Drilling Technology Progress and Recommendations for the Fuling Shale Gas Field

Abstract

The Fuling Shale Gas Field is the first large-scale commercially developed shale gas field in China, and its drilling technical systems can be used as a model for the drilling of other shale gas fields. The development of drilling technologies in Fuling Shale Gas Field was divided into four stages, including exploration and discovery, development test, the first-stage production construction, and the second-stage production construction. The drilling challenges were discussed in aspects of surface geological characteristics, wellbore stability, hole trajectory control and cementing quality. Aiming at the above challenges, nine key drilling technologies were summarized covering platform surface layout, well deployment plan, low cost and rapid drilling, hole trajectory control, wellbore integrity evaluation, etc, to provide a model or reference for the drilling technologies of other shale gas fields. Furthermore, on the basis of "stable production and efficiency improvement, acceleration and cost reduction", the technology required by the further drilling of Fuling Shale Gas Field were proposed, and pertinent suggestions on drilling technology development were put forward to continuously improve the level of drilling technology in the Fuling Shale Gas Field.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #130003© Petroleum Drilling Techniques, Issue 4, 2018