Predicting a drill string packoff event

• Main Authors: Rishi Adari, Robello Samuel, Nanda Kumar Nookala, Manish K Mittal
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 20.09.2023
• Subjects: EARTH DRILLING; EARTH DRILLING, e.g. DEEP DRILLING; FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS; MINING; OBTAINING OIL, GAS, WATER, SOLUBLE OR MELTABLE MATERIALS OR ASLURRY OF MINERALS FROM WELLS

The disclosure presents processes and methods for determining a packoff event at a location in a borehole undergoing a drilling operation. The packoff event can be represented by a packoff risk indicator (PRI) that presents, for example, a percentage risk of the packoff event occurring. The PRI can be utilized to initiate a remediation operation prior to the packoff event becoming more severe, such as a stuck drill string. In some aspects, the generation of the PRI can utilize an uncertainty model to provide a range of input parameters and an uncertainty parameter used by other systems to evaluate the risk of the potential packoff event has on borehole operations. In some aspects, the generation of the PRI can utilize machine learning algorithms or deep neural network algorithms to pre-process the input parameters to improve the accuracy of the PRI and of the models used to generate the PRI.