Wellbore stability workflow

Wellbore stability offers a wide range of interactive modeling tools, allowing you to do the following:

• Select casing points.
• Determine safe mud weight windows.
• Evaluate different directional profiles.
• Compare predicted breakouts with observed breakouts.
• Examine the effect of rock strength.
• Quantify the risk associated with input model uncertainties.

Drilling problems frequently result from severe mechanical failure of the wellbore wall, caused by the interaction between in-situ stress, pore pressure, rock and fluid properties, and drilling practices. While stress and rock properties cannot be altered, drilling parameters can often be adjusted to help mitigate these problems. JewelSuite Geomechanics is designed to determine optimal drilling trajectories, mud weights, and casing points to minimize wellbore instabilities. The bulk of the Wellbore Stability workflow functionality resides in the Check Mud Weight and Predict Mud Weight sub-strips.

The Wellbore Stability analysis requires a geomechanical model as, for instance, defined in the 1D MODEL strip. You could also import the model from logs. The model specifies the in-situ stress, the pore pressure, and the rock properties along the well path. Because the output and predictions of the Wellbore Stability workflow are only as accurate as the geomechanical model input data, the source of the model is an extremely important consideration.