Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683

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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

Research on the prediction model of annular pressure buildup in

subsea wells
Jinge Liu a, *, Honghai Fan a, Qi Peng a, Song Deng a, Bo Kang a, b, Weiyan Ren a
a
MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
b
Drilling Technology Research Institute of Sinopec Oilfield Service Shengli Corporation, Shandong 257017, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The temperature difference between hot flowing production (including petroleum & natural gas) and
Received 3 July 2015 fluid in the sealed annuli leads to annular pressure buildup (APB). The pressure increase could be very
Received in revised form high due to the low compressibility of the annulus fluid, thereby endangering the well integrity and
21 October 2015
casing safety, especially in the HPHT (high pressure high temperature) subsea wells. In this paper, a semi-
Accepted 23 October 2015
Available online 30 October 2015
steady state model is presented to predict APB; the model takes several crucial factors into account, such
as the differences of annulus temperature with depths, heat transfer diverseness at various well sections,
and the ratio change between isobaric thermal expansion and the isothermal compressibility. The results
Keywords:
Annular pressure buildup
of the case study demonstrate that APB is directly influenced by production rate, well depth, and annular
Thermal expansion length. In these factors, APB is most sensitive to the production rate. The higher the production rate, the
Brazil offshore higher pressure increase in the annuli becomes. The model provides a practical APB prediction method
Heat transfer that is beneficial to well integrity and casing safety during petroleum and natural gas production process.
Wellbore heat transmission © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction found that leakoff had a dominant influence on the pressure

Annulus pressure buildup (APB), which is caused by fluid ther-
mal expansion in the confined annuli of HPHT subsea wells, can
lead to some serious accidents, such as casing failure or tubing
collapse, especially during the hours of the starting period of pro-
duction. This phenomenon, which always occurs in subsea oil and
natural gas developments, especially in the Gulf of Mexico (Azzola
et al., 2004; Bradford et al., 2004), West Africa (Yang et al., 2013)
and the Brazil offshore fields (Ferreira et al., 2012), severely
threatens the well integrity and casing string. According to the
Marlin failure analysis, one of the potential root causes of the failure
of Well A-2 on the Marlin tension-leg platform was APB (Bradford
et al., 2004).
Researchers have proposed many methods to predict and pre-
vent APB since the 1990s. Halal and Mitchell (1994) proposed a
method taking the thermal expansion and the radial movement of
the enclosing casings into account to calculate APB when designed
the casing program. Oudeman and Bacarreza (1995) developed a
general model for pressure buildup in unconfined sealed annuli and
* Corresponding author. College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of
Petroleum-Beijing, 18 Fuxue Road, Changping, Beijing 102249, China.
E-mail address: petro_jack@163.com (J. Liu).
behaviour of the unconfined sealed annulus. This general model
has been widely used in APB prediction. Oudeman and Kerem
(2006) demonstrated that, in general, the pressure buildup rate
was always over-predicted when estimating the pressure buildup
based on thermal expansion, taking into account the effect of
ballooning of the outer casing and compression of the inner casing.
Hasan et al. (Hasan et al., 2009, 2010) presented two analytical
approaches involving semi-steady state and transient formulations
based on the general model proposed by Oudeman (Oudeman and
Bacarreza, 1995; Oudeman and Kerem, 2006). In this semi-steady
state model, they treated the fluid flow as being at steady state,
while the heat exchange with the formation was in transient mode.
However, they did not take into consideration the deformation of
the casing. Gao et al. (2012) and Yang et al. (2013) and Yin and Gao
(2014) established different models for the interactions among the
casing-cement-formation system and took into account deforma-
tion of the casing. The finite element approach was also used to
predict APB (Jandhyala and Chiney, 2014). However, they did not
account for the differences of the ratio al/KT at different tempera-
tures, one of the important fluid properties. The ratio is very sen-
sitive to temperature, and neglecting the ratio will introduce
substantial errors. In addition to prediction models, many re-
searchers also presented different methods to prevent APB (Vargo

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2015.10.028
1875-5100/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1678 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683
et al., 2003; Azzola et al., 2004; Bradford et al., 2004; Tahmourpour
et al., 2007). This paper presents a semi-steady state model to
predict APB. The semi-steady state model treats the heat transfer
from the tubing fluid to the outer face of cement as a steady state
phenomenon and the heat exchange with the formation as a
transient phenomenon. In addition, the semi-steady state model
accounts for the differences of the ratio al/KT at different
temperatures.
Most of the above-mentioned models are based on the general
model for pressure buildup in unconfined sealed annuli proposed
by Oudeman and Bacarreza (1995). According to the general model,
three factors contribute to the pressure increase in unconfined
sealed annuli: thermal expansion, change of the annulus volume
and change of fluid amount in the annuli. Among the three factors
of influence on APB, thermal expansion is the most crucial one and
contributes to more than 80% of the pressure increase (Hasan et al.,
2010). As a result, determining how to obtain the distribution of
multi-annuli temperature is the key point to predict APB. Many
methods of calculation of the wellbore temperature had been
investigated by previous researchers. The most widely used
method is the classic method proposed by Ramey (1962). Subse-
quently, Kutasov (1989) and Hagoort (2004) demonstrated and
improved Ramey's method. Other methods, including a numerical
simulation method (Livescu et al., 2010), analytical or semi-
analytical solutions (Medeiros and Trevisan, 2006; Wu et al.,
2015), and isothermal and non-isothermal simulations (Bahonar
et al., 2011), were also used to calculate the temperature along
the wellbore for different well statuses. However, these methods
did not cover the multi-annuli situation. For some models (Gao
et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2013; Yin and Gao, 2014), the fluid tem-
perature in the annuli or tubing is averaged or regarded as a con-
stant value that does not change with depth. However, the result of
the wellbore temperature simulation with in-house temperature
simulators shows that the formation fluid in the tubing and drilling
fluid in the annuli has different temperatures at various depths
(Oudeman and Kerem, 2006; Hasan et al., 2010). This paper pre-
sents a semi-steady state model to first predict the annuli fluid
temperature and then to finally predict the APB. The annuli are
separated into several parts according to the amount of annuli due
to the difference heat transfer process from the tubing fluid to the
formation at various depths.
2. Model description of the annulus temperature
2.1. General formulation
According to the equation of state (Eq. (1)), the pressure in the
annuli depends on the amount of fluid (m), the annulus volume
(Vann) and the temperature (T):
p ¼ pðm; Vann ; TÞ
The following expression (Oudeman and Bacarreza, 1995;
Oudeman and Kerem, 2006) shows the relationship between the
three factors and the pressure increase:
al 1 1
Dp ¼ DT  $DVann þ $DVl
KT KT KT $Vl
The first term in Eq. (2) represents thermal expansion, the
second term is the volume change in the annulus and the last term
represents the amount of fluid volume change in the annulus
(liquid leakoff to the formation or fluid influx into the annulus). Of
the three components, thermal expansion is a most important one
and accounts for more than 80% of the increase in most cases
(Oudeman and Kerem, 2006). Given the incompressible
characteristic of these fluids, small changes in temperature can lead
to large pressure changes in the confined annuli. Thus, the calcu-
lation of the fluid temperature in tubing and annuli is the key point
to estimate and predict APB.
2.2. Modelling tubing and annuli fluid temperature
For existing models, the fluid temperature in the annuli or
tubing is regarded as a constant value that does not change with
depth. However, the fact is that the temperature difference be-
tween the bottom and the head of annulus is huge and cannot be
neglected. The result of a wellbore temperature simulation using an
in-house temperature simulator clearly demonstrates this fact
(Oudeman and Kerem, 2006; Hasan et al., 2010).
In addition, taking annulus 1 as an example (Fig. 1), it has
different heat transfer processes for the same annulus. In part 1
(Fig. 1), the heat transfer from the hot tubing fluid to the formation
is as follows: convection heat transfer between the hot tubing fluid
and the inner face of the tubing, heat conduction in the tubing,
annulus 1, production casing, and cement, and heat conduction
from the outer face of the cement to the formation. However, in
part 2 (Fig. 1), there are seven heat transmission parts connected in
series: heat transfer between the hot tubing fluid and the inner face
of tubing, heat conduction in the tubing annulus 1, production
casing, annulus 2, technical casing, and cement, and heat conduc-
tion from the outer face of the cement to the formation. Similarly,
part 3 (Fig. 1) is different from part 1 and part 2.
Substantial errors will be introduced if we do not account for the
temperature differences at various depths and the different heat
transfer processes. Our model takes these two factors into consid-
eration and is able to well simulate the practical condition.
During production, the tubing fluid is hotter than the fluid in
annulus 1 (mostly drilling fluid) and the surrounding formation.
Heat transfer between the tubing fluid and the tubing inner face
occurs via forced convection heat transfer. The heat transfer to the
formation through the tubing, annulus 1, casing, cement and for-
mation occurs via heat conduction.
To develop a mathematical model for the temperature estima-
tion of the different annuli at semi-steady state, the following as-
sumptions are made:
(1)
(2)
Fig. 1. Wellbore schematic of typical subsea wells.
 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683 1679

 Single liquid phase in the tubing and the annuli. Combing Eqs. (3) and (4), we obtain a first-order system of bi-
 The initial temperature in an annulus equals to the surrounding nary non-linear differential equations. Solving the equations, we
formation temperature. obtain the following:
 The formation is infinite, with constant thermal properties.
 Heat only transfers in the radial direction. qm c1 x
Tf ðxÞ ¼ Te ðxÞ  gT qm cpf Rfe þ gT qm cpf Rfe e pf Rfe (5)
 The geothermal gradient is known and increases linearly with
depth.
R1e Rf 1
T1 ðxÞ ¼ T ðxÞ þ Te ðxÞ (6)
The assumptions above were justified through the results of Rfe f Rfe
many researchers, for example Ramey (1962), Hagoort (2004) and
In part 2, there are two annuli: annulus 1 and annulus 2. When
Wu et al. (2015). The classic method proposed by Ramey (1962) was
the equilibrium state is achieved, the heat loss equals to the heat
developed under the assumption that the physical and thermal
obtained in annulus 1 & annulus 2; as a result, we obtain another
properties of the earth and the wellbore fluid are constant and do
set of two formulae:
not vary with temperature. In addition, they considered the for-
mation surrounding the wellbore was of infinite extent. Ramey's Tf ðxÞ  T1 ðxÞ T ðxÞ  T2 ðxÞ
model was validated by Hagoort (2004) and other researchers; dx ¼ 1 dx (7)
Rf 1 R12
these results laid the foundation for current wellbore heat trans-
mission research. Other assumptions were justified by Wu et al.
T1 ðxÞ  T2 ðxÞ T ðxÞ  Te ðxÞ
(2015) in their study of transient wellbore heat transmission after dx ¼ 2 dx (8)
well shut-in. R12 R2e
Analysing the heat transfer process of microelement dx (Fig. 2) Combing Eqs. (3), (7) and (8), we obtain a first-order system of
in part 1, the heat flowing into the microelement is Fin, the heat binary non-linear differential equations. Solving the equations, we
flowing out of the microelement is Fout and the heat transferring obtain:
from tubing fluid to annulus 1 is Ff1. According to the principle of


conservation of energy, the heat flowing into the microelement is B B
equal to the sum of the heat flowing out of the microelement and Tf ðxÞ ¼ Te ðxÞ  þ Tb1  Te1 þ eAx (9)
A2 A2
the heat transferring from the tubing fluid to annulus 1. Thus, the
energy balance equation can be expressed as Rf 1 R12
R12 R1e
T1 ðxÞ ¼ T ðxÞ þ Te ðxÞ (10)
Tf ðxÞ  T1 ðxÞ R1e Rf 2  R2e Rf 1 f R1e Rf 2  R2e Rf 1
qm Cpf Tf ðxÞ ¼ qm cpf Tf ðx þ dxÞ þ dx (3)
Rf 1
R2e R
Rf1 is the thermal resistance from tubing fluid to annulus 1. T2 ðxÞ ¼ T ðxÞ þ 12 Te ðxÞ (11)
R1e 1 R1e
References (Hasan et al., 2010; Hasan and Kabir, 2012; Wu et al.,
2015) describe the computational methods of the thermal resis- where
tance. After a period of production, an equilibrium state is achieved, !
that is, the heat obtained from the tubing fluid in annulus 1 Ff1 is 1 R12 R1e
equal to the heat transfer to the formation Ffor. A¼ 1 (12)
qm cpf Rf 1 R1e Rf 2  R2e Rf 1

Tf ðxÞ  T1 ðxÞ T ðxÞ  Te ðxÞ

dx ¼ 1 dx (4) gT R R12
Rf 1 R1e B¼  f1  (13)
qm cpf Rf 1 R1e Rf 2  R2e Rf 1

The temperature of the tubing fluid and the various annuli in

part 3 can be obtained in a similar manner.

3. APB calculations

According to Eq. (2), APB depends on the thermal expansion,

annulus volume change and fluid volume change in the annulus.
For the sealed annulus, the fluid volume change is zero and has no
influence on the pressure increase. Compared to thermal expan-
sion, the volume change has limited function on the APB. This paper
focuses on the contribution of thermal expansion to the APB for a
sealed annulus. Thus, the pressure increase can be expressed as Eq.
(14):

al
Dp ¼ DT (14)
KT
It is assumed that the initial temperature of the annulus is equal
to the surrounding formation temperature. Thus, the temperature
change DT(x) can be expressed as the following formulation:

DTðxÞ ¼ TðxÞ  Te ðxÞ (15)

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the heat transfer in part 1.
1680 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683

The ratio of the isobaric thermal expansion and the isothermal Table 2
compressibility (al/KT) is an important parameter in the APB Input data for the APB calculation.

calculation that characterises the pressure response of a fluid to a Parameter Value Parameter Value
temperature change. The value of the ratio al/KT is always unknown dto 0.0889 n 5.88  106
for drilling fluid in the annulus, except for a specific measurement. dti 0.0759 lf 1.73
Generally speaking, al/KT is approximated using the properties of a 1.15  106 lcas 45
the base fluidewater (Oudeman and Kerem, 2006). Cpf 2100 lfor 2.25
rf 850 lcem 1
al/KT is more sensitive to temperature than to pressure. For
water at the state of 0.1 MPa, at 70  C al/KT is nearly 7 times larger
than the value at 10  C. However, the ratio only changes approxi-
mately 9% from 0 MPa to 67 MPa at 50  C (Ellis et al., 2004;
Oudeman and Kerem, 2006). To simplify the calculation, we as-
sume the ratio is a function of only the temperature, that is, al/
KT ¼ f(T). Finally, the pressure increase in the annulus can be
expressed by Eq. (16):

Zz
1
Dp ¼ f ðTÞðTðxÞ  Te ðxÞÞdx (16)
z
0

The driving force of the annular pressure is the temperature

differential between the hot flowing production fluids and the fluid
in the sealed annuli. Both hot flowing oil and hot flowing natural
gas are able to induce APB, especially in the HPHT subsea wells. The
model presented in this paper not only adapts to oil subsea wells
but also natural gas subsea wells. When developing a HPHT subsea
natural gas reservoir, predicting the APB accurately and imple- Fig. 3. Calculated temperatures of different annulus.
menting mitigation measures in advance are necessary to maintain
well integrity and sustain production.

4. Case study

A subsea well is taken as an example to simulate and illustrate

how heat transfer occurs in various annuli and to identify the
contribution of thermal expansion to the APB in Brazilian offshore
fields. Generally, in many offshore fields in Brazil, for the shallow
intervals (up to 2500 m) the geothermal gradient is 0.035  C/m, and
for the deepest intervals (2500/5000 m), the geothermal gradient is
approximately 0.045  C/m (Falcao, 2001). The bottom hole tem-
perature can be as high as 200  C in some areas (Falcao, 2001). In
this situation, the APB in the annuli is easily developed in the start
of production, thereby threatening the well integrity and the safety
of casing severely.
Assuming a 3800-m Brazil offshore well producing single-phase
oil, the relevant well schematic (Ferreira et al., 2012) and TOC (Top
Fig. 4. Temperature increase of the tubing in each annulus at various depths.
of Cement) parameters are shown in Table 1. Other input parame-
ters are presented in Table 2 to simulate the real conditions. After
24 hours of production at the oil rate 200 m3/d, the temperatures in
different annuli are shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 shows the temperature
increase of each annulus at various depths.
As is known, the ratio al/KT is not sensitive to pressure and
changes little when the pressure changes. The relationship be-
tween al/KT (Fig. 5) and temperature can be obtained through
fitting to data of water at 0.1 MPa (Handbook, 1971) and is
expressed by Eq. (17). Fig. 6 presents the ratio al/KT in different
annuli at various depths. From Fig. 6, the ratio at the bottom of the
annulus is more than triple that of the value at the head of the

Table 1
Well schematic and TOC parameters.

Casing type Outer diameter (m) Inner diameter (m) TOC (m)

Surface casing 0.508 0.476 0

Intermediate casing 0.3397 0.3136 1200
Production casing 0.245 0.217 2100 Fig. 5. The ratio al/KT of water at 0.1 MPa.
 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683 1681

Fig. 6. The ratio al/KT vs. depth for different annuli. Fig. 7. The relationships between the production rate and the convective film coeffi-
cient (h).

annulus. As a result, ignoring the differential of the ratio at different

5. Analysis of the factors of influence
temperature will have a great influence on the results.

al =KT ¼ 1:89  2:04e0:01743T (17) 5.1. Production rate

Another important parameter is the convective film coefficient.
Apart from the formation fluid (natural gas & petroleum) thermal
physical properties (heat capacity, density, thermal conductivity,
etc.), the fluid flowing state is closely related to convective heat film
coefficient. The fluid flow state is turbulent flow (Re > 2100) when
the production rate is 200 m3/d. The calculation of the convective
film coefficient is based on the equation of characteristic numbers.
There are many equations of characteristic numbers. For turbulent
flow in ducts, the most widely used equation of characteristic
numbers is the Dittus and Boelter equation (Dittus and Boelter,
1930). If the fluid is cooled, the Dittus and Boelter equation can
be expressed as Eq. (18).
Nu ¼ 0:023Re0:8 Pr 0:3
Nu is the Nusselt number, Re is the Reynolds number and Pr is
the Prandtl number; these quantities can be expressed as follows:
hd
Nu ¼
l 5000 m. Compared to annuli 1 & 2, the APB in annulus 3 is not very
ud
Re ¼
n
n
Pr ¼
a
Thus, the convective film coefficient can be obtained through Eq.
(22). This coefficient is adaptable to both crude oil and natural gas.
l
h ¼ 0:023 Re0:8 Pr 0:3
d Let us illustrate how the lengths of annuli 2 & 3 respectively
Finally, the result of APB in each annulus is presented in Table 3.
The largest APB occurs in annulus 1 (33.29 MPa), and its average
temperature change can be as high as 23.9  C.
The heat transfer between the hot formation fluid and the inner
face of the tubing string is via convection heat transfer. The pro-
duction rate has an direct influence on the heat transfer efficiency.
On the one hand, the higher the production rate, the higher the
convective film coefficient (Fig. 7). On the other hand, a higher
production rate means the energy available for heat transfer is
increased. Compared to annulus 3, the APB in annuli 1 & 2 is more
sensitive to increasing production (Fig. 8).
5.2. Well depth
When the fluid in the sealed annulus receives heat from the
producing fluids in the tubing string, the pressure could increase
(18)
significantly due to the low compressibility of the annulus fluids.
The hot formation fluid is the driving force of the APB. The bottom
of wellbore temperature increases with well depth due to the ex-
istence of a geothermal gradient. The APB in the annulus 1 in-
creases considerably when the well depth changing from 2500 m to
(19)
sensitive to the well depth (Fig. 9).
(20)
5.3. Annulus length
(21) The annulus length is another important factor that affects the
APB in the annulus. The length of annulus 1 is approximately equal
to the well depth; as a result, the feature of the APB in each annulus
as a function of the length of annulus 1 (i.e., the well depth) is
shown in Fig. 9. The length of the annulus can be controlled
(22) through changing the TOC.
influence the APB. First, assuming the well depth (3800 m) and the
length of annulus 3 (500 m) are both fixed, we obtain the rela-
tionship between the length of annulus 2 and the APB of each

Table 3
Average temperature increase and the APB in different annuli.

Annulus number Annulus length (m) Average temperature increase ( C) APB (MPa)

Annulus 1 3800 23.9 33.29

Annulus 2 2100 21.0 24.61
Annulus 3 1200 15.8 13.98
1682 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683
Fig. 8. The relationships between the production rate and the APB.
Fig. 9. Influence of the well depth on the APB for different annuli.
Fig. 10. The influences of the length of annulus 2 on the APB for different annuli.
annulus (Fig. 10). Fig. 10 shows that the APB of annuli 1 & 3 do not
change with the length of annulus 2. The APB of annulus 2 is
increasing with the length of the annulus when the length is less
than 2500 m. However, when the length is greater than 2500 m, the
APB begins to decrease. According to Fig. 4, above 2500 m, the
temperature increase is close to a constant value. However, the
ratio al/KT increases as the depth increases. Thus, the APB increases
with depth. For the second part, the temperature increase is
Fig. 11. The influences of the length of annulus 3 on the APB for different annuli.
reducing; thus, the APB start to decrease. The differences of the
temperature increase and al/KT are responsible for the observed
phenomenon.
Next, we only change the length of annulus 3 (the well depth is
3800 m and the length of annulus 2 is 2100 m). The APB of annulus
3 increases with the length, whereas the APB in annuli 1 & 2 exhibit
an opposite trend (Fig. 11).
The production rate, well depths and annulus length all have
influences on the APB. Of the three factors, the APB is more sensi-
tive to the production rate. To maintain well integrity and casing
safety, the production rate should be managed, especially within
hours of the start of production. Meanwhile, the influence of the
annulus length on the APB should be taken into consideration
during the casing design and the cementing work.
6. Conclusions
In this work, a semi-steady state model is presented to predict
the APB in subsea wells. Fluid thermal expansion is the driving
force of the APB. This model separates the annuli into several parts
along the wellbore by considering the differences of heat trans-
mission process at various depths. Meanwhile, the ratio of the
isobaric thermal expansion and the isothermal compressibility, al/
KT, is also taken into account because it exhibits great differences
for different temperatures. As a result, a great error will be pro-
moted if the property is overlooked.
The case study of the Brazilian offshore drilling shows that the
APB can be very large, as much as 33.29 MPa, which threatens the
well integrity and casing safety severely. Some mitigation measures
should be taken in the process of oil and natural gas extraction in
subsea wells, especially for the HPHT subsea wells. The analysis of
the factors of influence demonstrates that production rate, well
depth and annulus length are all related to APB. These factors
should be considered and managed during casing design,
cementing and production work to ensure well integrity and casing
safety during the process of oil and natural gas production.
Nomenclature
a thermal diffusivity, m2/s
cpf heat capacity, J/(kg$ C)
d tubing diameter, m
gT geothermal gradient,  C/m
h convective film coefficient, W/( C$m2)
KT coefficient of isothermal compressibility, 1/MPam mass,
kg
 J. Liu et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 27 (2015) 1677e1683 1683

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