A Practical Method To Minimize Stuck Pipe Integrating Surface and MWD Measurements

Abstract

ABSTRACT A BHA becomes stuck, on average, once for every three wells drilled1. It is very difficult for drilling personnel to monitor sticking during all phases of the drilling operation. There are many situations where monitoring the stickiness of the hole is very difficult. Very often, field crews do not have the time to continuously compute and look at graphs of friction factors, and processing algorithms need to be complimented by automatic warnings. Monitoring sticking while tripping requires knowing the "normal" overpulls, which vary with depth. The authors propose an integrated sticking pipe monitor which automatically calculates friction forces and factors anytime the drillstring is moving, builds normal profiles with depth for comparison and issues alarms to the field crew and driller when sticking is occurring at the BHA.