Field Applications of ERD Hole Cleaning Modeling

With the ever-increasing measured depths and horizontal displacements in extended-reach (ERD) wells, good hole cleaning remains a major challenge. Recently a hole cleaning model for fluids in laminar flow was presented to the industry. Since its introduction, the model has been used on many occasions to characterize hole cleaning efficiency in post-well analysis, evaluate fluid performance during the drilling of ERD wells, and to predict fluid rheulogical properties and pump output levels for optimum cleaning in prewell planning. In this paper, four field applications of the hole cleaning modeling in ERD and deviated wells are discussed. In these cases, the hole cleaning model was used to predict intervals of hole cleaning problems and identify certain ranges of fluid rheological properties that promoted good cleaning.