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We l l b o r e S t a b i l i t y a n d S a n d C o n t ro l

Wellbore-Stability Challenges in the

Deepwater Gulf of Mexico
The full-length paper details three wells
drilled in the Pompano field in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The issues
of drilling depleted sands, wellbore instability at high angles, and risks associated
with drilling subsalt extended-reach
wells are discussed. The paper concludes
by providing guidelines and recommendations for preplanning activities,
drilling practices, and real-time wellborestability management.
Introduction
Several wellbore-stability challenges were
encountered when drilling in the Pompano
field in the deepwater GOM. Overburden
sediments are weak and overpressured, porepressure/fracture-gradient windows are narrow, salt bodies may have to be penetrated,
rubble zones may exist adjacent to salt bodies, and reservoir formations may be depleted
with risks of lost circulation and differential
sticking. Extended-reach wells, required to
access satellite reserves, require close monitoring of equivalent circulating densities
(ECDs). The pore-pressure/fracture-gradient
window may be complicated by changes in
water depth over the length of the wellpath.
Wellbore-Instability Challenges
The principal concern when drilling deepwater wells, particularly early exploration
wells, is prediction of overpressures and
fracture gradients. The narrow pore-pressure/fracture-gradient windows necessitate
multiple casing strings to reach the target
reservoir formations. Errors in predicting
pore pressures and fracture gradients have
resulted in well failures. In subsalt wells,
poor seismic quality may make accurate
pore-pressure prediction impossible.
One challenge in extended-reach-well
design in deep water is the case where water
depth varies along the well profile. This is
common in the GOM when drilling in the
vicinity of the Sigsbee escarpment where
water depth can change more than 2,000 ft
in less than 2 miles. The deepwater GOM
fields Mad Dog and Atlantis underlie the
Sigsbee escarpment. Some extended-reach
wells will be drilled in areas of the field in
water depths as great as 6,500 ft.

OCTOBER 2003

Pompano Field
The Pompano field, discovered in 1985,
extends over five GOM blocks and is
approximately 24 miles southeast of the
Mississippi River delta. Water depths range
from 1,100 to 2,200 ft. The reservoirs consist of multiple turbidite sands in a variety
of traps and settings. Key structural features of the field are a salt dome with overhang and a large counter-regional growth
fault. The field is divided into three areas.
The downthrown Pliocene reservoirs to
the north and northwest of the fault consist
of 10 independent stacked reservoirs. The
upthrown Pliocene is south of the salt and
growth fault, and the reservoirs are a group
of related channel sands. To the southeast,
the Miocene reservoirs draped over an
anticline are an interconnected sequence of
confined turbidite channel sands.
Significant amounts of the total recoverable reserves are in the Miocene portion of
the field.
At discovery, reservoir pressure in the
Miocene sands was approximately
6,685 psi; in the upthrown Pliocene,
approximately 3,328 psi; and in the downthrown Pliocene, from 3,500 to 5,500 psi.
Reservoir production has depleted these
sands by as much as 3,000 psi in the
Miocene, though water injection has
restored the reservoir pressure in selected
sands almost to original pressure.
Case Histories
Well TB-03. Well TB-03 was drilled from a
subsea template to access the M85 and M83
sands at approximately 9,900 ft true vertical depth (TVD) and 10,100 ft TVD,
respectively. These reservoir sections were
drilled at deviations of 80 to 85. The target
sands had been depleted from 6,572-psi
original reservoir pressure to approximately 4,000 psi. The overlying and intrareservoir shales were still overpressured, and
experience indicated that these require a
mud weight of at least 13 lbm/gal to drill
without instability. There was concern that
drilling into the depleted sands with this
mud weight would damage the reservoir by
inducing severe losses or would lead to differential sticking. Setting casing above the

This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains

highlights of paper SPE 84266, Wellbore Stability Challenges in the Deep
Water, Gulf of Mexico: Case History
Examples From the Pompano Field, by
S.M. Willson, SPE, S. Edwards, SPE,
P.D. Heppard, X. Li, SPE, G. Coltrin,
D.K. Chester, SPE, H.L. Harrison, and
B.W. Cocales, BP America Inc., prepared for the 2003 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition,
Denver, 58 October.
For a limited time, the full-length paper
is available free to SPE members at
www.spe.org/jpt. The paper has not
been peer reviewed.

reservoir to allow a reduced mud weight

to drill the reservoir would increase the
well cost and decrease the production-tubing size.
Stability analyses for the reservoir section
were performed after failure of the original
TB-03 WB00 borehole to penetrate the
depleted target sands. In this borehole the
133/8-in. casing was set at 6,643 ft measured depth (MD)/6,516 ft TVD. The
133/8-in. shoe was tested to a 14.0-lbm/gal
leakoff. The 121/4-in. hole was drilled directionally to 11,280 ft MD with a
13.1-lbm/gal mud. The 13.1-lbm/gal mud
weight was required to control a small
influx that occurred at 9,777 ft MD when
drilling with 12.5-lbm/gal mud. This section of the hole was tight at various points,
indicating only a small overbalance. In TB03 WB00 a total loss of returns occurred at
11,280 ft MD when drilling the M85 sand.
The drillstring became stuck and losses
ensued, leading to the loss of the bottomhole assembly (BHA) downhole. The well
was sidetracked above the depth of the fish.
The stability analysis was used to guide the
drilling of the new TB-03 WB01 well path.
The redrill had the advantage that 95/8-in.
casing was to be set at 10,856 ft
MD/9,850 ft TVD, leaving no shale exposed
above the M85 sand.

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The WB01 wellbore was begun with an

11.4-lbm/gal mud weight. Fluid-loss additives were added continuously to prevent
lost circulation. Caution was exercised to
flow check the well on connections. The
M85 sand was successfully drilled at this
mud weight with no losses, and an increase
in cuttings at 11,245 ft MD indicated that
the intervening shale had been penetrated.
Mud weight was increased to 11.5 lbm/gal
and rate of penetration controlled to limit
the ECD to the specified 12.6 lbm/gal
needed for shale stability. The hole was
drilled successfully to total depth (TD) at
12,800 ft MD with no losses into the M83
sand. However, when pulling out of the
hole, the hole packed off at 11,280 ft MD,
close to the top of the intervening shale.
Lost returns occurred and the pipe became
stuck momentarily. The section was
cleaned up, and a reaming trip to TD
encountered numerous occurrences of
tight hole and packing off in the intervening shale section. Mud weight was
increased to 11.8 lbm/gal though the ECD
was limited to 12.6 lbm/gal. After logging
the hole with logging-while-drilling
(LWD) logs, the 7-in. liner was run successfully to TD and cemented in place.
Well TB-09. Well TB-09 was designed as
an 11,700-ft-TVD/20,454-ft-MD 12,000-ft
step-out extended-reach well from the subsea template to access the Miocene M83
sand. The well was to be drilled at a 75
east-northeast bearing. The planned deviation was aggressive to achieve the desired
step out, kicking off below the 20-in. shoe
and deviating as much as 68 in the
171/2-in. hole section. In the other wells,
the 171/2-in. hole section had been built to
a 35 maximum. The planned 68 deviation was maintained in the 121/4-in. hole,
after which the deviation was dropped to
40 through the reservoir section. Aiding
the predrill wellbore-stability assessment,
good offset data were provided by the
MC 28-1 exploration well. Sonic data from
MC 28-1 provided a prediction of in-situ
rock strength.
On the basis of the prewell wellbore-stability analyses, a new casing design was chosen that included a 16-in. liner to be set at
5,585 ft MD/5,354 ft TVD to address concerns about the aggressive build rate proposed in the 171/2-in. hole section. Because
a 16-in. liner was included to build leakoff
resistance in shallower sections, there was a
possibility to push casing seats deeper so the
M83-1 and M83-3 sands could be drilled in
a 121/4-in. hole instead of the planned
81/2-in. hole.

62

As predicted, the top hole sections of

Well TB-09 proved challenging. The predicted mud weight in the build-to-68 section and top of the tangent section was
approximately 1.0 to 2.0 lbm/gal higher
than pore pressure.
The 20-in. casing was set 300 ft deeper
than planned at 3,940 ft MD. The 171/2-in.
hole was begun with a 10.2-lbm/gal mud,
then mud weight was increased to
10.4 lbm/gal. However, below 4,500 ft MD,
the mud weight was kept at this density and
not increased in agreement with the predicted minimum mud weight. Below this depth,
the hole became tight and at 4,960 ft MD,
the borehole packed off and the BHA
became stuck with no circulation or pipe
rotation. After regaining circulation, the
171/2-in. hole was drilled ahead to 5,065 ft
MD with the hole still tight. The decision
was made to run the 16-in. liner approximately 500 ft shallower than originally
planned. Mud weight was increased to
11.2 lbm/gal to stabilize the hole when
pulling out.
The 143/417-in. hole was begun with
11.6-lbm/gal mud. The hole was in good
condition until below 5,900 ft MD, where
the hole started packing off when the recommended weight increase to 12.1 lbm/gal
was not followed. Mud weight was
increased to 11.8 lbm/gal, and the hole
advanced to 6,900 ft MD with some tighthole occurrences. Below 6,900 ft MD, the
mud weight was increased to 12.5 lbm/gal
to stabilize the hole. At this point, the ECD
exceeded the fracture gradient at the 16-in.
casing shoe and the well started taking losses at as much as 300 bbl/hr. The
143/417-in. hole was drilled to the
133/8-in. setting depth of 8,168 ft MD. The
121/4-in. hole was drilled without significant problems.
Well A-32 Dinka. The Dinka well was a
middle Miocene well southeast of the shallow Pompano salt canopy. Although the well
drilled through approximately 4,500 ft TVD
(6,560 ft MD) of salt, the target was not
under the salt and was well imaged on seismic data. The planned well reached 16,000 ft
TVD/24,812 ft MD with a 63 maximum
inclination. At the time it was drilled, this
well was a record extended-reach well for its
depth and step out. The well also was nominally high pressure/high temperature.
The predrill wellbore-stability study concluded the following.
For most of the well, mud weight required to keep the well stable was equal
to the pore pressure or only 0.7 lbm/gal
greater than pore pressure. The proposed

casing setting depths and mud weights were

appropriate.
The highest risk of wellbore instability
was in the first 1,000 to 2,000 ft after the
well exited the salt. In this section, the
planned well path was almost parallel to the
bedding direction and additional mud
weight would be required to kept the well
stable. An analysis of other wells exiting the
salt indicated that the formations adjacent
to the Pompano diapir are competent and
have not contributed to any instability problems on exiting the salt.
The long tangent section away from the
bedding-parallel section was predicted to be
stable using a mud weight only 0.7 lbm/gal
above pore pressure.
The well was drilled according to plan
and was a success. The well was drilled to
TD in only 117 days from spud, averaging
51 days per 10,000 ft drilled. Mud weight at
TD was 15 lbm/gal, and no evidence of
instability was seen when exiting the salt.
Best Practice
Wellbore-stability predictions require as
input the best predictions possible for porepressure and fracture-gradient profiles. In
deepwater environments, proper attention
must be placed on establishing the amount
of undercompaction, the effect of the smectite-to-illite clay transition on velocity correlation for predicting pore pressure, and recognizing that water-depth changes along a
deviated well profile may invalidate simple
1D pore-pressure predictions.
For a given pore-pressure/fracture-gradient window and well trajectory, formation
strength dictates the mud overbalance
required. Strength-prediction algorithms
should be based on the best available data
and calibrated against actual strength measurements on core samples where practical.
When analyzing the drilling of depleted
sands and pore-pressure regression zones, it
is important to balance minimizing lost-circulation risks against causing instability in
adjacent overpressured shales. Consequences of shale instability can be mitigated
by good hole-cleaning practices. Circulation
losses tend to be more catastrophic and are
more difficult to remediate. Good mud fluid
and hydraulics modeling is necessary to
limit ECDs.
When exiting the salt or crossing faults,
the potential occurrence of rubble zones
should be noted. It is important that these
be properly diagnosed at the earliest opportunity. Real-time monitoring of LWD data,
cavings, and other drilling indicators are
key factors in the success of challenging
wells drilled in the deepwater GOM. JPT

OCTOBER 2003