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Well Design - PE 413: Chapter 1: Fracture Pressure
Well Design - PE 413: Chapter 1: Fracture Pressure
Fracture pressure is the pressure in the wellbore at which a formation will crack
The stress within a rock can be resolved into three principal stresses. A
formation will fracture when the pressure in the borehole exceeds the least of
the stresses within the rock structure. Normally, these fractures will propagate in
a direction perpendicular to the least principal stress.
At sufficient depths (usually below 1000 m or 3000 ft) the minimum principal
stress is horizontal; therefore, the fracture faces will be vertical. For shallow
formations, where the minimum principal stress is vertical, horizontal (pancake)
fractures will be created.
• Leak-off test
• Limit Test
The procedure used to conduct these tests is basically the same in all cases. The
test is conducted immediately after a casing has been set and cemented. The only
difference between the tests is the point at which the test is stopped. The
procedure is as follows:
2. Run in the drillstring and drillbit for the next hole section and drill out of the
casing shoe
4. Pull the drillbit back into the casing shoe (to avoid the possibility of becoming
stuck in the openhole)
6. Apply pressure to the well by pumping a small amount of mud (generally 1/2 bbl)
into the well at surface. Stop pumping and record the pressure in the well. Pump a
second, equal amount of mud into the well and record the pressure at surface.
Continue this operation, stopping after each increment in volume and recording the
corresponding pressure at surface. Plot the volume of mud pumped and the
corresponding pressure at each increment in volume.
7. When the test is complete, bleed off the pressure at surface, open the BOP
rams and drill ahead
It is assumed in these tests that the weakest part of the wellbore is the formations
which are exposed just below the casing shoe. It can be seen in the next slide that
when these tests are conducted, the pressure at surface, and throughout the
wellbore, initially increases linearly with respect to pressure. At some pressure the
exposed formations start to fracture and the pressure no longer increases linearly
for each increment in the volume of mud pumped into the well. If the test is
conducted until the formations fracture completely, the pressure at surface will
often drop dramatically.
While performing a leak off test, the surface pressure at leak off was 940 psi.
The casing shoe was at a true vertical depth of 5010 ft and a mud weight of
10.2 ppg was used to conduct the test. Calculate the maximum allowable mud
weight.
The Maximum bottom hole pressure during the leakoff test can be calculated
from: hydrostatic pressure of column of mud + leak off pressure at surface
Where Pf is the frictional pressure loss in the well between the surface
pressure gauge and the formation during the leakoff test. This equation is also
used to compute the observed fracture pressure, P ff, from the observed leakoff
pressure Plo.
The anicipated slope line for the early leakoff test results is determined from
the compressibility of the drilling fluid. The effective compressibility, c e, of
drilling fluid composed of water, oil, and solids having compressibilities c w, co,
Where fw, fo, and fw are the volume fractions of water, oil, and solids.
Compressibility is defined as
Therefore, the change in pressure due to the change in the volume of drilling
fluid is
Example: The leakoff test shown in Fig. 6.53 was conducted in 9.625’’ casing
having an internal diameter of 8.835’’ which was cemented at 10,000 ft. the test
was conducted after drilling to 10,030 ft the depth of the first sand with an 8.5’’
bit. Drillpipe having an external diameter of 5.5’’ and an internal diameter of
4.67’’ was placed in the well to a depth of 10,000 ft for the test. A 13.0 lbm/gal
water based drilling fluid containing no oil and having a total volume fraction of
solids of 0.2 was used. The gel strength of the mud was 10 lbm/100 ft 2. Verify
the anticipated slope line shown in Fig. 6.53 and compute the formation
fracture pressure.
Pff min Pf
Based on the experimental data from the laboratory, they suggested that the minimum
principle stress in the shallow sediments is approximately one-third the matrix stress
resulting from weight of the overburden
ma
Pff Pf
3
ob Pf
Pff Pf
3
ob 2 Pf
Pff
3
g g l o
ob g g DS
K
1 e KDS
ob 2660 psi
Formation pressure
Fracture pressure
ob 2 Pf
Pff
3
2660 2 1395
Pff 1817 psi
3
Drilling experience showed that Hubbert and Willis method is not valid for deeper
formation. Matthews and Kelley replaced the assumption that the minimum stress
was one-third the matrix stress by
min F ma
where the stress coefficient was determined empirically from field data taken in
normally pressured formations.
The vertical matrix stress at normal pressure is calculated (subscript “n” is for
normal pressure)
For simplicity, Matthews and Kelley assumed that the average overburden stress
is 1 psi/ft and an average normal pressure gradient is 0.465 psi/ft. To calculate
abnormal fracture pressure, they introduced the depth Di. Di is the equivalent
normal pressure depth which represents for the abnormally pressured formation
of interest depth.
( ma ) n ob Pf D Pf
Di
0.535 0.535 0.535
Figure 1: Equivalent
normal pressure depth
vs. Matrix stress ratio
Example 2: A south Texas gulf coast formation at 10,000 ft was found to have a
pore pressure of 8000 psig. Compute the formation fracture gradient using
Matthews and Kelley correlation.
D Pf 10,000 8,000
Di 3,738 ft
0.535 0.535
Pff
1
min Pf 1 1,180 8,000 0.918 psig / ft
D 10,000
min F ma
Pennebaker called the coefficient F the effective stress ratio and correlated this
ratio with depth, regardless of pore pressure gradient. Thus, the actual depth of
the formation always is used in the Pennebaker correlation, which is shown in
Fig. 6.48.
Example: A south Texas gulf coast formation at 10,000 ft was found to have a
pore pressure of 8,000 psi. seismic records indicate an interval transit time of 100
ms/ft at a depth of 6,000 ft. Compute the formation fracture gradient using the
Pennebaker correlation.
Christman found that the stress coefficient could be correlated to the bulk density of
the sediments.
Bulk density
From Fig. 2
F 0.8
Pff
1
min Pf 1 2348 6500 0.88 psig / ft
D 10,000
Prepared by: Tan Nguyen
Well Design – Spring 2013
When planning a well the formation pore pressures and fracture pressures can
be predicted from the following procedure:
1. Analyse and plot log data or d-exponent data from an offset (nearby) well.
2. Draw in the normal trend line, and extrapolate below the transition zone.
3. Calculate a typical overburden gradient using density logs from offset wells.