Development Analysis and Prospect of Continuous Circulation Drilling Technology

Continuous circulation drilling technology has been widely applied abroad and has become an effective means to solve the safety of drilling in complex formations. However, due to insufficient understanding, there is still a significant gap in product development and application level between China and foreign countries. In order to improve understanding, the paper first systematically reviews the development history and current situation of continuous circulation drilling technology and products in domestic and foreign, and then through typical application cases, the main application fields and advantages of the current continuous cycle drilling technology are analyzed and summarized, as well as the applicability, compatibility, safety and reliability of different products. The application practice show that it can play an important role in the narrow density window wells, HTHP wells, ERD wells, horizontal wells and gas/foam drilling wells, and significantly improve the drilling safety and success rate. In view of the development requirements of domestic oil and gas resources, the development plan of applying continuous circulation drilling technology to potential fields such as ultra-deep carbonate reservoir and unconventional shale gas is proposed, and according to the characteristics of two different systems, the optimal schemes are selected and the corresponding development objectives are formulated, which will provide useful reference for promoting the further development of continuous circulation drilling technology.