Risk Assessment Method of Natural Gas Hydrate Formation in the Wellbore of Deepwater Drilling
摘要
After gas influx occurs in deepwater drilling, a large amount of gas entering the annulus will form natural gas hydrates in an environment of high pressure and low temperature. There is a risk of blocking the choke and kill lines, subsea blowout preventers, wellheads, risers, etc., which poses a great threat to the normal progress of drilling operations and well control safety. In recent years, scholars at home and abroad have conducted certain research on this issue, mainly focusing on the prediction of formations containing natural gas hydrates in deepwater environments and the prediction of the formation areas of natural gas hydrates in the wellbore during deepwater drilling. At present, the prediction methods for formations containing natural gas hydrates mainly include BSR (bottom simulation reflection), the phase equilibrium condition method, logging in the geophysical field, and geochemical and geological methods, etc.; while the prediction of the formation areas of natural gas hydrates in the wellbore during deepwater drilling is mainly to predict the areas where hydrates may appear according to the temperature and pressure field in the wellbore and the phase equilibrium conditions of natural gas hydrates. It can be seen that the prediction of the formation of natural gas hydrates, especially the prediction of the formation of natural gas hydrates in the wellbore, mostly focuses on qualitative research, and there is a lack of quantification or evaluation of its formation risk, which is unfavorable for both drilling design and construction. The main reason is that it is difficult to quantitatively assess the relationship between various influencing factors and the hydrate formation risk. Therefore, by analyzing the influencing factors of hydrate formation in the wellbore of deepwater drilling, identifying the factors with great influence, uncertainty, or difficulty in quantitative assessment, seeking a method for quantitatively evaluating the hydrate formation risk in the wellbore, and then establishing a set of quantitative assessment methods for the natural gas hydrate formation risk in the wellbore of deepwater drilling is conducive to reducing or avoiding the drilling risks caused by the formation of hydrates in the wellbore during deepwater drilling, and has practical significance for deepwater drilling design and construction.