Topics in oilfield cementing fluid mechanics

加拿大是世界第三大天然气生产国和第六大原油生产国。上游部门雇佣了50多万人(直接或间接)。石油和天然气约占加拿大年度能源需求的70%，占加拿大出口的15%。在生产石油和天然气之前，几乎每口井都要通过初级固井工艺进行固井。这一过程密封了油井的外部，提高了产量，并防止地下流体渗入地面。油藏采收率通常在30%左右(油砂的采收率较低)，因此产能的任何损失在经济上都是至关重要的。同样，一次固井质量差对环境和生态的影响也是产油区的一个重要问题。最近，人们对页岩气生产的兴趣激增(特别是在不列颠哥伦比亚省)，这意味着更多的气井和不那么牢固的可供钻探的地层。这两个因素都使得有效固井变得更加关键。该项目涉及主要固井工艺的三个方面，在这三个方面，对工艺流体力学的基本了解可以导致改进固井作业的设计。我们的技术目标是利用我们开发的知识，在全球范围内加强固井作业。加拿大已经钻了50多万口井，通常每年钻10-20,000口井。这些油井中的大多数将进行一次或多次固井作业。我们的支持组织斯伦贝谢是世界上最专注于技术的油田服务公司之一，也是加拿大的关键参与者。斯伦贝谢不仅在油田固井作业中占有很大的全球市场份额，而且还拥有一套工程软件工具，广泛用于设计不同的固井作业，将物理理解转化为可用的工程实践。这为将新的流体力学知识引入石油行业提供了一条理想的途径，确保了对工业和环境的影响。

Canada is the 3rd-largest producer of natural gas and the 6th-largest producer of crude oil in the world. The upstream sector employs over half a million people (directly & indirectly). Oil and gas accounts for approximately 70% of Canada's annual energy demand and accounts for 15% of Canada's exports. Before oil & gas can be produced, nearly every well is cemented by the primary cementing process. This process seals the outside of the well, increasing production and preventing subsurface fluids from percolating to surface. Reservoir recovery rates typically are about 30%, (lower for oil sands), so any loss of productivity is economically critical. Equally, the environmental and ecological impact of poor primary cementing is an important issue in petroleum producing areas. A recent upsurge of interest in shale gas production (particularly in British Columbia) has meant more gas wells and less consolidated formations for drilling. Both factors make effective cementing of wells more critical. This project addresses three aspects of the primary cementing process where an improved fundamental understanding of the fluid mechanics of the process can lead to improved design of cementing operations. Our technological objective is to use the knowledge that we develop, to enhance cementing operations worldwide. Over half a million wells have been drilled in Canada, with typically, 10-20,000 wells drilled annually. The majority of these wells will have one or more cementing operation carried out on them. Our supporting organisation, Schlumberger, is one of the most technologically focused oilfield service companies in the world & is a key player in Canada. As well as having a large global market share of oilfield cementing operations, Schlumberger has a suite of engineering software tools that are widely used for design of different cementing operations, converting physical understanding into useable engineering practice. This provides an ideal route through which to introduce new fluid mechanic knowledge to the oil industry, ensuring both an industrial and environmental impact.