Best Practice in Understanding and

Managing Lost Circulation Challenges

Hong (Max) Wang, SPE, Ronald Sweatman, SPE, Bob Engelman, SPE, Halliburton; Wolfgang Deeg (formerly
Halliburton), SPE; Don Whitfill, SPE, Mohamed Soliman, SPE, Halliburton; and Brian F. Towler, SPE, University of Wyoming
Summary
Lost circulation has been one of the major challenges that cause
much nonproductive rig time each year. With recent advances,
curing lost circulation has migrated from plugging a hole to
borehole strengthening that involves more rock mechanics and
engineering. These advances have improved the industrys under-
standing of mechanisms that can eventually be translated into bet-
ter solutions and higher success rates. This paper provides a review
of the current status of the approaches and a further understanding
on some controversial points.
There are two general approaches to lost circulation solutions:
proactive and corrective, based on whether lost circulation has
occurred or not at the time of the application. This paper provides
a review of both approaches and discusses the pros and cons re-
lated to different methodsfrom an understanding of rock me-
chanics and operational challenges.
Introduction
Lost circulation (LC) is defined as the loss of whole mud (e.g.,
solids and liquids) into the formation (Messenger 1981). There are
two distinguishable categories of losses derived from its leakoff
flowpath: Natural and Artificial. Natural lost circulation occurs
when drilling operations penetrate formations with large pores,
vugs, leaky faults, natural fractures, etc. Artificial lost circulation
occurs when pressure exerted at the wellbore exceeds the maxi-
mum the wellbore can contain. In this case, hydraulic fractures are
generally created.
During the last century, lost circulation presented great chal-
lenges to the petroleum industry, causing significant expenditure
of cash and time in fighting the problem. Trouble costs have con-
tinued into this century for mud losses, wasted rig time, and inef-
fective remediation materials and techniques. In worst cases, these
losses can also include costs for lost holes, sidetracks, bypassed
reserves, abandoned wells, relief wells, and lost petroleum re-
serves. The risk of drilling wells in areas known to contain these
problematic formations is a key factor in decisions to approve or
cancel exploration and development projects.
Background literature (Messenger 1981) on the subject de-
scribes many methods and materials used to remedy lost circula-
tion. Many of these methods worked in some wells but not in
others. Trial and error applications almost always resulted in a
costly learning curve.
A field practices study (API 1991) of cementing wells, pub-
lished by the American Petroleum Institute (API) in 1991, com-
piled drilling and production surveys and trade journal data for 339
fields worldwide between 1980 and 1989. The number of fields in
each area is presented for general information and may not repre-
sent all wells or fields in that specific area. The North American
fields include fields in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Listed
among the many types of data sourced in this study is LC infor-
mation in relevant fields. This LC data was analyzed for this paper
to obtain the LC event frequencies of occurrence presented in
Table 1. The LC data analysis indicates that up to 45% of all wells
in the 339 fields require intermediate casing or drilling liner strings
to isolate LC zones and prevent LC while drilling deeper to total
depth (TD). Even after using these extra pipe strings, LC events
still occurred in 18 to 26% of all the hole sections drilled in
relevant fields. Some fields had higher occurrences of LC events
ranging from 40 to 80% of wells. In recent years, these percentages
likely increased as the number of shallow, easy-to-find reservoirs
steadily declined and industry operators intensified their search for
deeper reservoirs and drilled through depleted or partially depleted
formations. Conventional lost-circulation materials (LCM), in-
cluding pills, squeezes, pretreatments, and drilling procedures of-
ten reach their limit in effectiveness and become unsuccessful in
the deeper hole conditions where some formations are depleted,
structurally weak, or naturally fractured and faulted.
To address these issues, new LC solutions and concepts, such
as borehole strengthening or wellbore pressure containment
(WPC), evolved (Alberty and Mclean 2004; Aziz et al. 1994; Fuh
et al. 1992). The mechanisms behind various means proposed and
used to enhance WPC are still debated and are not fully under-
stood. Proposed mechanisms include sealing incipient fractures at
the wellbore wall; propping open multiple short fractures at the
wellbore wall, thus increasing compressive stresses around the
wellbore; and sealing fractures with various materials using a hesi-
tation-squeeze technique.
Based on the ongoing debate of these emerging new tech-
nologies for controlling lost circulation, this paper intends to
provide a comprehensive review and analysis for a better under-
standing of both proactive and corrective borehole strengthen-
ing technologies.
Proactive Borehole Strengthening
Success and Issues. Muds have been pretreated with particulates
having a broad size-distribution spectrum for years, yielding some
clear benefits (Ali et al. 1991; Fuh et al. 1992; Aston et al. 2004).
Based on systematic lab studies, this approach was originally as-
sumed to work by tip screenout, isolating the fracture tip from
the wellbore pressure, thus stopping fracture propagation (Fuh
et al. 1992). The pressure containment improvement realized by
this approach depends strongly on the actual fracture length and
decreases rapidly with increasing fracture length (Deeg and Wang
2004). To help improve the pressure containment using this ap-
proach, the fracture should be bridged or sealed as quickly as
possible before it has a chance to extend a significant distance into
the formation.
Recent improvements in this technology, which include use of
particulate-treated mud as weak zones are penetrated, have shown
significant success in substantially increasing WPC (Alberty and
Mclean 2004; Aston et al. 2004). These successes are supported by
strong evidence from pre- and post-treatment pressure tests. Be-
cause of their capability to strengthen during drilling, the use of
these special muds offers an excellent approach for drilling de-
pleted formations and has achieved substantial success in the field.
Its theory, often referred to as stress caging, states that the
borehole is strengthened by creating microfractures, then plugging
and propping them open with particulates, increasing the hoop
stress. The size distribution of the particulates to be added to the
mud is determined by using the basic hydraulic-fracturing theory
and an assumed fixed-fracture length of 6 inches (in.).
The theory that explains this mechanism is not totally accepted,
because finite element fracture simulations show (Abousleimen
Copyright 2008 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 95895) was first presented at the 2005 SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition, Dallas, 912 October, and revised for publication. Original manuscript re-
ceived for review 6 October 2006. Revised manuscript received 11 September 2007. Paper
peer approved 10 November 2007.
168 June 2008 SPE Drilling & Completion
et al. 2005) that a stable microfracture that could be plugged by
particulates in the described manner (Alberty et al. 2004) is
not present. Further, it was found that two published borehole-
strengthening data points are still within the Kirsch hoop-
stress range for an impermeable circular wellbore-boundary
condition (Abousleimen et al. 2005). The Kirsch hoop-stress equa-
tion defines the upper bound of fracture-initiation pressure for a
perfectly circular wellbore in impermeable rock. It is therefore
possible that the special mud actually satisfied the boundary con-
dition of impermeability, sealing pore throats, and keeping fluid
from leaking off into the formation. The assumed 6-in. fracture
length also lacks support and could easily be exceeded during
fracture initiation.
Sealing Short Fractures. It is widely accepted that the formation
breakdown pressure can be much greater if the wellbore can be
treated as an impermeable boundary in depleted formations (Gid-
ley et al. 1989). Todays drilling fluids used for drilling depleted
formations frequently provide good fluid-loss control, but we have
not seen a particular conventional drill fluid that alone can prevent LC.
Although plugging rock-matrix pore throats can create a nec-
essary condition, treating short fractures may also be important. In
tectonically active areas, S
h
can be much smaller than S
H
. Under
certain conditions, fractures can initiate regardless of wellbore
pressure. Joints created by tectonic activities may be open and
ready to take fluids.
Depletion can also result in fractures and faults. When a res-
ervoir is depleted, the pore pressure is decreased and the effective
stress increases accordingly. Depletion can cause subsidence in
high-porosity, weak formations. It is possible that damage to the
rock matrix resulting from compaction could lead to the creation of
fractures throughout the formation. When these fractures are open
and can conduct fluid, any wellbore pressure in excess of the least
principal stress within the formation can likely cause these frac-
tures to extend, resulting in LC events. The presence of these
fractures, in effect, negates the hoop-stress concentration at the
borehole wall required for pressure containment. This has been
confirmed by Onyia (1994), who noted in the laboratory that when
notched or prefractured, wellbores have breakdown pressures
substantially lower than predicted for intact, unfractured well-
bores. Similar results, especially with oil-based mud, have been
observed by Morita et al. (1996), who explained that the oil-based
mud does not form a thick cake, resulting in premature fluid leak-
off into the pre-existing fractures.
Because of the complexity of sedimentary rocks and drilling
practice, borehole breakdown is affected by many factors. These
factors include Youngs modulus, borehole size, fluid properties
(Morita et al. 1996), pre-existing notches or fractures (Onyia
1994), borehole orientation relative to the in-situ stresses, and the
rocks strength to resist fracture extension, as measured by the
critical stress-intensity factor.
Dupriest (2005) also observed that leakoff test data suggest that
the increased hoop-stress contribution in most sedimentary forma-
tions is relatively small, usually 0 to 200 pounds per square inch (psi).
The preceding discussion indicates that the process of only
sealing pores is not enough to avoid LC if hydraulically conductive
fractures exist in the formation and intersect the wellbore.
The Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI) 2000 project
(Dudley et al. 2001) focused on fracture-reopening pressure. In
this project, fracture sealing with different particulates in mud
was investigated on 4-in. diameter core samples (Fig. 1). In these
tests, it was observed that borehole communicating with con-
fining pressure occurred as soon as the fracture reopened.
Therefore, the increase in confining pressure can be used to iden-
tify the fracture reopening pressure. With base mud, the fracture-
reopening pressure is essentially equal to the confining pressure
(Fig. 2). However, when resilient graphite particulates were added
to the base mud, the fracture-reopening pressure improved sub-
stantially. Fig. 3 is a test result with mud treated with resilient
graphite particulates.
Fracture Stability. So far, the stress cage approach analysis
is based on the hydraulic-fracturing theory, and all results are
related to hydraulic fractures, including the finite element analysis
of fracture stability (Abousleimen et al. 2005). These fractures are
fully inflated and therefore normally have a stress-intensity factor
much larger than its fracture toughness; which causes the fracture
to propagate. However, if the fractures are not fully inflated or
relaxing, the fluid front may not extend to the fracture tip, resulting
in less stress intensity at the fracture tip. Propping these mechani-
cal fractures open away from the tip should not always damage
the systems stability and therefore locally improve the stress be-
yond the Kirsch hoop-stress range.
In examining the fracture initiation process, one can find that at
the onset of fracture initiation it takes some time for mud to flow
into the fracture. In other words, fracture initiation is not caused by
fluid invasion. If the fracture is totally plugged or the fracture
mouth sealed at the wellbore, before fluid penetrates into the frac-
ture past the wellbore, the fracture can still be relaxed and stable.
Other lab tests (Morita et al. 1996, 1990) indicate that fracture
growth becomes suddenly unstable only when the fracture aperture
exceeds a critical width to allow drilling fluid to penetrate past the
wellbore into the fracture. The borehole breakdown does not oc-
cur, even if an initiated fracture propagates as much as 0.3 to 3 in.
The fracture-extension pressure initially increases with fracture
length before fluid starts penetrating into the fracture, which means
fractures should be sealed and propped when initiated. After be-
coming inflated and ready to propagate, it is too late for plugging
with particulates.
Again, examine the GPRI results in Fig. 3. The fracture-
reopening pressure with the treated mud that achieved proper frac-
ture sealing is greater than 1,600 psi, higher than twice the con-
fining pressure of 500 psi, given the pore pressure of less than 100
psi. This indicates that the WPC has improved to a point higher
than defined by the Kirsch hoop-stress.
These tests not only indicate that particulates play a major role
in borehole strengthening but also that WPC can be improved well
beyond that defined by the Kirsch hoop-stress.
169 June 2008 SPE Drilling & Completion
New Fracture Size Calculation for Incipient Fractures. The
design of special particulates to plug incipient fractures before they
become critical and extend a significant distance from the wellbore
requires estimating the fractures width at the wellbore wall. After
this width has been established, properly sized particulates can be
selected to seal the crack. Using fracture mechanics, both the
length and width of these incipient fractures can be estimated.
Fracture mechanics indicates that after a fracture has initiated, it
continues to extend as long as the stress-intensity factor at the tip
of the crack exceeds the critical stress-intensity factor or fracture
toughness of the rock.
The fracture stress-intensity factor and fracture-width equations
for a crack with three distinct symmetrical pressurized regions are
discussed elsewhere (Deeg and Wang 2004). The same equations
can be slightly modified for calculating the stress-intensity factor
and fracture width with only two pressurized regions as follows:
As a starting point for these predictions, assume the pressure
within the borehole equals the formation breakdown pressure. For
a well perpendicular to two of the three principal in-situ stresses,
the breakdown pressure for a nonpenetrating fluid is given by
the following:
P
b
= 3S
2
S
1
P
o
+
tensile
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
To estimate the length and width of the incipient crack, we
consider only the crack, neglecting the effects of the wellbore. If
no wellbore fluids are allowed to penetrate into the portion of the
crack extending past the wellbore wall, the pressure distribution
within the crack is as follows:
P
crack
=
P
b
or P
w
if P
w
P
b
for x R
P
o
for R x c
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
The fracture length created by this pressure distribution is cal-
culated by comparing the stress-intensity factor K
I
for the incipient
crack to the critical stress-intensity factor K
IC
for the formation of
interest. The stress-intensity factor for the previous chosen pres-
sure distribution is given by the following:
K
I
= c P
o
S
2
+ 2

P
w
P
o
arcsin
R
c
. . . . . . . . . (3)
Fig. 1A 4 in.-diameter core sample for GPRI tests.
Fig. 2Background synthetic mud shows no increase of fracture reopening pressure.
170 June 2008 SPE Drilling & Completion
Having calculated the equilibrium crack length, the crack width at
the wellbore can be determined for the assumed crack opening-
pressure distribution. It is given by the following:
w=
81
2
c
E

2
1
R
c

2
P
o
S
2
+ P
w
P
o

1
R
c

2
arcsin
R
c
+

n=1

sin

2n arcsin

R
c

R
c

2
cos

2n arcsin

R
c

+
Rsin

2n arcsin

R
c

cn

2n 12n + 1
(4)
Four sets of fracture width and length are calculated and displayed
in Figs. 4a and 4b to show their relationships. Fracture width tends
to be larger with a longer fracture length.
Corrective Borehole Strengthening
Hookes law states that stress is proportional to strain. When the
fracture width increases, additional stress higher than S
h
is induced
locally along the propped fracture. The increase in stress observed
in the near-wellbore region depends directly on fracture width. The
fluid pressure within the fracture (including the pressure distribu-
tion throughout the fracture), length of the fracture, formation
elastic modulus, and Poissons ratio determine the fracture width.
Dupriest (2005) pointed out that mud losses are either cured or
borehole pressure integrity is increased by improving formation
closure stress (FCS). Widening the fracture results in an increased
compressive stress at the fracture face. This fracture face stress is
the sum of the net stress increase caused by the fracture-widening
effect and the least principal stress, S
h
. Deeg and Wang (2004)
used a hydraulic-fracturing approach to study the stresses induced
by opening a slit-like hydraulic fracture, finding that the stress
perpendicular to and parallel to the fracture directions (S
h
and S
H
)
becomes more compressive with increased fracture width. It is the
net stress increase higher than S
h
that results in higher pressure
required to reopen the fracture filled with sealant.
Fracture width is created by propping the fracture open. To
keep fluid pressure away from the fracture tip, the propping ma-
terial must remain immobile, and no drilling fluid should bypass or
penetrate it at the highest wellbore pressure expected. It can be
shown using basic fracture mechanics calculations that, as the
centroid of the pressure distribution within the crack or fracture
moves away from the tip and toward the center of the fracture, the
pressure required to propagate the fracture increases (Deeg 1999).
Lost circulation through induced fractures is a typical Mode-I
tensile failure. Increase in the tensile strength of rock can help to
improve WPC. In permeable formations, treatments that can in-
crease the rock tensile strength and fracture toughness can also
cure lost circulation.
High Fluid-Loss and High Solid-Content Squeeze Pills. For
high solid-content, high fluid-loss particulate pills to work, the
carrying fluid must leak off so the seal can form. Fluid leakoff
requires formation permeability and a pressure differential; there-
fore this treatment would hardly work in impermeable shale. When
nonaqueous drilling fluid is used, because of its superior fluid-loss
control characteristics and relative permeability effect, such a pill
may not work well even in permeable formations, such as sand-
stones, because the permeability may be damaged by the drilling
fluid. This type of treatment typically works well in depleted,
highly permeable formations with water-based drilling fluid. When
conditions are different from this typical condition, treatment per-
formance may not meet expectations.
Deformable, Viscous, and Cohesive Systems. When the seal
body is formed by a deformable, viscous, and cohesive (DVC)
sealant, fracture width is obtained by squeeze pressure and retained
by its high gel strength. Further, these materials can deform under
pressure or stress. When fracture width increases with wellbore
pressure, the seal body can still maintain the seal by deforming
itself. It, therefore, can allow fracture width to change according to
the wellbore pressure as long as the body still remains in place,
isolating the wellbore pressure. The high gel strength of the sealant
requires a high-pressure differential to dislodge the seal body,
keeping it immobile. The cohesiveness of the materials can help
ensure an impermeable seal body that would not allow mud to
pass through.
One of the advantages of the DVC system is that this treatment
does not depend on formation permeability to form the seal. Be-
cause of the excellent fluid-loss control of oil-based mud (OBM)
and synthetic-based mud (SBM), even permeable formations can
behave as if they had lower permeability in this mud environment.
LC control in impermeable zones or interlayers would be difficult
for a high fluid-loss and high solid-content squeeze pill. It is some-
times very difficult to know whether the loss formation is perme-
able before a treatment is applied. With DVC systems, there is no
need to define whether the formation is permeable.
Fig. 3Addition of synthetic graphite particulates substantially increased the fracture reopening pressure.
171 June 2008 SPE Drilling & Completion