An End-to-End Solution for In-situ Stress Estimation Using Downhole Drilling Dynamics Data

Drilling operations play a vital role in economic execution of any subsurface projects in CO2 storage, geothermal, hydrogen storage, and oil and gas industries. To achieve safe and cost-effective drilling, understanding the geomechanical characteristics of the geological formations became a critical component. These characteristics directly define stability of a wellbore. The main challenge to building reliable wellbore stability models is the determination of geomechanical characteristics from surface to the pay zone with sufficient spatial resolution and low degree of uncertainty. Typical methodologies for geomechanical modelling rely on well logs or seismic data, which are not always available or possible in wells of all types and sizes, and on simplified phenomenological petrophysical models generating predictions with large uncertainties. Drilling Dynamics Geomechanics (DDG) is a technology that provides a new source of information for geomechanical modeling and has shown reliability in determining critical formation characteristics with high fidelity. It overcomes the shortcomings of traditional workflows by leveraging accessible and low-cost drilling dynamics data acquired through a 3-axial vibration sensor affixed to the drill bit. Applicable to vertical, horizontal and inclined deep wells, the DDG workflow is an advanced data conditioning and transforming pipeline able to extract signal features from the drilling dynamics data and feed them to a machine-learning model to produce predictions of geomechanical properties for each drilled formation segment along the wellbore. This technology has been developed and validated in Phase I and II, and commercially tested in several geological formations. Our objective of this Phase IIB proposal is expanding the application of DDG to while-drilling, enabling real-time evaluation of geomechanical properties and wellbore stability condition. With the development of wired drill-pipe technology, real-time access to the large volume drill-bit vibration data became available. Thus, combining DDG with wire drill-pipe makes real-time evaluation of geomechanical characteristics and consequently wellbore stability analysis possible. Maintaining wellbore stability during drilling also becomes achievable by controlling the weight of drilling fluid that can be estimated as drilling proceeds. We will develop the workflow and software for using DDG in an end-to-end automated data analytics pipeline that assesses wellbore stability behavior, identifies associated risks, and recommend a safe mud weight in real time at the rig-site.