Publications

In geothermal wells, the production zone is usually a lost circulation zone. It is difficult to cure a harmful lost circulation zone while it is important to save its productive potential. If transport of cuttings is bad and the removal of cuttings is not effective, pipe can become stuck due to cuttings accumulation in the wellbore on the low side of highly deviated wells. In this case, a stuck pipe occurs after a total loss circulation zone. Drilling without returns in the total loss circulation zone results in larger cuttings, making the transportation of cuttings more difficult. The cuttings accumulate in the borehole and a stuck pipe occurs. Based on drilling parameter data, ROP, WOB, and RPM, and comparing Well “X” and Well “Y” geothermal wells in the Ulubelu Field, it is shown that both wells have the same trends in the stuck pipe problem. ROP and WOB are optimum enough to apply in the total loss circulation zone and to avoid producing larve volumes of cuttings in short time periods but the RPM is too small, generating larger cuttings sizes. In deviated wells, the condition of high drill pipe rotation speeds provides an effective means of mechanically disturbing cutting beds and lifting them from the low side into the main mudflow for removal, and this process also results in smaller cuttings due to crushing by the pipe. Based on the results of the drilling parameter analysis, it is recommended to keep the optimum ROP and WOB and to increase the RPM up to 150 RPM. This is because rotary speeds of 150 RPM can result in smaller cuttings and have been shown experimentally to increase the removal of cuttings beds dramatically so the problem of a stuck pipe does not occur These efforts can reduce drilling costs due to the stuck pipe problem.