Discussion on the Engineer's Well Killing Method in Typical Blowout Cases

Abstract

The engineer's method(waiting for weighting method) is a conventional well killing method. Failed attempts to kill the well in a blowout situation is frequently observed when there has been improper control of casing pressure in the field. Taking the well killing operations in Well Yuanba 272-1H and Well Qingxi 1 as examples, the analysis demonstrates that insufficient understanding on pressure balance inside the hole, improper control of casing pressure, and unreasonable killing flow rate are the main reasons in failed killing when using the engineer's method. By taking the control of pressure balance inside the hole as a reference, this paper presents two cases which utilize a killing parameters calculation method and the killing process of the engineer's method. In the two cases, the annulus is partially filled and fully emptied with drilling fluid, respectively. Such killing process has been successfully applied in controlling the blowout of Well HF203 successfully. The research and field applications suggest that inside hole pressure balance-based engineer's method can bring about the rapid control of overflow and a blowout under normal fluid circulation.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #130005© Petroleum Drilling Techniques, Issue 6, 2018