast basin partially filled
with sediments and was molded into a structurally complex region
by growth faults, diaperism, and salt flow. Fig. 1 shows a cross section through a portion of the present-day gulf basin.
Most clastic sediments increase in density with increasing burial
depth. An important property of salt is that it does not increase in
density with burial depth. When salt underlies higher-density sediments, an unstable condition exists. The combination of this instability with mobile salt is thought to be the primary reason for vertical
salt movement into diapers and swells.' Because salt does not increase in density with depth, a critical depth exists where overburden density of compacting sediments will equal salt density. Wheri
this occurs, salt can begin lateral flow, which produces salt overhangs and sheets.
'Now retired.
Copyright 1994 Society of Petroleum Engineers
Original SPE manuscript received for review Dec. 15, 1992. Revised manuscript received
March 14, 1994. Paper accepted for publication May 12, 1994. Paper (SPE 24605) first presented at the 1992 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Washington, DC,
Oct. 4-7.

SPE Drilling & Completion, September 1994

Well bore Stability

Wellbore Stability in Salt. In typical sand/shale formations, the insitu stress in the vertical direction is equal to the overburden stress
and the horizontal stress is somewhat less than the vertical stress.
For a salt formation, the in-situ stress is generally assumed to be
equal in all directions and is equal to the weight of the overburden
stress. If the hydrostatic pressure of the mud used to drill a well is
less than the salt stress, salt will creep into the wellbore. The closure
rate of salt increases with increasing temperature and increasing differential pressure between the salt stress and the mud-weight hydrostatic pressure. At shallow depths, temperature and differential pressures are small and the creep rate will be slight. At greater depths,
higher temperatures and higher differential pressures will result in
a much increased creep rate. In many cases, even a slight amount of
salt creep can cause a reduced wellbore radius or an undergauge
wellbore, which leads to stuck pipe and casing collapse loading.
Salt-Creep Calculation. Fig. 34 shows the most widely used guideline for determining the required mud weight to control salt creep.
These curves were developed on the basis of static plastic theory
with finite-element techniques and have proved reliable for gulfbasin salt. However, the curves are for specific downhole conditions
of stress, temperature, and creep rate. We developed a simple analytical equation to allow engineering calculations at different stress,
temperature, and closure-rate combinations. This equation is based
on steady-state creep of salt formations. The wellbore radius after
creep can be represented by

r = ro/exp{(D.t)[Y/(4n -

2)](A)[e-{BfT)](Ooo_p)n}, ..... (1)

where y = (n + 1)/2. Appendix A of Ref. 5 gives the derivation of

Eq. 1.

Drilling Fluids
Drilling-fluid options for drilling salt sections include two types of
water-based muds and oil-based muds. Generally, a water-based
mud used to drill long salt intervals will incorporate either a low or
a high concentration of salt. With a low-salt mud, matching forma185

SHORE LINE
CENOZOIC

IIILES

o
f

E3

50

E3

SCALE

LINE OF SECTION

Fig.1-General geologic cross section of U.S. gulf coast basin.

tion salt dissolution and erosion with wellbore creep is very difficult
to implement. This is because salt creep and dissolution rate can
vary significantly from the top to the bottom of a long salt section.
As a result, the wellbore size becomes erratic with depth. Dissolution of salt during drilling can be controlled by use of a highly saltsaturated water-based mud or an oil-based mud.
With a highly salted mud, hole enlargement can still be a problem
because of the effect of temperature on salt solubility. As cool saltsaturated mud is pumped downhole, bottomhole temperature heats
the mud and it becomes undersaturated. As the mud is circulated to
the surface, it dissolves formation salt, resulting in an enlarged hole.
At the surface, the lower temperature causes excess salt to precipitate out, and the process repeats itself as the mud is circulated. Several inhibitors have been developed to supersaturate salt muds even
at low temperatures to overcome this problem. Others have used
heated surface mud systems to maintain a saturated mud at all times
during circulation. 6
Use of oil-based mud eliminates the potential for hole enlargement from dissolution; however, increased reaming time and minor
stuck-pipe incidents often occur in the resulting gauge hole. Use of
freshwater pills while drilling with an oil-based mud to free a drillstring stuck in salt has been achieved, but careful planning and implementation are required.

coast because very small amounts of magnesium salts are encountered in either the salt deposits or the fluid inclusions within the salt.
To provide a degree of salinity balance between a salt formation
and low-salt cement, use of small concentrations of KCl in the cement has been proposed. 8 When combined with controlled fluid loss
and free water, this cement mixture has proved successful in several
field applications for cementing casing across salt formations. In the
late 1980's, special additives were developed to eliminate the disadvantages of use of highly salted cements. 6 Special fluid-loss additives and dispersants for salt cement slurries have solved the problems of over-retardation and compressive strength development.

Casing Design
One of the major causes of loss of wellbores through long salt sections is casing deformation and collapse. The traditional method
used to design casing through long salt zones is to assume internally
void casing and use an external hydrostatic-pressure gradient equal
to overburden stress. 9 This procedure has proved successful in gulf
basin salt because gauge holes and effective cement jobs are usually
obtained. However, hole washouts and poor cement displacement
in salt formations often cause unusual, nonuniform loading that is
difficult to predict and to quantify. Several modifications to the
traditional salt casing design have been proposed to account for nonuniform collapse 10ading. 1O ll

Cementing
Effective cementing of casing is one of the most important aspects
of drilling long sections of salt successfully. Cementing is a very important factor in zonal isolation and in preventing unequal loads on
casing that can lead to casing collapse. Poor cement displacement
in hole enlargement zones can cause nonuniform salt loading, which
can lead to casing deformation and collapse.
Since the 1940's, salt-saturated cement systems have been used
to cement casing strings across massive salt formations. These highly salted slurries prevent salt dissolution; however, the high salt concentration tends to make mixing difficult and over-retards the cement. Special and expensive additives for fluid-loss control and
dispersants are also required. To avoid over-retarded cement, saltfree cements and semisaturated cements have been used to cement
casing opposite massive salt sections. However, a concern exists
that low-salt cement used opposite massive salt sections will lose
strength with time.? The ion exchange between calcium and magnesium found in brines associated with some zones may cause cement
failure to occur eventually. This concern is minimal for the U.S. gulf
186

-,------------------------------------------,
300

, 000 Bar COnfinmg Pressure

and 69 Bar Axial Stress

"-

ttl

c:
o

50

'00

150

200

250

TEMPERATURE. DEGREES F

300

300

...

Fig. 2-Effect of temperature on salt-creep rate (from Ref. 3).

SPE Drilling & Completion, September 1994

...
...

10
12

8
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
+ + + + +

TEMPERATURE, ' F

14
16

I
Q
Q

Q
Q

~ 20

t:W
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+ + + + +
+ + + + +
+ + + + +

;:

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+ + + + +
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+ +
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+ + + + + + + + +
9 5/8 IN. @ 10,400 FT.

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>
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30

10

12

14

16

18

20

11

MUD WEIGHT, Ibm/gal

Fig. 3-Mud weight required for 0.1 o/Jhr area closure at various
temperatures (from Ref. 4).

Directional Control
Because salt is a relatively soft material, drilling by scraping action,
such as occurs with polycrystalline bits, is best. However, many
thousands of feet of salt have been drilled with conventional rock
bits. Sidecutting reamers or mills above the bit and eccentric or bicentered bits have also been used to drill salt. These bits and assemblies permit a reduction in the well bore radius from its drilled radius
and therefore do not result in undergauge hole.
Achieving directional control while drilling long salt sections can
be difficult because the wellbore radius is usually either enlarged or
undergauge. With undersaturated salt mud, hole enlargement is
common on the low side of the wellbore. Often, this makes building
and maintaining wellbore angle difficult. This factor can be especially evident when entering a salt dome with undersaturated salt
mud and a slight wellbore angle. The hole enlargement created in
the top of the salt because of dissolution will allow the wellbore to
drop to vertical quickly, creating a significant dogleg and ledges that
can be very troublesome.
Creep of salt or ledges formed during drilling salt often lead to stabilizer hangup with conventional directional drilling bottomhole
assemblies (BHA's). In many cases, use of oriented, hydraulic,
positive-displacement motors with either undergauge or no stabilizers may be necessary to drill directional wells in salt successfully.

Case Histories
Avery Island. The Avery Island salt dome is one of the most studied
and notable structures along the U.S. gulf coast. Oil production began here in the early 1940's, and many wells have been drilled
alongside and through salt overhangs to reach hydrocarbons. A redrill program in the late 1980's was initiated to recover very updip
reserves near the salt face (Fig. 4). Owing to substantial salt overhang, drilling through, rather than under, the overhang was necessary. After drilling through the overhang with highly salted waterbased mud, 95/s-in., 53.5-lbf/ft P-11O casing was set and cemented
with high-salt cement. Casing collapse rating was 7,930 psi, somewhat less than design for a full overburden external pressure for the
salt interval at 8,768 to 10,339 ft true vertical depth (TVD).
While drilling below the 95/s-in. casing and after raising mud
weight slightly, a reduced diameter section in the casing at 9,500 ft
measured depth (MD)-9,450 ft TVD-was indicated. Only 17
days had elapsed since the casing had been cemented. After conditioning the hole for logging, a mechanical caliper log was run and
determined that the 95/s-in. casing was out-of-round opposite salt.
The casing radius was as much as 0.25 in. out-of-round, and the enSPE Drilling & Completion, September 1994

12

400

800

1200

1600

THROW FROM SURFACE LOCATION - FEET

Fig. 4-Avery Island well and salt-dome cross section.

tire interval opposite salt showed deformation that increased with

depth. Following the caliper survey, 7 5Is-in., 39-lbf/ft P-11 0 casing
was set across the salt interval, and further casing deformation in
this interval was not indicated.
As a test, Eq. 1 was used to calculate the wellbore radius after
creep for the temperature, depth, and mud weight used during drilling of the 12%-in.-diameter hole through salt. The equation predicts that the drilled-hole diameter would decrease to "'" 7 to 8 in. after 17 days. The magnitude of salt creep predicted by Eq. 1 could
easily have deformed the slightly underdesigned casing by the
amount experienced.
Mississippi Canyon Block 211. Numerous salt features are encountered in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. A massive salt sheet
covers the entire 5,760-acre Mississippi Canyon Block 211. Fig. 5
shows that the salt sheet top is 1,394 ft below the mudline and that
"'" 3,015 ft of salt is penetrated in the wellbore. Owing to the 4,356-ft
water depth, the overburden pressure in the salt interval was significant even though temperatures were very low. For the portion of the
well in salt, traditional casing design and saturated water-based mud
were used. Drilled-hole size was almost perfectly gauge. Low-density freshwater cement slurries incorporating fluid-loss control and
free water with small quantities of KCI were used for casing strings

------~--------__~~- SEALEVEL

WO.435811.

=
0

...

MUOLINE

30 In .
FORMATION

.. .... .....

+++++++++++

NO HORIZONTAL
SCALE

10

13-5/1-ln.

FORMATION

Fig. 5-Mississippi Canyon Block 211 well and salt cross section.
187

set opposite salt. The average salt density was only 2.05 g/cm 3, and
unusually low bit penetration rates were experienced. No caprock
and no unusual salt-related problems were encountered after casing
was cemented through the salt.
South Louisiana Well. After setting 7 5/g-in. casing in this almost
vertical well, salt was unexpectedly encountered at 11,750 ft while
drilling with oil-based mud. Continued vertical drilling of 1,900 ft
of salt with an I8-lbm/gal mud indicated that the salt was not an
overhang. The well was then plugged back to above the salt and
sidetracked away from salt. Salt was soon re-encountered, and attempts to build angle in the M~-in. hole with a steerable, hydraulic,
positive-displacement motor and BRA proved unsuccessful. Stabilizers on the steerable BRA apparently would hang up on small
ledges in the salt or on a slightly undergauge hole, preventing placement of weight on the bit. Ultimately, the angle was successfully
built to 60 in the salt, beginning with positive-displacement motors, bent subs, and no stabilizers. After angle build was established
and substantial wellbore angle achieved, continued building of
wellbore angle was then successful with typical stabilized anglebuilding rotary BRA's.
After drilling to 16,400 ft MD (15,900 ft TVD), an exit from salt
could not be achieved and drilling was terminated. Solution of Eq.
1 indicated the I8-lbm/gal mud used during drilling salt resulted in
an extremely low creep rate for the wellbore conditions. No problems were experienced with reduced wellbore diameter while drilling this long salt interval.
Conclusions

1. Directional drilling in salt intervals is achievable and routinely

accomplished.
2. A new analytical equation has been developed to allow engineering calculations of salt creep into a wellbore at any stress and
temperature combination.
3. Drilling long salt sections is costly because of the special drilling fluids and casing design required: however, its use may be necessary to reach many hydrocarbon reserves.
4. Drilling through long salt sections should be considered as an
alternative to aggressive directional-drilling programs that try to
avoid salt.
Nomenclature

A = salt constant = 1.42 x 10-13 0.5 x 10-13 (psi)-n sec- 1

B = temperature exponent of salt = 8,000 2,000 K, T
n = stress exponent of salt (4.5 1.3)
p = wellbore pressure, mlLt2, psi
T = wellbore radius after creep, L, in.
To = original wellbore radius, L, in.
!l.t = creep time, t, seconds
T = formation temperature, T, K
Y = [(n+I)/2J
u"" = horizontal in-situ stress, mlLt2, psi

Re;~erence8

i. Halbouty, M.T.: Salt Domes. GulfRegion United States and Mexico, second edition, Gulf Publishing Co., Houston (1979).
2. Koen, A.D.: "Subsalt Play Could Rekindle Outlook for Gulf of Mexico," Oil & Gas J. (July 26, 1993) 23.
3. LeCompte, P.: "Creep in Rock Salt," J. Geol. (1965) 73, 469.
4. Leyendecker, E.A. and Murray, S.C.: "Properly Prepared Oil Muds Aid
Massive Salt Drilling," World Oil (April 1975) 93.
5. Barker, J .W, Feland, K.W, and Tsao, Y-H. : "Drilling Long Salt Sections
Along the U.S. Gulf Coast," paper SPE 24605 presented at the 1992 SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Washington, DC, Oct.

4-7.
6. Muecke, N.B. and Kiji, N.A.: "Heated Mud Systems: The Solution to
Squeezing Salt Problems," paper SPE 25762 presented at the 1993 SPEJ
IADC Drilling Conference, Amsterdam, Feb. 22-25.
7. Yearwood, J., Drecq, P., and Rae, P. : "Cementing Across Massive Salt
Formation," paper CIM 33-39-104 presented at the 1988 Pet. Soc. of
CIM, Calgary, June 12-16.
8. Grant, WH., Dodd, E.L., and Gardner, c.A.: "Simplified Slurry Design
Increases Wellsite Success," SPEDE (Sept. 1989) 255.
9. Cheatham, J.B. and McEver, J.W: "Behavior of Casing Subjected to
Salt Loading," JPT(Sept. 1964) 1069; Trans., AIME,231.
10. Hackney, R. M.: "A New Approach to Casing Design for Salt Formations," paper SPE 13431 presented at the 1985 SPEJIADC Drilling Conference, New Orleans, March 5-8.
II . El-Sayed, A.A.H. and Khalaf, F.: "Resistance of Cemented Concentric
Casing Strings Under Nonuniform Loading," SPEDE (March 1992) 59.

51 Metric Conversion Factor

acre x 4.046 873

E-OI =ha
bar x 1.0*
E+05 =Pa
ft x3.048*
E-Ol =m
OF CF-32)/1.8
== C
OF CF + 459.67)/1.8
=K
gal x3.785412
E-03 =m 3
in. x2.54"
E+OO =cm
Ibf x 4.448 222
E+OO =N
Ibm x 4.535 924
E - 01 = kg
mile x 1.609 344* E + 00 == km
psi x 6.894757
E + 00 == kPa

SPEDC

*Conversion factor is exact.

John Barker is a headquarters staff engineer at Exxon Co. IntI. in

Houston. where he has worked with offshore drilling operations
for the past 20 years. He holds a BS degree in civil engineering
from Texas A&M U. Kenneth Feland retired from Exxon Co. U.S.A.
in 1992 with 34 years of experience. primarily with U.S. gulf coast
drilling operations. He holds a BS degree In petroleum engineering from Oklahoma State U. Yuh-Hwang Tsao is a research
associate at Exxon Production Research Co., where he has
worked on salt drilling. waste management. risk assessment,
drilling cost reduction. and stuck-pipe prediction. He holds a BS
degree from Taiwan U. and a PhD degree from Syracuse U.
both in mechanical engineering.

Acknowledgments

We thank Exxon Co. U.S.A. and Exxon Production Research Co. for
the permission to publish this paper. We acknowledge those teachers who have inspired and encouraged engineers and geologists.

188

Barker

Feland

Tsao

SPE Drilling & Completion, September 1994