A study on identification of borehole ballooning in the formation with narrow safe density window

ABSTRACT

Borehole ballooning is a special phenomenon observed during drilling operations in the formation with a narrow safe density window. This phenomenon is easy to be confused with well kick. This study takes a comparison between borehole ballooning and well kick and finds that the essential distinction is whether the influx of formation fluid happens. TTake the event of 'overflow at well head' as the initial event and draw an event tree with five process events to analyze the reason of “overflow at well head.” Finally, draw a flowchart to identifyborehole ballooning under the situation of narrow-formation safe density window.

KEYWORDS:

• Borehole ballooning
• event tree
• flow chart
• kick tolerance
• narrow safe density window
• well kick

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the High Temperature and High Pressure Drilling Key Technology in Yingqiong Basin [CNOOC-KJ 135 ZDXM 24 LTD ZJ 01]; Offshore Oil and Gas Exploitation Accidents Prevention and Control Technology Research and Engineering Demonstration [2017YFC0804500]; and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [17CX06016].