Hole Condition Monitoring

This section will cover:

• How to “listen to the hole when it talks to you”
– What language does a high angle hole talk in?
– What are the signs of trouble?
– What tools do we have to analyze the well?

• How to optimize ROP

– How fast is safe to drill?

• How to avoid stuck pipe while tripping

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 Hole Condition Monitoring
“Hole Condition Management” is the idea of looking after the hole
as it is drilled… as opposed to the idea of cleaning up (or fixing)
your mess later on

“Hole Condition Monitoring is the real-time collection and

interpretation of relevant well data, with the aim of either
(a) staying out of trouble,
or (b) optimizing the ROP within the system limits”

“listen to the well and let it tell us what’s going on”

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 Hole Condition Monitoring
• High angle wells tend to “suck you in” and “set a trap for you”,
because the normal indicators don’t work now…

– No tight hole at connections, no matter how bad your cleaning is

– PWD can’t see the cuttings bed

– Cuttings act to reduce torque friction

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 Hole Condition Monitoring
• Most common flaw in many operations is the assumption that
loads (hookloads, torque, ECDs, pump pressures) are linear
– This is vertical hole logic (and dubious in a vertical hole!)
– People assume that Torque and ECDs are best indicator of a dirty hole
– People are looking for an obvious change

• Don’t assume you know what normal is. Loads must be modeled
on a case-by-case basis
• You cannot know what “abnormal” looks like, when your
understanding of “normal” is wrong

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 Hole Condition Monitoring
Consider this task:
•You have to find your way from K&M’s
office to this house.
•Don’t worry… there are lots of signs to
point the way

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 Are we there yet?

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 Roadmaps
You have all the necessary signs in front of you…
• So what’s the problem?

For the signs to be meaningful, you need a map

Unfortunately, there are lot’s of signs that we

don’t need…
• Some signs are irrelevant, and simply create noise
that must be filtered out to find the important stuff…
•And some signs are plain deceiving, and will cause
you to make bad decisions

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 Roadmap Example

Consider this North Sea well, drilling 12¼” hole…

The operator is very diligent about watching for “trends”

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 Roadmap Example
ECDs for 1st run are erratic due to
mud fluctuations
(with lots of sweeps),
…but a constant range.

Torque is almost constant from

9,000’ to 16,000’: very good

Increases at 16,000’ with

formation change
ECDs for 2nd run are much
steadier (stopped pumping sweeps)
…shows reducing trend

Like most, the procedures say to “monitor torque and ECDs for
indications of hole cleaning problems”
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 Roadmap Example

Slack-off trend Pick-up trend also seems

seems pretty pretty constant…
constant…

K&M would argue that the Slack-off & Pick

Up trends at connections are much better
indicators of a hole cleaning problem…

But a train wreck is coming here… can you see it?

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 Roadmap Example
Let’s compare actual vs. “theoretical” trends, using “roadmaps”
• Obvious (but subtle) divergence of SO and PU trends

• The hole was whispering for a long, long

time (not unusual in drilling mode)
• At the same time that torque & ECD were
getting better & better

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 Roadmap Example
And this is the same interval that the drag
trends clearly started “whispering” that the
hole cleaning is in trouble …

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 Roadmaps
How are they implemented properly?
• Collecting the data alone is pointless (as you have seen)
• Often, operators fall one-step short of making
“Roadmaps” truly useful
• Only one friction factor line is plotted (no sensitivity analysis)
• Discrepancy's in theoretical vs. actual are usually ignored

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 Hole Condition Monitoring
In Drilling Mode:
• Either:
• Stay out of trouble, or
• ROP Optimization, within the limit of the hole
cleaning system

In Tripping Mode:
• Stuck pipe prevention tool

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 Drilling In The Box

If we are drilling within the hole

cleaning limits …
… we are ‘drilling in the box”

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 Drilling In The Box

• Sometimes we find ourselves outside the box …

• Some how ROP is now too fast for the conveyor belt

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 Drilling In The Box
• We now have 3 options …
1. Make conveyor
belt go faster
(if you can)

2. OR get back
inside box
(i.e. slow down)

3. OR normal
oil-field response
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 Hole Cleaning Approaches
Option #1 (aka, Redneck)
1. Drill as fast as possible to TD
2. Circulate <1xBU
3. Spend a week getting out of the hole
Depth
Depth

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Time
Time
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 Hole Cleaning Approaches
Option #2 (aka, Norwegian)
1. Control drill
2. Circulate forever and a day
3. Pull out of the hole easily
Depth
Depth

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Time
Time
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 Hole Cleaning Approaches
Option #3 (aka, 007)
1. Drill as fast as you can clean
2. Circulate until the hole is clean
3. Pull out of the hole easily
Depth
Depth

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Time
Time
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 Drilling In The Box

ROP strategies:
1. “Make hole” and fix the problems later
2. Proactively manage hole cleaning as the section is
drilled

Generally, safer, easier and more efficient to keep the

hole clean, than it is to clean up a dirty one.

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 How do we listen to the hole?
• There are several tools for listening to the hole…
– Generally speaking, those that are effective in a vertical hole are
ineffective in a high angle well (and vice versa)
Lot’s of mis-understanding and false advertising about PWD for
high angle wells.

• Tools : For hole cleaning .. This is most useful in vertical part of wells

– PWD This is an effective tool

– Cuttings weighing / measuring (both high angle and low angle wells)

– MWD vs. surface torque & WOB This should be considered a “no brainer”
to implement
– Drag trend monitoring
For high angle wells, this is the most
effective (and reliable) hole cleaning
measurement tool

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 ECD Monitoring With PWD
• PWD is a valuable tool for ERD wells
– Can help to avoid lost returns and pack-off
– Trip/conn. data available in stored memory (time log)

• However, of limited usefulness for hole cleaning in high angle

wellbores
– Cuttings bed is invisible to PWD, unless very close to packing off
– Most cuttings loading seen on PWD comes from near-vertical hole section
– Alternately, PWD may see an isolated dune (not a bed)
– However, if PWD sings … listen
– You must know what normal clean hole looks like, otherwise you risk
making poor decsions (either overly conservative or overly optimistic)

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 Cuttings Weighing
• Systematic weighing of cuttings off the scalping screen(s)
– Can get automated systems, or can be very poor-boy approach

– Only use as a trend tool … absolute values are unreliable

• Don’t know the hole size, rock density, “wetness”

– Important to be consistent
• If only checking from one shaker, difficulty is if the shaker loading is
varying from time to time.

– Difficult to account for fine stuff on the fine screens (sand, silt)
• Hence, also need qualitative assessment of the lower screens

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 Cuttings Weighing
A.) Theoretical Cuttings volume

B.) Actual Cuttings volume

Difference between A and B is Residual Volume

(ie, cuttings bed volume)

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 Cuttings Weighing

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 Cuttings Weighing

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 Cuttings Character
Check cuttings at regular intervals:
• Cuttings volume compared to previous checks
- Take ROP and Flow Rate into consideration
- Flow split over scalper and fine screens
- Remember, good cuttings flow may not be “good enough”
- Consider cuttings weighing at each stand (or each hour)
• Cuttings character and shape
- See next slide- Understand “cuttings talk”
- Small & rounded means… Big & blocky means…
- Is cuttings character changing?
• Shaker Hand may be the most important guy on the rig

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 Cuttings Character
PDC SHAVING
SMALL CUTTINGS ROUNDED CUTTINGS

“PROPELLER” ANGULAR CHUNK “MUSHY” GLOB

OR CURVED

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring
• Drag monitoring is the primary hole condition monitoring
technique advocated by K&M
– Detects negative trends before getting into trouble
– Works both while drilling and tripping

• Must be compared to theoretical curve to be meaningful

– You must know what “normal” look like
– Difficult to spot trends from numbers in a tally book
– Tracking a straight line does not always mean you are safe
(next slide)

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring

• Tooljoints will create additional drag as they are

pulled through the cuttings bed
• The amount of additional drag will be dependent
on the bed height

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring
Data collection and plotting
• Actual data collected manually by driller or with sensors
(deadline load cell & top-drive torque)
– Time based data not appropriate for real-time decision making

• Data created & plotted by a designated person

• To be effective in real time…

– Plots must be updated on screen visible to the driller
– NOTE – driller does not watch this screen while tripping or drilling

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring
• Procedure, at every connection while drilling:
– Connection drilled down and reamed as required
– Rotating weight and torque taken at the bottom of the last
reaming run
– Pick-up weight and slack-off weight obtained without
rotation
• While tripping out, measure pickup at the same spot
in the middle of each stand (say 1st TJ)
• Strive for consistency for all drillers (procedure and
speed)

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring
What about torque?
• K&M have found torque to be quite unreliable as a hole
cleaning indicator
– Torque is not so sensitive to cuttings bed height
– Is more sensitive to lubricity

• However, still record torque

– Useful for planning longer wells
– A great “early warning” of differential sticking effects (discussed in the
next section)

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring
Drilling Mode Discussion
• In drilling mode :
– Looking for diverging Slack-Off and Pick-Up trends (compared to
theoretical)
– We’re moving away from the problem, so we can afford to be a bit
patient with out response to trends

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 Torque and Drag Monitoring

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 Drilling Mode Hookloads Plot
- Shows diverging drag trends.
- Either means:
- We’re drilling too fast, OR
- Friction factors are changing naturally (due to
geology change)
- Questions to ask:
- Any formation change (on LWD, or at shakers)
- Any change in parameters, ROP

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 Drilling Mode Hookloads Plot
- If we make a significant change in ROP,
and if trends were due to hole cleaning ...
- Should expect trends to correct
themselves in a few stands
- Optimum ROP is somewhere between
these speeds

Reduce ROP at
12,000’. Note trends
come back inwards

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 Drilling Mode Hookloads Plot
- If we do a clean-up cycle, the SO & PU
loads should “kick in” suddenly…
- This provides a good “clean hole”
reference line
- Note – has no bearing on truly clean hole,
nor for running casing

Typical initial result of

cleaning up the hole

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 Drilling Mode Hookloads Plot
- Following a clean-up cycle
- Hookloads typically return to normal
drilling FF very quickly
- Don’t try to keep FF’s down to clean
hole values

Typical initial result of

cleaning up the hole

Hole quickly returns to

“normal” FF line

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 Diverging drag trends… hole cleaning problem,
right? Circulation doesn’t help much…

Hole cleaning getting worse again…?

Time for another cleanup cycle…?

Were all these sudden changes due to hole

cleaning…?

Tip: Lithology changes can influence drag trends.

Test for geology vs. hole cleaning by performing
short “cleanup cycles” and check response.

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 Torque & Drag Monitoring
Tripping Mode Example
• From a actual 17½” high angle well

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 After a clean up, the trip commences
• Loads are below the line
• Is this OK ?

A trend is observed
• But it’s only 10 k-lbs (5 mT) more than prediction
• Is this a ledge, & keep pulling,
•OR is this cuttings?

The obstruction moved after a clean-up

• A stuck pipe incident has just been avoided

Notice only one modeled line here - a common mistake

• Recommend at least 2-3 “roadmap” lines Actual
1.First, you may simply have the wrong FF line Hookload
2.But also because your eyes play tricks on you … it’s easier to
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see a deviation when there are multiple lines used
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 Sometimes you will see this tripping behavior…

• After a clean up can trip 10+ stands, before

disturbing trend is observed

• The trip improves after the circulation, but the

bad trend starts again after only 5-10 stands
This time drop down,
circulate, and commence
• After a bigger circulation, the process again
back-reaming out repeats, with only 5-10 stands before a bad trend
• We’ll never get out of the hole this way, so
we commence back-reaming…
• What’s going on here ?
• If you see this behavior, the hole is talking
Drop down & clean up … • We have an “untrippable BHA”. The dirt
this time a bigger clean-up can’t get through the junk slots, and it only
takes 5-10 stands before the BHA is “gravel
Drop down & clean up packed” again.

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 Drilling Practices Example
This example highlights the impact that cleanup
practices have on friction factors and operational
problems (tripping and casing running)

3 Different Barnett Shale Wells

- ±8,000’ TVD
- Slightly different trajectories
- Same rig drilled all 3 wells
- 7⅞” Hole, 4½” Drillpipe (3.06 P-HAR)
- 2 Wells used poor cleanup techniques
- 1 Well used thorough cleanup techniques

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 Example Well #1

7 ⅞” Hole, 4 ½” Drillpipe
WBM, 1.3xBU, 40 rpm, 380 gpm
- TOOH FF: >0.50
- Csg FF: 0.55-0.60

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 Example Well #1

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 Example Well #2

7 ⅞” Hole, 4 ½” Drillpipe
WBM, 1.3xBU, 30 rpm, 380 gpm
- TOOH FF: ±0.40
- Csg FF: 0.45-0.50

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 Example Well #2

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 Example Well #3

7 ⅞” Hole, 4 ½” Drillpipe
WBM, 3.5xBU, 60-80 rpm, 380 gpm
- TOOH FF: ±0.40
- Csg FF: 0.45-0.50

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 Example Well #3

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