Abstract

Drilling horizontal or high angle wells in relaxed basin (SV>SH>Sh) is more difficult due to compressive or shear failure (breakouts, cavings, stuck pipe etc.) of the wellbore. These events are very extensive for those kinds of wells as the wellbore stress difference reaches at maximum with increase in inclination. Proper planning of the well trajectory and mud weights are crucial to avoid such complexity which causes huge rig downtime and cost. With the aid of in-situ stress, pore pressure and rock strength analysis the wellbore stability can be assured with suggested optimum deviation profile and mud weights for different inclinations and azimuths.