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Prediction of sustained annular pressure and the pressure control measures

for high pressure gas wells

Article in Shiyou Kantan Yu Kaifa/Petroleum Exploration and Development · August 2015

DOI: 10.1016/S1876-3804(15)30051-3

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 PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Volume 42, Issue 4, August 2015
Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2015, 42(4): 567–572. RESEARCH PAPER

Prediction of sustained annular pressure and the pressure

control measures for high pressure gas wells
ZHANG Bo, GUAN Zhichuan*, ZHANG Qi, HAN Dong
College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China

Abstract: The sustained annular pressure caused by channeling threatens the casing safety significantly. Cement mantle composite per-
meability and one-dimension unstable seepage were used to describe the channeling of high pressure gas based on the analysis of the
structure of the cement mantle containing micro-fractures and the seepage process of high pressure gas. According to the mass conserva-
tion law and volume accordance principle, a model was built to predict and analyze the pressure rising process when gas invades into the
trapped annulus, and then this model was used to study the impacts of different factors on the annular pressure. The pressure rising proc-
ess can be divided into rapid rising stage and stable rising stage, and the factors affecting annular pressure include the gas solubility and
compressibility of annular liquid, height of cement return, composite permeability of cement mantle and annular volume; the rising veloc-
ity of annular pressure declines with the increase of annular liquid compressibility; the ultimate value and rising velocity of annular pres-
sure increase with the increase of cement return height; the higher the composite permeability of the cement mantle, the faster the annular
pressure increase; the increase of annular volume can prolong the rising time of pressure. From the viewpoint of engineering, high pres-
sure gas wells should take annular liquid with proper compressibility, self-repairing cement should be used in high pressure gas wells to
improve cement quality, the composite permeability of cement mantle should be reduced by using proper measures if necessary, and an-
nulus volume is properly increased to prevent the pressure from rising up too quickly.

Key words: high pressure gas well; channeling passageway; pressure rising velocity; annular pressure prediction; pressure control measures

Introduction hi-pressure wells and take proper control measures. Based on

Sustained annular pressure caused by gas channeling is one
of the tricky issues in hi-pressure gas wells[1], which threatens
the safe production, impedes the stimulation treatments later
and finally lowers the recovery ratio. As more and more effort
is put into natural gas exploration and development in China,
a number of hi-pressure gas fields such as Puguang gas field
in Sichuan Basin, Xinjiang Kela-2 gas field in Tarim Basin
and Dongfang 13-2 gas field in Yinggehai Basin in the South
China Sea have been put into production successively, but
sustained annular pressure exists in these wells to different
extents[2].
Relevant researches and field cases indicate that high an-
nular pressure will threaten the string safety and well integrity
strongly [3] . The available control measures like cement
squeeze and chemical plugging are high in cost, poor in effect,
and difficult to implement[4,5] . While frequent pressure
bleed-off adds difficulties to management and increases pro-
duction cost of gas wells. Therefore, it is of great significance
for the safe production of high pressure gas wells to predict
the change pattern of sustained annular pressure in
the analysis of gas channeling process, a model calculating the
annular pressure when confined annulus containing liquid is
invaded by hi-pressure gas has been built. By using this model,
the impacts of different factors on annular pressure have been
examined, and some measures from an engineering viewpoint
are discussed in order to provide some theoretical foundations
for the management and risk control of hi-pressure gas wells.
1. The causes of gas channeling pathways
An ideal cement mantle, very low in permeability and po-
rosity, can seal the underground fluid effectively to ensure the
safety of well strings. However, micro-fractures (including
micro-fractures and micro-clearance) may generate in cement
mantle in production process. According to field experiences
and relevant theoretical research, the causes of micro-fractures
include[6,7]:
(1) Effect of field operations. The wellbore temperature and
pressure could fluctuate conspicuously in pressure-holding
cement solidification, reservoir test and production, and then
micro-fractures will generate due to the differences in elasto-

Received date: 25 Nov. 2014; Revised date: 02 Jun. 2015.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: guanzhch@upc.edu.cn
Foundation item: Supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project (2011ZX05021-001); The Yangtze River Scholars and Innovation Team of
Ministry of Education (IRT1086).
Copyright © 2015, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina. Published by Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
 ZHANG Bo et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2015, 42(4): 567–572
plastic and thermophysical properties of casings and
cement stones. In addition, micro-fractures would also occur
when the external load caused by operations (such as
perforation) exceeds the strength of cement mantle.
(2) Effect of formation conditions. Poor formation condi-
tions can lead to irregular wellbores, and in turn uneven dis-
tribution of drilling mud; most hi-pressure gas reservoirs have
complex pressure systems and big temperature difference
between reservoir top and bottom, which could cause su-
per-retarding of cement slurry in some well sections, and wa-
ter loss and shrinkage of cement in other sections.
(3) Effect of annular fluid distribution. Long cement slurry
column may lead to weight loss of the column in the process
of solidification, and in turn occurrence of micro-fractures
after solidification; if the cement slurry is contaminated by
drilling mud due to low displacement efficiency, the quality of
cement mantle will be affected; if the formation acid fluid
invades into cement mantle, some particles of cement stone
will be corroded.
According to random fracture theory[8], micro-fractures in
cement mantle could connect into pathways for gas channel-
ing. The gas channeling pathways can be divided into three
kinds according to their structural form and distribution, per-
forative microannulus, reticular fractures and combination of
fractures and microannulus as shown in Fig. 1. The low den-
sity and viscosity confer natural gas stronger pervasion ability,
making gas easier to seep in fractures and reach the top of
annulus, and resulting in sustained annular pressure.
2. Calculation model of sustained annular
pressure
2.1. Calculation method of pressure in confined annulus
containing liquid
The annular pressure caused by gas channeling depends on
Fig. 1. Sketch map of gas channeling pathways.
− 568 −
the state and distribution of gas in annulus. One part of the gas
dissolves in the annular liquid while the other gathers at the
top of annulus and finally forms a gas column. According
to mass conservation law, the sum of the two parts equals to
the total gas entering into annulus through channeling path-
ways, which can be expressed as:
10−4 Rs AH l + Vgan = Vg (1)
Based on volume compatibility principle, the total annular
volume equals to the sum of gas column volume and liquid
column volume. Taking state equation of actual gas and the
compressibility of annular liquid into consideration, an equa-
tion can be got as following:
VganTan Z an pa
+ 10−4 AH l (1 − pan K T ) = Van (2)
pan Z aTa
Previous research[9] indicates that gas solubility Rs in Equa-
tion (1) rises with the increase of annular pressure, and is im-
pacted by liquid density, salinity and solid content, so gas
solubility is usually tested through experiment. After Rs is
obtained, the annular pressure can be acquired by solving the
equation group of Equations (1) and (2).
2.2. Analysis of gas seepage process
The micro-annulus has high permeability but low storage
ability while cement stone has low permeability and low
storage ability, and they form gas channeling pathways to-
gether. Since the cement stone has no big absorption and
conductivity for gas, cement mantle containing channeling
pathways is not a double porosity medium. According to the
above analysis, the gas channeling process can be regarded as
linear seepage, in which comprehensive permeability is used
to express the transport ability of cementing mantle, so gas
channeling process can be illustrated as the following equa-
tion:
∂ ⎛ p ∂p ⎞ φ C ( p ) μ p ∂p
⎜ ⎟= (3)
∂x ⎝ μ Z ∂x ⎠ Ke μ Z ∂t
It can be seen that annular pressure changes with time, so
gas channeling is a one-dimensional unsteady seepage process.
Consequently, Equation (3) becomes a second order nonlinear
partial differential equation, which doesn’t have an exact so-
lution. However the annular pressure can be regarded as un-
changed in a very short time ta, then the unsteady seepage
process becomes steady. So we can calculate the total gas
volume through superposition of the gas in every short time ta.
The solving method of steady seepage is given in reference
[10], and the solution is:
K A Ta Z a ⎡ 2 ⎛
pe − ⎜⎝ p l + panj −1 ⎞⎟⎠ ⎤
2
Q j = 10−5 e (4)
2 L Tan Z μ pa ⎢
⎣ ⎦⎥
The total gas volume invading into the annulus is:
m
Vg = ∑ Q j ta (5)
j =1
The comprehensive permeability in Equations (3) and (4) is
the superposition of cement stone permeability and mi-
cro-fracture permeability. Theoretically the permeability of
 ZHANG Bo et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2015, 42(4): 567–572
micro-fractures can be calculated by smooth plate model and
cubic law[11], however the parameters used in these two
methods can hardly be obtained and the actual fracture is not
smooth, so these two methods are impossible to use. Here we
give a method by using the data of annular pressure at the
early stage to obtain the comprehensive permeability:
(1) Record the time interval between pressure pan and pan+1
as t1;
(2) Release the annular gas to reduce the pressure from
pan+1 to pan again and record the gas volume as V1;
(3) Let Qj=V1/t1 and panj-1=pan+0.5, and then calculate
comprehensive permeability by Equation (4).
3. Case study
A hi-pressure gas well has well depth of 4 127 m, reservoir
pressure of 78.9 MPa, reservoir temperature of 137.05 °C.
The natural gas produced has a viscosity of 0.035 mPa·s, and
compressibility factor of 0.89. Sustained annular pressure
appeared in annulus B between production casing and inter-
mediate casing. Ultrasonic testing and theoretical derivation
suggest annulus B has microannulus. The production casing
and intermediate casing are 139.7 mm and 244.5 mm in di-
ameter respectively. The cement top is 2 550 m and the length
of annular liquid column is 1576 m. The annular liquid has an
isothermal compressibility of 5.2×10−4 MPa−1, and density of
1.62 g/cm3. The comprehensive permeability of cement man-
tle is 34.5×10−3 μm2. The total volume of annulus is 50.20 m3.
The relationship between gas solubility Rs and annular pres-
sure is given by Equation (6) (The original gas solubility is
0.771 8 m3/m3).
Rs = 0.7718 + 8.7696 × 10−2 pan − 5.1785 × 10−4 pan 2 (6)
Fig. 2 shows the change pattern of annular pressure and gas
volume obtained from the model proposed in this paper. As
shown in Fig. 2, the rising process of annular pressure can be
divided into rapid rising stage and stable rising stage. At rapid
rising stage, annular pressure and gas volume rise quickly as
time goes on, and then the rising velocity declines gradually.
At stable rising stage, both the rising velocity slows down, the
annular pressure approximates a certain value infinitely, here
we name this value maximum annular pressure. The maxi-
mum annular pressure is equal to the pressure difference be-
tween reservoir pressure and annular liquid column
Fig. 2. Curves of annular pressure and gas volume with time.
− 569 −
pressure, so we can find where the gas comes from. In this
hi-pressure gas well, the annular pressure reached 53.82 MPa
300 days after put into production, which exceeded the
maximum acceptable annular pressure (42 MPa) and caused
potential risk to the safety production of the well.
4. Analysis of factors influencing annular
pressure and control measures
Rapid rise of annular pressure could threaten the safety of
gas well production string badly[12], bringing about heavy
routine maintenance and management workload. Therefore, in
order to control the rapid rise of annular pressure and ensure
the safety of gas well production string, it is necessary to ana-
lyze various factors affecting annular pressure and work out
reasonable measures for pressure control.
4.1. Gas solubility and compressibility of annular liquid
and relevant control measures
Fig. 3 shows the curves of annular pressure with time at
different initial gas solubilities and compressibilities. Com-
pared with the baseline data (baseline data is from the case
study in section 3, similarly hereinafter, with initial gas solu-
bility of 0.771 8 m3/m3), the curve at the gas solubility of 3.0
m3/m3 only moves to the right a little while the change trend
keeps unchanged. The rising velocity of annular pressure at
the isothermal compressibility of 0.002 MPa−1 is much lower
than that at isothermal compressibility of 0, and the largest
pressure difference at the same time can be as high as 26 MPa.
Because the annular pressure approximates infinitely but can
never reach the maximum annular pressure, 0.95 times of
maximum annular pressure was taken as target pressure to
calculate the required time and gas volume when pressure
reached the target pressure. As shown in Fig. 4, the time and
gas volume required to reach 0.95 times of maximum annular
pressure have a linear relationship with isothermal compressi-
bility.
It can be seen from the above analysis that the initial gas
solubility of annular liquid has no impact on the rising process
of annular pressure, but increasing the isothermal compressi-
bility can extend the time required to reach
Fig. 3. Curves of pressure with time under different initial gas
solubilities and compressibilities.
 ZHANG Bo et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2015, 42(4): 567–572

returning to well head, the cement quality must be taken seri-

ously, and self-healing cement should be used to keep the
comprehensive permeability of cement mantle at low level.
After annular pressure occurs, it is necessary to repair the well
or adopt chemical plugging to lower the comprehensive per-
meability of the cement mantle, and thus prevent the annular
pressure from rising too fast.
4.3. Effect of annular volume and relevant control
measures

Annuli usually contain residue liquid left after cementing

and channeling gas, so its volume has some impacts on annu-
Fig. 4. Curves of required time and gas volume to reach target lar pressure. It can be seen from Fig. 6, the pressure with the
annular pressure with the isothermal compressibility.
annular volume of 52.85 m3 is smaller than the pressure with
specified pressure, in other words, the rising velocity of pres- the annular volume of 49.85 m3 at the same moment. In Fig. 7,
sure becomes slower. So from the perspective of controlling when the volume difference between annulus and annular
the annular pressure, hi-pressure gas wells should have annu- liquid increases from 0 to 3.0 m3 (meanwhile the annular
lar liquid with high compressibility. But the isothermal com- volume increases from 49.85 m3 to 52.85 m3), the time re-
pressibility should not be too big, otherwise the risk and dif- quired for annular pressure to reach the 0.95 times of maxi-
ficulty of gas bleed-off will increase too as the required gas mum annulus pressure increases in a linear trend.
volume ascends. The above analysis indicates that the required time can be
prolonged through increasing the volume difference between
4.2. Effects of cement mantle parameters and relevant annulus and annular liquid. But Fig. 7 also shows the required
control measures gas volume increases at the same time as the volume differ-
Fig. 5 shows the impact of cement top and comprehensive
permeability on annular pressure. Comparison of the curves at
different cement tops shows that the pressure rising velocity
and maximum annular pressure increase as cement top as-
cends. Comparison of the curves at different comprehensive
permeabilities shows that the increase of permeability has a
significant impact on rising process of annular pressure: the
higher the permeability is, the quicker the rising velocity will
be.
In order to seal the hi-pressure gas effectively, the cement
in high pressure gas wells usually returns to wellhead. There-
fore once the channeling pathways form in high pressure gas
wells, the annular pressure produced will be much higher than
Fig. 6. Curves of pressure with time at different annular vol-
the case with lower cement top. So for the wells with cement umes.

Fig. 7. Curves of required time and gas volume for annular

Fig. 5. Curves of pressure with time at different cement tops pressure to reach target pressure with the difference between
and comprehensive permeability value. annular volume and annular liquid volume.
− 570 −
 ZHANG Bo et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2015, 42(4): 567–572
ence increases. Since too much gas may enhance the difficulty
of bleed-off, annular volume cannot expand without limitation.
To keep a balance between pressure control and pressure
bleed-off, a reasonable annular volume should be determined
by the following method:
(1) Working out the maximum annular pressure and gas
volume acceptable for a specific well;
(2) Drawing curves like Fig. 7 with the prediction model
built in section 2;
(3) Working out the volume difference according to the
maximum gas volume the well allows;
(4) Finding out the rising pattern of annular pressure based
on volume difference provided in step (3) to facilitate well
maintenance and management.
5. Conclusions
(1) Influenced by changes in temperature and pressure,
poor formation properties and fluid distribution in the well-
bore, gas channeling pathways may generate in cement mantle
of high pressure wells. According the structural form and dis-
tribution features, channeling pathways can be classified into
perforative microannulus, reticular fractures and combination
of fractures and microannulus.
(2) The rising process of sustained annular pressure can be
divided into rapid rising stage and stable rising stage and the
maximum annular pressure equals to the pressure difference
between reservoir pressure and liquid column pressure. At the
rapid rising stage, the annular pressure rises quickly, posing
threat to well safety.
(3) The factors affecting annular pressure include gas solu-
bility and compressibility of annular liquid, cement top, com-
prehensive permeability of cement mantle and annular volume.
The rising velocity of annular pressure decreases as com-
pressibility of annular liquid increases. The maximum annular
pressure and rising velocity increase as cement top increases.
The pressure rising velocity increases as the comprehensive
permeability increases. The increase of annular volume can
reduce pressure rising velocity.
(4) Based on the analysis of factors affecting annular pres-
sure, the following measures are proposed to control sustained
annular pressure: adopting proper annular liquid compressi-
bility; improving cementation quality by using self-healing
cement in the fully cemented gas wells; if necessary, taking
some measures to reduce the cement mantle comprehensive
permeability; increasing the annular volume and volume dif-
ference between annulus and annular liquid reasonably.
Nomenclature
A—cross section area of cement mantle, cm2;
C(p)—isothermal gas compressibility coefficient, (105 Pa)−1;
Hl—height of gas column, m;
Ke—comprehensive permeability of cement mantle, μm2;
− 571 −
KT—isothermal compressibility of annular liquid, MPa−1;
L—length of cement mantle, cm;
m—number of iterations, dimensionless;
p—pressure, 105 Pa;
pa—gas pressure under standard conditions, MPa;
pan—annular pressure, MPa;
pe—gas reservoir pressure, MPa;
pl—annular liquid column pressure, MPa;
panj-1—annular pressure in the iteration of (j-1)th time, MPa;
Qj—gas rate in the iteration of j, m3/s;
Rs—gas solubility of annular liquid, m3/m3;
t—time, s; ta—iteration size of time, s;
Ta—gas temperature under standard conditions, K;
Tan—annular temperature, K;
Van—annular volume, m3;
Vgan—the volume of gas column, m3;
Vg—total gas volume invading into annulus under standard condi-
tions, m3;
x—coordinate along gas channeling direction, cm;
Z—gas compressibility factor, dimensionless;
Za—gas compressibility factor under standard conditions, dimen-
sionless;
Zan—gas compressibility factor in annulus, dimensionless;
Z —gas compressibility factor under average pressure difference,
dimensionless;
μ —gas viscosity, mPa·s;
μ —gas viscosity under average pressure difference, mPa·s;
Φ —porosity, f.
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