Casing/cementing/zonal isolation

Managed Pressure Cementing in Deep Water Restores Production

This paper provides examples for planning and execution of primary and remedial managed pressure cementing in deepwater drilling operations.

Fig. 1—Well D abandonment cement plugs.
Fig. 1—Well D abandonment cement plugs.=
Source: SPE 221446.

Managed pressure cementing (MPC) has been used in many applications where managed pressure drilling (MPD) equipment is installed on the rig. This development has been a consequence of operators challenging the initial scope of using MPD technology not only for drilling through a narrow operating window, in many cases by using a statically underbalanced mud weight, but also for tripping, logging, coring, and running casing, followed by cementing and guaranteeing the isolation required for a subsequent successful hole section or simply a well-set production tubular. The complete paper provides examples for planning and execution of primary and remedial MPC in deepwater drilling operations.

Introduction

This project consisted of drilling four wells in the Gulf of Mexico with a water depth of approximately 5,900 ft and a total average depth of 31,000 ft measured depth. The wells were drilled with an eighth-generation ship-shaped drilling unit.

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