Gas Kick Control During Managed Pressure Drilling Operations: Experimental and Simulation Results

Abstract A gas kick disturbance, defined as the influx of formation fluids into the wellbore, occurs when the bottomhole annulus pressure becomes lower than the pore pressure due to various factors, such as insufficient mud weight, abnormal formation pressure, swab effects, lost circulation, etc. The main objective of this paper is to dynamically reject gas kick disturbances during Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) operations. Data from an experimental unit, designed to reproduce the oil well drilling process, were used to validate the simulation results. The novelty of the proposed closed loop scheme (reconfiguration-based control) lies in its dynamic regulation of gas kick disturbances during MPD operations, using a two-phase flow model. Furthermore, the mathematical model and the closed-loop strategy were experimentally validated.