NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF THE SALT IN OIL WELLS / ANÁLISE NUMÉRICA DO COMPORTAMENTO MECÂNICO DO SAL EM POÇOS DE PETRÓLEO

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

The presence of saline structures around the world, in deepwater like the ones of the Mexican Gulf, Brazil, Angola, North and West Africa, provides favorable conditions for hydrocarbons imprisonment. It increases the probability of success in oil and gas exploration. In the Santos Basin, for example, it was recently noticed that a light crude oil located below a thick salt layer was discovered. On the other hand many operational problems in salt drilling like the imprisonment of the drillstring and closing of the well have been registered in the industry. These types of problems create big challenges in the oil industry and at the same time opportunities for the evolution of the drilling technology. This work proposes the study of the mechanical behavior of salt in oil wells. Dislocations, strains and stresses were analyzed in the face of the wellbore and into the salt formation by finite element analysis. Several finite element analyses were developed to represent the possible scenarios in salt drilling using a program denominated Abaqus. These numerical simulations were analyzed through plane strain and axisymmetric techniques, could predict elastic and specially creep behavior. As a technical contribution, this study helps to avoid wellbore closure and casing collapse of salt sections, adding to the wellbore and drilling project an accurate salt section analysis and preventing workover operations due to salt mass deformation. Finally the economical contribution of this study is the reduction of workover time and of expenses in salt sections drilling. By reducing workover time, there is a notorious decrease in rig time use.

ASSUNTO(S)

fluencia creep salt sal abaqus abaqus

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