Kick Tolerance for HPHT

Abstract

Safety is of great importance during a drilling operation. Where the worstcase scenario is that the well will kick and it will lead to a blowout. The bestway to handle disasters is to avoid them. Kick tolerance is a planning toolfor well design, it says something about how large the kick can be withoutfracturing the formation around the last set casing shoe. There are manydefinitions and methods for calculating the kick tolerance, this may makethe result confusing for the user of the application.Particular given the extreme environment of high-pressure, high-temperature,where many of properties will be affected and will change the kick toler-ance. Oil- or synthetic based muds will change volume, barite may go outof suspension and create density segregation, and the gas influx may go intosolution with the drilling fluid, everything will influence the kick tolerance.Simplifications with the calculation of kick tolerance and misuse of the safetymargin may lead to uneconomical projects and premature abandonment ofthe well.A model is made to be user-friendly and give a clear vision of how the kicktolerance behaves. The graphical presentation will give a solid foundationfor understanding and analysis of this planning criterion.