Chapter Eight: Failure of Inclined Wells

Topics
• Failure of Inclined Holes
• Determination of Stress from Failure of Inclined Holes
• Tensile Fracture Example from Northern North Sea
• Breakout Example from Gulf of Mexico
• Distinguishing Drilling-induced Tensile Fractures from
Natural Fractures
• Determination of Stress Orientation from Shear Velocity
Anisotropy Measured with Dipole Sonic Logs
 Key Points

1. Failure depends on magnitude of all 3 principal stresses and orientation of well

relative to the stress field.

2. Assessment of potential failure with the incorrect stress field leads to totally
incorrect conclusions.

3. Tensile fractures (often appearing as en echelon sets) are expected to be fairly

common in inclined wells. The good news is that they do not affect hole
stability and are extremely useful for assessing the in situ stress state. The bad
news is that they could be mis-interpreted to be natural pre-existing fractures.

4. There are a number of aspects of inclined well failure that may be counter-
intuitive. Trust your intuition at your own risk. For example, the initiation of
failure and the severity of failure may not be correlative.
Borehole Wall Stresses for a Particular Trajectory

Figure 8.1 a – pg. 237

Principal Stresses on the Wellbore Wall

Figure 8.1 c – pg. 237

Wellbore Coordinate System

Figure 8.1 b – pg. 237

 Stresses at the Wall of an Arbitrarily
Oriented Wellbore — 1

Far-Field Stress Tensor

⎛ S1 0 0⎞ ⎛ xs ⎞ ⎛ X⎞
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
Ss = ⎜ 0 S2 0⎟ ⎜ ys ⎟ = Rs ⎜ Y ⎟
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
⎝0 0 S3 ⎠ ⎝ zs ⎠ ⎝ Z⎠

⎛ cosα cos β sin α cos β − sin β ⎞

⎜ ⎟
Rs = ⎜ cosα sin β sin γ − sin α cosγ sin α sin β sin γ + cosα cos γ cos β sin γ ⎟
⎜ ⎟
⎝ cosα sin β cos γ + sin α sin γ sin α sin β cos γ − cosα sin γ cos β cosγ ⎠

Equations 8.1-8.3 – pg. 238

 Stresses at the Wall of an Arbitrarily Oriented
Wellbore — 2

⎛ xb ⎞ ⎛ X⎞ ⎛ − cosδ cos φ − sin δ cos φ sin φ ⎞

⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
⎜ yb ⎟ = Rb ⎜ Y ⎟ Rb = ⎜ sin δ − cosδ 0 ⎟
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
⎝ zb ⎠ ⎝ Z⎠ ⎝ cosδ sin φ sin δ sin φ cos φ ⎠

S g = R sT Ss R s σ zz = σ 33 − 2ν (σ 11 − σ 22 ) cos 2θ − 4νσ 12 sin 2θ

S b = R b R sT Ss R s R Tb σ θθ = σ 11 + σ 22 − 2(σ 11 − σ 22 ) cos 2θ − 4σ 12 sin 2θ − ΔP

σ ij = Sij − δ ij Pp τ θz = 2(σ 23 cos θ − σ13 sin θ)

σ rr = ΔP

Equations 8.4-8.7 – pg. 238

Stresses at the Wall of an Arbitrarily Oriented
Wellbore — 3

1⎛ ⎞
= ⎜⎝ σ zz + σ θθ + (σ zz − σ θθ ) ⎟
2
σ t max + 4τ ⎠
2
θz
2

1⎛ ⎞
= ⎜⎝ σ zz + σ θθ − (σ zz − σ θθ ) ⎟
2
σ t min + 4τ ⎠
2
θz
2

σ rr = ΔP

Equations 8.8 – pg. 239

Representing Drilling Trajectories

Figure 8.1 d – pg. 237

 Tendency for Breakout Initiation for
Different Stress Regimes*

3 km Depth, Hydrostatic Pp Figure 8.2 a,b,c – pg. 240

*Don’t use this plot for wellbore stability
 Tendency for Tensile Fracturing for
Different Stress Regimes*

3 km Depth, Hydrostatic Pp Figure 8.3 a,b,c – pg. 241

*Don’t use this plot for lost circulation
Visund Field Orientations
Stress Magnitudes
Figure 8.9 a,b – pg. 249
Figure 8.10 – pg. 250
Breakout Orientation Diagram

Figure 8.4 a,b – pg. 243

Figure 8.5 a,b – pg. 244
 Estimating Stress and Rock Strength from
Observations of Breakouts in Inclined Wells

Observations of failure in inclined boreholes are extremely

valuable for assessment of in situ stress and strength

1. Because failure depends on magnitude of all 3 principal stresses and the orientation
of the well relative to the stress field, the following is often determinable with
observations of only the orientation of failure in a single deviated well:

Known Determinable
Shmin SHmax magnitude and Stress Orientation
Stress Orientation Shmin and SHmax magnitudes

2. Observations in multiple wells are very helpful as long as you are confident that the
stress field is uniform (both stress orientation and magnitudes) .

3. Once stress magnitudes have been constrained, it is possible to estimate upper (and
lower) bounds of compressive rock strength.
 South Eugene Island Pathfinder Stress Study

Observations
• Wellbore breakouts 17° (clock-wise) from the bottom of well
• Wellbore azimuth of 35°
• Wellbore inclination of 32°
• Sv = 42.9 MPa (density log)
• Shmin = 37.1 MPa (leak-off test)
• Pp = 29.0 MPa (equal to mud weight)

Objective
•To find an azimuth and magnitude of SHmax which are consistent
with the observations above.
 Pathfinder Stress

(psi) (psi)
South Eugene Island, Block 330 Area

Figure 8.11 b – pg. 252

Key Seating in Deviated Wells, GOM Example
Figure 8.5 c,d – pg. 244
Drilling Induced Tensile Fractures KTB
Pilot Hole, Germany

Figure 8.6 a,b – pg. 245

Development of En Echelon Tensile Fractures

Figure 8.7 a,b,c – pg. 246

Geothermal Well, Japan
Modeling Drilling-Induced Tensile Fractures

Figure 8.8 a,b – pg. 248

Natural Fractures, Drilling Induced Fractures and
Drilling Enhanced Fractures

Figure 8.12 a,b,c – pg. 253

Development of En Echelon Tensile Fractures

Figure 8.7 a,b,c – pg. 246

Theory

Figure 8.13 a – pg. 254

Drilling Induced Tensile Wall Fracture, Argentina

Figure 8.13 b – pg. 254

Drilling Induced Tensile Wall Fractures
Soultz, France

Figure 8.13 c – pg. 254

Drilling Enhanced Fractures
Shear Velocity Shear velocity anisotropy
has been studied widely
Anisotropy
in seismology

◦ Reflection Seismology
◦ Cross-Dipole Logs
◦ Earthquake
Seismology

But what controls shear

velocity anisotropy?

◦ Bedding?
◦ Stress?
◦ Fractures?
Dipole Sonic Shear Logs
Structure
Stress

UBI and FMI Logs

 Stress Induced Acoustic Anisotropy,
Compared to Borehole Breakout Orientations
FAST SHEAR ANISOTROPY

STRATIGRAPHY COLUMN
SLOWNESS [ani]
AZIMUTHAL ANISOTROPY MAP
240 40 0 40 0 360
(us/ft) FEET (%)

SLOW SHEAR
Average Anisotropy Azimuth
AVG. ANISOTROPY
SLOWNESS [ania] (ANISOTROPY %)
240 40 40 0
(us/ft) (%) 0 4
N S N
7400

Arab D3B
7404

N69

7411

7417

N63

Arab D4
7423.5
7425

7433

N64
7439
 How do we use shear
velocity anisotropy to
learn about the crust?
◦ Bedding?

◦ Stress?

◦ Fractures?
Stress-induced anisotropy
Highly disordered system

ƒ Preferential closure of
fractures in response to SHmax
ƒ Stress parallel fast direction
ƒ Decreasing anisotropy with
depth as stress increases.
Structural anisotropy
Highly ordered system

ƒ Aligned macroscopic features

(e.g., fault fabric or bedding)
ƒ Fast direction parallel to
structure
SAFOD Pilot Hole (Boness & Zoback, GRL, 2004)
Figure 8.14 – pg. 257
Figure 8.15 a,b – pg. 258
 What will be the affect
of bedding on cross-dipole
logging data?

Figure 8.16 – pg. 259

 Sedimentary Bedding
Electrical Conductivity Image
Bed Orientation

2000

SAF
2200
strike

Depth (m)
2400

2600

2800

3000
Figure 8.17 a,b,c – pg. 260
For a borehole with azimuth from North, α, and inclination from the
vertical, Ι, the vector, Bn that defines the axis of the borehole from an
arbitrary origin is given by:
⎡ π
2
⎛ ⎛π
2 ⎤
⎛ ⎛ ⎞ ⎞ ⎞⎞ ⎛π ⎞⎥
Bn = ⎢sin(α ) 1 + ⎜ sin⎜ − I ⎟ ⎟ cos(α ) 1 + ⎜ sin⎜ − I ⎟ ⎟ − sin⎜ − I ⎟
⎢ ⎝ ⎝2 ⎠⎠ ⎝ ⎝2 ⎠⎠ ⎝2 ⎠⎥
⎣ ⎦
Equation 8.9 – pg. 261
where all angles are in radians. Given the dip, ƒd, and dip direction,
ƒα, of the true fast plane we compute three discrete points, F1, F2 and
F3, in the fast plane that has a corner at the origin used to define the
borehole. The normal to the fast plane, Fn, may now be computed
using A = F1 - F2 and B = F2 - F3 , thus giving

Fn = A × B
The vector, ƒa, that describes the apparent fast direction, ƒad (defined to
be in the dip direction), and the apparent fast dip, ƒaα, from the origin is
then found by computing the line that is perpendicular to the borehole
and perpendicular to the normal to the fast plane (i.e. in the fast plane)
such that
f a
= Bn × Fn
Figure 8.18 – pg. 262
SAFOD main borehole

Boness & Zoback

Submitted to Geophysics