Practice and understanding of sidetracking horizontal drilling in old wells in Sulige Gas Field, NW China

To seek effective ways of lowering development cost and tapping inter-well remaining reserves, sidetracking horizontal wells from old wells in Su10 and Su53 Block were conducted. The engineering and geological problems such as leakage, collapse and sticking in slim-hole sidetracking, and difficult evaluation of remaining gas were gradually overcome, and a set of drilling and completion technology, well deployment optimization technology and geo-steering technology suitable for sidetracking horizontal wells in tight sandstone gas reservoirs have been worked out. By making full use of the old well, sidetracking horizontal wells can greatly reduce development costs, enhance the producing degree of inter-well remaining reserves, and get production 3-5 times of that of adjacent vertical wells. Its production effect is influenced by encountered sandstone length, the position of the horizontal segment in the reservoir, produced effective reservoir thickness, gas saturation, controlled reserves and fracturing effect, etc. Up to now, in Block Su10 and Su53, 12 sidetracking horizontal wells have been drilled, which have an average drilling cycle of 49 days, average horizontal section length of 689 m, average effective drilling ratio of 61.5%, average well-head pressure of 16.2 MPa, and daily output of 4.7×104 m3 at the initial stage after production. By the end of 2017, the average yield increment was more than 1 000×104 m3 with good effect. With the increase of low yield old wells, wells in the enrichment regions tend to be saturated and the rest gas-bearing areas are lower in grade, therefore, sidetracking horizontal well can be used for optimization of well pattern, well deployment mode and exploitation of remaining oil areas.