The efficient exploitation of marine oil and gas resources holds significant potential to mitigate the current severe energy crisis. Regrettably, incidents, such as gas kick and even blowouts, can significantly impact normal development activities. The displacement kill method is one effective strategy for well control in deep-water areas. In this study, the detailed mathematical method for determining kill parameters involved in the kill operation by using the displacement kill method was proposed. Of course, this includes both cases: one where the kill fluid leaks during the kill process and another where no leakage occurs. Meanwhile, its applicability was verified through comparison with experimental results. Then, evolution characteristics of kill parameters, when killing fluid leakage occurs and when it does not occur, were analyzed. Finally, factors, such as pit gain and shut-in casing pressure, affecting the kill parameters of kill operation, were explored. It was found that the experimental and calculated results show great similarity, although there are slight differences between them. The total kill time in the simulation is 44 s shorter than that in the verification experiment. This indicates that the model established in this study is suitable for simulating the process of kill operation using the displacement kill method. In addition, the investigation results show that leakage of kill fluid increases the difficulty of the kill operation and prolongs the operation time. The number of kill cycles in the presence of kill fluid leakage is one more than that when there is no fluid leakage, resulting in an additional 70 min of total duration. Furthermore, the increase in pit gain and the rise in shut-in casing pressure can also pose challenges to the kill operations. The total kill time will be extended by 164 min when the mud pit gain increases from 20 m3 to 50 m3. The number of kill cycles rises by two when the shut-in casing pressure is increased from 5 MPa to 20 MPa. To ensure the safety of the drilling operation in abnormally high-pressure reservoirs, it is crucial to monitor parameters such as casing pressure during the drilling process and timely well control measures.
23 January 2022 in Environmental Science and Pollution Research
As we all know, development and utilization of clean energy is the only way for society to achieve its sustainable development. Although natural gas hydrates is a new type of clean energy, uncontrollable hydrate dissociation and accompanying methane leakage in drilling operation threaten drilling safety, as well as marine environment. However, the dissociation range of natural gas hydrates around wellbore cannot be reasonably determined in previous investigations, which may lead to the inaccurate estimation of borehole collapse and methane leakage. Then, the marine environment will be greatly damaged or affected. The purpose of the present work is to experimentally explore the dissociation characteristics of gas hydrates around wellbore in drilling operation and analyze the influence law and mechanism of various factors (such as hydrate saturation) on hydrate dissociation. It is expected to provide reference for exploring effective engineering measures to avoid the uncontrolled hydrate dissociation, borehole collapse and accompanying methane leakage. The experimental results demonstrate that acoustic velocity of hydrate-bearing sediment can be accurately expressed as quadratic polynomial of hydrate saturation, which is the theoretical basis for determination of hydrate saturation in subsequent experiments. Owing to the fact that hydrate dissociation is an endothermic reaction, hydrate dissociation gradually slows down in experiment. Throughout the experiment, the maximum dissociation rate at the beginning of the experiment is 8.69 times that at the end of the experiment. In addition, sensitivity analysis found that the increase in the stabilizer concentration in drilling fluid can inhibit hydrate dissociation more effectively than the increase in the hydrate saturation. Hydrate dissociation was completely inhibited when the concentration of soybean lecithin exceeds 0.60wt%, but hydrate dissociation definitely occurs in the near-wellbore region no matter what hydrate saturation is. In this way, based on the requirements of drilling safety and/or environment protection, hydrate dissociation and accompanying methane leakage can be controlled by designing and adjusting the stabilizer concentration in drilling fluid.
The mechanical properties of coal containing fluid are an important factor affecting the safe mining of soft coal seams. In particular, for class III–V coal, coal and gas outbursts and other dynamic phenomena are prone to occur due to the influences of gas pressure and groundwater, which seriously threaten the safety and lives of field workers. However, briquette samples are usually used in place of raw coal in laboratory tests conducted on class III–V coal samples. Whether the research conclusions for briquette and raw coal are consistent and whether briquette coal can replace raw coal in research on strength characteristics need to be further verified. In this paper, the evolution of the strength characteristics of fluid-bearing briquette coal and raw coal is studied. The strength characteristics, instability failure characteristics, and acoustic emission characteristics of raw coal and briquette coal under uniaxial and triaxial compression are analyzed in detail. In addition, the influence of the water content and pore pressure on the strength characteristics of class III–V raw coal and briquette coal is further studied. The results show that the failure characteristic of raw coal is overall brittle failure, mainly axial splitting failure, whereas that of briquette is overall ductile failure, mainly cone-shaped continuous spalling. The strength parameters of the raw coal and briquette coal improve under confining pressure, but the internal difference in the raw coal is significantly reduced. The cohesion of the raw coal sample initially increases and then decreases with increasing water content, and the internal friction angle increases with increasing water content. In addition, it is verified that the strength, cohesion, elastic modulus, and deformation modulus of the briquette decrease with increasing pore pressure under different pore pressures, but the strength difference of the class III–V coal decreases under increasing pore pressure. Based on the abovementioned results, the strength parameters of a coal body are estimated using the Hoek–Brown (H–B) criterion. Based on a comparison of the strength parameters of the coal sample and coal body, the estimated strength parameters of the coal body are closer to the actual values on site.
The accurate estimation of methane reserves in closed coal mines is crucial for supporting clean energy recovery and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This study addresses the technical challenges associated with complex geological conditions and limited post-closure data in China’s closed mines. Three mainstream estimation methods—the material balance, resource composition, and decline curve—are systematically reviewed and applied to a case study in the Huoxi Coalfield. Results indicate that the material balance method provides upper-bound estimates but is highly sensitive to incomplete historical data, whereas the resource composition method yields more conservative and geologically realistic values. Although the decline curve method is not applied in this case, it offers potential for forecasting when long-term monitoring data are available. A multi-method integration approach, supported by enhanced data archiving and uncertainty assessments, is recommended to improve the accuracy and reliability of methane reserve evaluations in post-mining environments.
Hydraulic fracturing with oriented perforations is an effective technology for reservoir stimulation for gas development in shale reservoirs. However, fracture reorientation during fracturing operation can affect the fracture conductivity and hinder the effective production of shale gas. In the present work, a numerical simulation model for investigating fracture reorientation during fracturing with oriented perforations was established, and it was verified to be suitable for all investigations in this paper. Based on this, factors (such as injection rate and fluid viscosity) affecting both of initiation and reorientation of the hydraulically induced fractures were investigated. The investigation results show that the fluid viscosity has little effect on initiation pressure of hydraulically induced fracture during fracturing operation, and the initiation pressure is mainly affected by perforation azimuth, injection rate and the stress difference. Moreover, the investigation results also show that perforation azimuth and difference between two horizontal principle stresses are the two most important factors affecting fracture reorientation. Based on the investigation results, the optimization of fracturing design can be achieved by adjusting some controllable factors. However, the regret is that the research object herein is a single fracture, and the interaction between fractures during fracturing operation needs to be further explored.
Unmineable coal seams and residual coal resources in closed mines provide ideal carriers for CO₂ sequestration. However, the evolution mechanisms of permeability and displacement efficiency during CO₂-ECBM in low-permeability coal seams remain unclear, which restricts the engineering application efficiency of this technology. In this study, the No. 15 coal seam of the Lutaishan Coal Mine was taken as the research object. A fully coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical model of CO₂-ECBM was constructed and validated using COMSOL Multiphysics software, and a quantitative evaluation method for key influencing factors was proposed based on coal deformation effects. The results indicate that injection pressure is the dominant factor affecting permeability, and its influence range expands with increasing pressure and time. In the near-injection well region, coal matrix swelling induced by CO₂ adsorption is stronger than matrix shrinkage caused by CH₄ desorption, leading to a decrease in coal reservoir permeability; the higher the injection pressure, the more significant the permeability reduction. In the near-production well region, CH₄ desorption causes matrix shrinkage, resulting in increased permeability. The intermediate zone remains relatively stable. The influence of injection temperature is weak: in the near-injection well area, thermal expansion reduces permeability; in the adjacent zone, reduced gas adsorption capacity leads to a recovery in permeability; the peripheral zone is stable, and the near-production well area remains dominated by CH₄ desorption. Increasing injection pressure accelerates displacement, promoting CH₄ recovery and CO₂ storage, while increasing temperature slightly reduces recovery efficiency but has a minor impact. Under all scenarios, CO₂ storage exceeds CH₄ production. This study aims to provide guidance for injection strategies of CO₂-ECBM in low-permeability coal seams, and its findings help optimize displacement parameters, thereby improving engineering implementation efficiency.