KOB.TO - East Lost Hills & GSJB joint venture Message Board

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Gold/Mining/Energy : KOB.TO - East Lost Hills & GSJB joint venture

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To: Robert McCullough who wrote (3970)	8/16/1999 7:13:00 PM
From: grayhairs	Read Replies (2) of 15703

Hi Bob, "Theoretically speaking", yes it should be possible to engineer the mud system and still reach the target TD for the well. They simply "mud up" to a weight sufficient to counter the highest pressure zone in the well. If\when they lose circulation they throw a bunch of LCM (Lost Circulation Material) at the thieving interval until they manage to "plug it off". Then they resume drilling operations with their mud weight again at a level sufficient to counter the highest pressure zone in the open section. But, that's the "ideal world" and the "real life case" may depart from the ideal. The bottom line is that it'll become a bit of trial and error from here on in and hopefully the errors will be non-existent as you will appreciate that any errors could be very costly in several respects. For sure drilling will be "slower" from this point on. I conclude from your statement that you believe the lower sand is at a lower pressure than the upper sand and I acknowledge that this is indeed possible. But, that need not be the case and in fact, such would not be the "usual" case. The fact that mud "might be" invading the second sand does not "prove" anything about the relative zone pressures. IF mud is invading the second sand, it is able to do so due only to the very high permeability of that sand and a phenomenon known as gravity segregation. (An analogy would be that one is in fact able to add water to a large open vessel filled with gasoline simply by slowly pouring the water on top of the gasoline. Because the water is more dense than the gasoline it will sink to the bottom of the vessel while an equivalent volume of gasoline overflows the vessel.) I'll now play devil's advocate and say that I'm not yet convinced that anyone knows where the gas now being flared is coming from. While the operator may "believe" that the flared gas is coming from a lost circulation interval in the second (lower) sand, it is also possible that the gas is actually coming from the first (upper) sand (they also experienced lost circulation while drilling the top sand !!). Perhaps their "plug" of the lost circulation interval in the top sand has failed and they are again losing mud to that zone. It wouldn't be the first time that a "plug" failed. Suffice it to say that unless they can plug any\all\whatever zone(s) are thieving their mud, they will not be able to drill further. I like their chances of deepening the well further but I wouldn't place a high wager on their making the targeted TD of about 19,000 feet. (I'm just not the gambling type !! <gg>) JMHOBWDIK. Have a pleasant evening. Later, grayhairs

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