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The Various Applications of Rigid Centralizer

Author: Ryan Justin
by Ryan Justin
Posted: May 20, 2016

In deviated wells through carbonates or sloughing formations, caverns can form causing problems for hole cleaning and cementing operations. Thus, there comes rigid centralizer, it helps in maintaining a minimum annular space on the low side of a deviated well. It improves cementing operations wells with hole enlargement problems like the one mentioned earlier. Centralizers can even assist in the running of the casing and the prevention of differential sticking.

How Does Rigid Centralizer Help?

  1. In areas where hole-enlargement is required, those areas are already flowed with both drilling fluid and cement as it is predominantly on the higher side of the well. It is in between the pipe and the top wall of the well.
  2. Drill cuttings can also accumulate around the pipe near the caverns. During casing-running process, the cement may not flow completely around the pipe in these cavernous sections. But the study refers that the cavern formation features in inclined wells can give a key to further prediction of technology for their washing and casing cementation.
  3. While in inclined well, the drilling tools are non-concentrically aligned in the borehole. The axis of the drill string appears below the axis of the borehole. Thus, in inclined wells changes the flow hydrodynamics in the ring space. This change is amplified which leads to the drilled cuttings move up the well along the bottom wall of the hole.
  4. The cavern expansion occurs in the direction from the bottom wall to the top wall in an inclined hole. Anisotropy formation is exposed by an inclined well at an angle to its bedding promotes this tendency.
  5. At the time of hole cleaning in extended cavern sections, one can face problems though. The drilling fluid should have high rheological properties to ensure adequate removal of cuttings in formations susceptible to cavern formation. For many cases, it is even necessary to plug or bridge the caverns to reduce the area of the hole.
  6. The washing of an inclined well plays an important role both during drilling and in preparing the well, thus it is important for using rigid centralizer for running and cementing casing. The arch-type caverns cause difficulty in transporting drill cuttings along the bottom wall of an inclined well.

The rigid centralizer oriented by an orienting ring is availed with an offset aperture and a pump-down ball. This ring is set in the bottom of the casing in a way where the planes of the opening and the centralizer blades coincide downwards. This type of casing centralizer secures around the casing at various locations to keep the casing from contacting the wellbore walls. One of the key elements to ensure the quality of a cementing job is by preventing mud channeling and poor zonal isolation. Thus, a continuous annular clearance around the casing allows cement to completely seal the casing to the borehole wall.

About the Author

Ryan justin is a challenging position as a Online Digital Marketing within a large exciting company. I want to use my technical background and expertise in Online Marketing by using valuable resources within a growing organization.

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Author: Ryan Justin

Ryan Justin

Member since: Jan 13, 2014
Published articles: 153

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