AN AUTOMATED STRATEGY FOR SIMULATION OF WELLBORE DRILLING IN SALT ROCKS

Resumo

This work proposes an automated strategy for simulation of wellbore drilling in salt rocks.
Drilling operations in salt rocks are often complex due to the creep behavior of such materials inducing
borehole closure. In many cases, this behavior may lead to stuck pipe problems and, once the drilling
equipments get stuck, they cannot be freed without damaging the well, not to mention that it can delay
the well execution for several days. To avoid such undesirable event, numerical simulations are used to
predict the closure of the borehole, providing support in backreaming operations. Also, the information
of salt response in some zones may lead to a better decision-making process of drilling or not in an area
of interest, once the technical and economical feasibility of the operation can be better evaluated. In this
context, this work presents an automated strategy for simulation of wellbore drilling in salt rocks. The
model is based on finite element analysis using Abaqus software. Python routines are developed using

the abaqus scripting API to automate the modeling and simulation procedures for different scenarios con-
sidering user-defined variations on geometric and material properties and allowing a proper visualization

of obtained results. Case studies are presented in order to verify the reliability of the proposed strategy.