Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Development and design of new casing to mitigate trapped annular

pressure caused by thermal expansion in oil and gas wells
Bo Zhang a,b, Zhichuan Guan a,⇑, A.R. Hasan b, Nu Lu a,b, Qing Wang a, Yuqiang Xu a, Qi Zhang c,
Yongwang Liu a,⇑
a
School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
b
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
c
CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company Limited, Guangzhou 510715, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Increasing annular volume change rate can reduce trapped annular pressure.

New casing is designed to mitigate annular pressure caused by thermal expansion.

Key parameters are optimized and analyzed.

Casing number is determined by annular pressure change and mitigation objective.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Trapped annular pressure is caused by liquid thermal expansion in oil and gas wells. A casing is devel-
Received 25 December 2016 oped to mitigate trapped annular pressure with low cost and overcome the limitation of well structure
Revised 29 January 2017 and location. This casing consists of coupling, relief valve, inner wall, relief space and outer wall. It can
Accepted 18 February 2017
increase annular volume change rate by using relief valve to connect trapped annulus and casing relief
Available online 1 March 2017
space. Higher annular volume change rate can reduce or even eliminate trapped annular pressure. To
prove the feasibility and optimize parameters of mitigation casing, models are built to calculate trapped
Keywords:
annular pressure and annular temperature change of multiple annuli. The analysis indicates mitigation
Trapped annular pressure
Mitigation casing
casing can effectively and permanently reduce trapped annular pressure. The extreme annular pressure
Open pressure change and pressure in case well are as high as 120.02 °C and 139.74 MPa, but annular pressure no longer
Wellbore temperature change exists when 36 mitigation casings are installed. Optimal number of mitigation casing is determined by
Casing number annular temperature change and mitigation objective. Suitable design can reduce the number of mitiga-
tion casing while maintain strong mitigation effect. Mitigation casing number of case well is reduced
27.27% after optimization.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Limited by well structure and location, pressure cannot be

Trapped annular pressure (also called annular pressure build-
up) commonly exists in deepwater well [1]. Because drilling or
completion liquid is sealed in annulus by subsea wellhead and
then heated by production fluid. With further development of oil
and gas, trapped annular pressure is also found in high pressure
gas well [2], gas storage well [3], ultra-deep horizontal well with
hanger [4], multifrac horizontal wells [5], gas well with multiple
packers [6], high-pressure deep well [7] and drilling process [8].
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: zhangboupc@126.com (Z. Guan), liuyongwang@upc.edu.cn
(Y. Liu).
released. Several accidents have been reported. Casing collapsed
[8] even well was abandoned [9] in these accidents. Therefore, it
is essential to conduct control measures in wells with potential risk
[10].
The available mitigation technologies mainly function by
decreasing rising speed of annular liquid temperature, increasing
annular liquid compressibility or releasing annular liquid [11],
including thermal-insulated pipes [12], injecting nitrogen
[13], thermal-insulated annular liquid [14], compressible foam
[15], micro hollow glass ball [16], annular liquid with high com-
pressibility [17], rupture disk [18], full-height cementing [19]
and cement shortfall [20]. However, trapped annular pressure
can only be slowed down but not reduced by decreasing tempera-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.02.080
1359-4311/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298 293

ture rising speed. Although annular pressure can be reduced to

some extent by highly compressible annular liquid and foam, the
cost is high and effect is not very obvious in some cases [13]. Rup-
ture disk is effective, but its application is restricted by complex
well structure and formation property [21].
Therefore it is necessary and important to develop a new miti-
gation method with low cost, wide application and strong effect. So
a mitigation casing is developed in this paper according to the
mechanism of trapped annular pressure. This mitigation casing
works by increasing annulus volume when trapped annular pres-
sure generates. It can relief the contradiction between expanded
annular liquid and annulus with limited volume. The key parame-
ters are given based on multiple annuli and wellbore pressure sys-
tem. And then the mitigation effect is analyzed through a case well.
To obtain strong mitigation effect with low cost, the impact of
annular temperature change on mitigation casing number is also
analyzed.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Development of mitigation casing

2.1.1. Mitigation mechanism and feasibility

There are two basic conditions for trapped annular pressure.
First, heat source redistributes wellbore temperature. Second,
annulus is sealed and filled with liquid. For oil and gas wells, pro-
duction fluid from deep reservoir has higher temperature. Drilling
or completion fluid is sealed in the annulus by packers or wellhead.
According to volume consistency law and the PVT relationship of
annular liquid [22], annular liquid volume is always equal to
trapped annulus volume under the same temperature and pres-
sure. Every annulus complies with this law when more than one
annulus exists. So an equation set can be got to describe volume
relationship of annulus and annular liquid. Here a matrix as Eq.
(1) is used to represent this equation set. In Eq. (1), trapped annular
pressure pan is unknown parameter. So, the annular pressure of
each annulus can be calculated by Eq. (1) when other parameters
are obtained.
2 3 2 3 2 3
a1 DT 1 kT1 pan1 DV a1 =V a1
6 a DT 7 6 k p 7 6 DV =V 7
6 2 27 6 T2 an2 7 6 a2 a2 7
6 7¼6 7þ6 7 ð1Þ
4  5 4  5 4  5 space are connected, which means annular volume increases.
a i DT i kTi pani DV ai =V ai
where a is the isobaric expansion coefficient of annular liquid, °C1;
DT is the temperature change of annular liquid,°C; kT is annular liq-
uid isothermal compressibility, MPa1; pan is trapped annular pres-
sure, MPa; DVa is the change of annulus volume, m3; Va is the
annulus volume when casing string is consisted of ordinary casing,
m3; i is the annulus number, dimensionless.
Define the ration of annulus volume change and annulus vol-
ume in Eq. (1) as annular volume change rate. It can be seen that
trapped annular will decrease when annular volume change rate
increase under the same annular temperature change rate. The
annular pressure can even be kept zero if annular volume change
rate is large enough. Because larger annular volume change rate
means more extra volume to contain expanded liquid, expanded
annular liquid does not need to be compressed by high pressure.
Furthermore, annulus volume change has been proved to have
the strongest impact on annular pressure mitigation [23]. There-
fore, it is an effective and perpetual method to mitigate trapped
annular pressure by increasing annular volume change rate.
2.1.2. Development and advantage of mitigation casing
As shown in Fig. 1, a casing is developed to increase annular vol-
ume change rate. This mitigation casing consists of upper coupling,
Fig. 1. Mitigation casing.
relief valve, inner wall, relief space, outer wall and lower coupling.
Relief valve is installed in inner wall. Outer wall is used to resist
internal pressure and collapse pressure. Relief space is sealed and
there is nitrogen inside. As the relief valve is closed, the relief space
is kept isolated to annular liquid before production. Trapped annu-
lar pressure increase as production continues and finally reaches
relief valve open pressure. At this time, trapped annulus and relief
Expended annular liquid flows into relief space, so annular pres-
sure decreases. Part of the volume is occupied by relief space when
mitigation casing is installed, so the annulus volume decreases
compared with volume with ordinary casing. The relief space vol-
ume should be subtracted by annulus volume. And then annulus
volume with mitigation casing is obtained. Therefore, the corre-
sponding annular volume change rate can be expressed by Eqs.
(2) and (3):
nV mc þ DV apt
Rav ¼  100% ð2Þ
V a  nV mc
h i
V mc ¼ 0:25pðLc  Lcj Þ ðdco  2  THwo Þ  dci
2 2
ð3Þ
where Vmc is the relief space volume of single mitigation casing, m3;
Lc is the mitigation casing length, m; Lcj is coupling length, m; dco is
diameter of outer wall, m; THwo is the thickness of outer wall, m; dci
is diameter of inner wall, m; Rav is the annular volume change rate,
%; n is number of mitigation casing, dimensionless; DVapt is annulus
volume change caused by temperature and pressure, m3.
Annulus change caused by temperature and pressure is zero
when annulus is seen as rigidity, but this will lead to calculation
error. Annulus change caused by temperature and pressure is
expressed as [22]:
294 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298

Z zo
2.2.2. Relief valve open pressure and inner wall strength
DV apt ¼ p ðr o þ Dr to þ Drpo Þ2  ðr i þ Dr ti þ Dr pi Þ2 dz  V an ð4Þ
zi Relief valve should open to connect trapped annulus and relief
space when open pressure is reached. Also, the inner wall strength
Pipe radius variation caused by temperature and pressure can should not lower than relief valve open pressure in order to keep
be expressed by following equation: relief space isolated. The open pressure is determined by annular
Z
1þl r
as rð1 þ lÞð1  2lÞ pressure and annular liquid column pressure, so it can be
Dr t ¼ as DT c rdr þ Td
1l a 2ð1  lÞ expressed as Eq. (5):

as a2 ð1 þ lÞ psw ¼ 103  qm gðhc þ hw Þ þ pas ð8Þ

þ ð5Þ
2rð1  lÞ
where psw is open pressure, MPa; pas is the trapped annular pres-
" # sure when relief valve opens, MPa.
1þl   a2 b2
ð1  2lÞr a2 pi  b po 
2
Dr p ¼ 2
ðpi  po Þ ð6Þ The trapped annular pressure pas should not exceeds the maxi-
Eðb  a2 Þ r mum acceptable annular pressure. Or the casing will collapse and
well integrity will break before mitigation casing works. Currently,
where l is casing Poisson ratio, dimensionless; ɑs is linear expan- there are two standards to manage annular pressure in oil and gas
sion coefficient, °C1; a is casing inner radius, m; b is casing outer wells, including API RP90 and NORSOK D-010. API RP90 is applied
radius, m; r is calculating location radius, m; DTc is casing temper- more widely [25]. This standard provides a regulation for the max-
ature change,°C; E is casing elasticity modulus, MPa; pi is casing imum acceptable annular pressure in oil and gas wells, as follows:
inner pressure, MPa; po is casing outer pressure, MPa; ro is annulus
outer radius, m; Drto is annulus outer radius change caused by tem- pas 6 pac ¼ minð0:5  pco ; 0:75  pcc ; 0:8  pcno Þ ð9Þ
perature, m; Drpo is annulus outer radius change caused by pres-
sure, m; ri is annulus inner radius, m; Drti is annulus inner radius where pac is maximum acceptable annular pressure, MPa; pco is
change caused by temperature, m; Drpi is annulus inner radius internal pressure strength of annulus outer casing, MPa; pcc is col-
change caused by pressure, m; Van is annulus initial volume, m3. lapse pressure of annulus inner casing or tubing, MPa; pcno is inter-
This mitigation casing has following advantages: nal pressure strength of casing outside annulus, MPa.

a. Wide application range. This mitigation casing is installed in 2.2.3. Change characteristics of annular pressure after relief valve
casing string, so it is not limited by well structure, formation opens
property and drilling operation. Relief space and trapped annulus will be connected when the
b. Low cost. It does not change well structure and operation open pressure of relief valve is reached. And then part of the
process. All parts of mitigation casing are common materials expanded annular liquid flows into relief space at this time.
in drilling and completion. The technology to build this mit- According to Eq. (1) and Fig. 1, annular pressure will mutate at this
igation casing is similar to thermal-insulated casing. time. Based on the mitigation mechanism, the mutational trapped
c. Strong mitigation effect. Mitigation casing is able to elimi- annular pressure when relief valve is just open can be expressed as
nate trapped annular pressure completely, because it solves Eq. (7):
the primary cause of trapped annular pressure. (
0; Rav > aDT ac
pam ¼ ð10Þ
pas  RKavT ; Rav 6 a DT ac
2.2. Parameters of mitigation casing and mitigation process
where pam is mutational trapped annular pressure, MPa; DTanc is
Because this casing mitigate annular pressure by changing
annular temperature change when relief valve is just open, °C.
annulus volume, it is important to keep relief space isolated before
As production continues, the temperature of annular liquid is
pressure generates. Meanwhile, relief valve must open before
inevitable to increase. Likewise, annular liquid is continuing to
trapped annular pressure brings about accident. So, the open pres-
expand. The trapped annular pressure is zero before annulus is
sure of relief valve and inner wall strength should be maintained in
filled with expanded liquid according to Eq. (10). After that, annu-
a suitable range.
lar pressure increases again. The increasing process can be
expressed as Eq. (11):
2.2.1. Minimum resistance to pressure of relief valve 2 3 2 3 2 3
The relief valve must be kept closed in the drilling and comple- a1 DT 1 kT1 pan1 Rav1
tion operation. Otherwise mitigation casing will fail to control 6 a DT 7 6 k p 7 6 R 7
6 2 2 7 6 T2 an2 7 6 av2 7
trapped annular pressure. So the minimum resistance pressure of 6 7¼6 7þ6 7 ð11Þ
4  5 4  5 4  5
relief valve should be higher than the pressure in drilling and com-
ai DT i kTi pani Ravi
pletion operation. The pressure includes fluid column pressure,
drilling fluid circulation pressure loss, surge pressure and addi-
tional pressure of cuttings [24]. The wellhead back pressure should
3. Results and discussion
also be taken into account in underbalance drilling. Therefore, the
minimum resistance pressure can be expressed as Eq. (4):
Well HG-2 is located in South China Sea. This well is a deepwa-
pmin ¼ SA  ½10 3
 qm gðhc þ hw Þ þ maxðpma ; ps Þ þ pr þ pb  ð7Þ ter well with subsea wellhead. The well depth is 4650 m from sea
surface to well bottom. As shown in Fig. 2, it has three annuli:
where pmin is minimum resistance pressure, MPa; SA is safe coeffi- Annulus A, B and C. The liquid in Annulus A can be released, so
cient, dimensionless, value is 1.1; qm is density of annular liquid, g/ the Annulus B is selected to analyze the mitigation effect. The mit-
cm3; g is gravitational acceleration, m/s2; hc is the distance from igation casing is installed from depth of 1750 m in the casing string
mitigation casing to wellhead, m; hw is well depth above wellhead, of 13-3/800 . Table 1 is the basic calculation parameters. Before anal-
m; pma is drilling fluid circulation pressure loss, MPa; ps is surge ysis, the first thing is to get the extreme annular temperature
pressure, MPa; pr is additional pressure of cuttings, MPa; pb is well- change. Because the heat to change annular temperature is from
head back pressure. production fluid in reservoir, the highest temperature of annular
 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298 295

Annular pressure increases again in zone c because annular liquid

expands to exceed all the space. Combining Fig. 4, the following
conclusions can be obtained:

(1) Trapped annular pressure increase as temperature change

increase. The mitigation effect becomes stronger and stron-
ger as the number of mitigation casing increase. Moreover,
annular pressure can be reduced to zero when the mitigation
casing number is adequate. In this example well, the
extreme annular pressure without mitigation casing is as
high as 139.74 MPa. But extreme annular pressure becomes
zero when more than 36 mitigation casings are applied.
(2) Annular pressure changes to zero when relief valve opens
and relief space can contain all the expanded liquid. The
annular pressure starts rising again as annular temperature
change increases. The mutational annular pressure is always
lower than acceptable pressure. For this well, mutational
annular pressure is zero when mitigation casing number is
over 4.
(3) To balance mitigation effect and cost, it is not necessary to
reduce trapped annular pressure to zero. Keeping it under
acceptable annular pressure is safe enough.

3.1.2. Impact of open pressure on trapped annular pressure

Fig. 2. Sketch map of case well.
liquid is equal to reservoir temperature. As a result, the average
extreme annular temperature change can be expressed as Eq. (12):
R0
zb
g k ðhwb  hw  zÞdz
DT am ¼
100 zb
where DTam is the average maximum annular temperature change,
°C; gk is geothermal gradient, °C/100 m; hwb is well depth, m; zb is
the distance from annulus bottom to wellhead, m.
3.1. Evaluation and analysis of mitigation effect
3.1.1. Evaluation of mitigation effect
The extreme annular temperature change is 120.02 °C. Accept-
able annular pressure is 17.0 MPa. Chose pans = 0.9  panc as the
trapped annular pressure when relief valve opens. Fig. 3 is the cal-
culation results of case well. And Fig. 4 demonstrates the impact of
mitigation casing number on extreme and mutational annular
pressure. Obviously, Fig. 3 can be divided into three zones. In zone
a, relief valve of mitigation casing is not open. In zone b, trapped
annular pressure is zero because mitigation casing starts working
and expanded liquid is not able to suffuse all the relief space.
The mitigation casing number in Fig. 5 is 35. The open pressure
of these three curves is 23.294 MPa, 28.394 MPa and 35.194 MPa. It
can be seen that open pressure has no impact on the final mitiga-
tion effect. However, open pressure determines the strength of
mitigation casing inner wall. Taking the case well as example,
the steel grade and thickness of inner wall are K55 and
11.05 mm when open pressure is 23.294 MPa. Meanwhile, the
ð12Þ steel grade and thickness are C75 and 12.42 mm under open pres-
sure of 35.194 MPa. High steel grade and thickness will lead to high
cost. Therefore, suitable open pressure can reduce cost while
achieve good mitigation effect too.
3.2. Design of mitigation casing applied to control annular pressure
3.2.1. Annular temperature change as production time and rate
Extreme annular temperature change is not always reached
according to field data. Therefore, it is safe and necessary to design
mitigation casing based on actual annular temperature change. The
approaches to calculate wellbore temperature can be divided into
semi-steady and transient approach. Semi-steady approach was
put forward by Ramey [26] and has been proved valid by Holst
[27]. It has been widely applied in trapped annular pressure
[1,28], gas flooding [29] and surper-Co2 drilling [30]. Based on
semi-steady approach and conservation law as well as radial heat
conservation law, following equation set can be obtained:

Table 1
Calculation parameters.

Parameter Value Parameter Value

Water depth 1260 m Linear expansion coefficient 1.25  105 K1
Drilling 1300–1700 m 1.03 g/cm3 Surge pressure 1.24 MPa
Fluid 1800–2900 m 1.10 g/cm3 Cutting additional pressure 0.98 MPa
Density 3000–3900 m 1.16 g/cm3 Annular pressure loss 3.45 MPa
Isothermal compressibility 4.62  104 MPa1 Wellhead back pressure 0 MPa
Isobaric expansion coefficient 4.71  104 °C1 Mitigation casing Casing length 10.36 m
2000 casing Internal pressure strength 21.70 MPa Coupling length 0.54 m
Wall thickness 15.88 mm Outer wall thickness 12.19 mm
13-3/800 casing Internal pressure strength 34.00 MPa Outer diameter 13-3/800
Wall thickness 12.19 mm Inner diameter 11-3/400
9-5/800 casing Collapse resistance 32.80 MPa Mud line temperature 4.50 °C
Wall thickness 11.99 mm Geothermal gradient 4.67 °C/100 m
Casing elastic modulus 210 GPa Casing Poisson’s ratio 0.3
296 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298

Fig. 3. Cloud picture of trapped annular pressure with annular temperature change and mitigation casing number.

Fig. 5. Curves of trapped annular pressure as temperature change under different

Fig. 4. Curves of extreme and mutational trapped annular pressure and as number open pressures.
of mitigation casing.

t is production time, s; ae is formation thermal diffusion coefficient,

8
>
> W f C f dT f þ ðUki  Uko Þ þ ðpzi  pzo Þ Wqf þ W f gdz cos h  Ur ¼ 0
f
m2/s; rw is wellbore radius, m.
>
>
< p  p ¼ q g cos hdz The tubing fluid temperature can be got from Eq. (13):
zi zo f
(
> 2pke ðT f T e Þ
>
> U r ¼ T D þ2pke Rto
dz T f ¼ T 0 þ g k ðA þ hwb  hw  zÞ þ Cez=A
>
: pffiffiffiffiffi ð14Þ
T D ¼ ln½e 0:2t D
þ ð1:5  0:3719etD Þ t D  A ¼ W f C f ½T2pDkþk
e
e Rto 

ð13Þ where T0 is the temperature of mud line, °C; z is the distance from
calculation location to well bottom; A and C are constants, C is
where Wf is mass flow rate of fluid in tubing, kg/s; Cf is fluid specific
determined by initial fluid temperature.
heat capacity, J/(kg°C); qf is the density of tubing fluid, kg/m3;Tf is
As hypothesized as steady state in semi-steady approach, heat
tubing fluid temperature, °C; Uki is the kinetic energy flows into the
transfer between wellbore and formation complies with radial heat
micro-control volume, J/s; Uko is the kinetic energy flows out
conservation law:
the micro-control volume, J/s; pzi is the pressure energy flows into (
the micro-control volume, J/s; pzo is the pressure energy flows T f  T h ¼ Ur
out the micro-control volume, J/s; g is gravity acceleration speed, ð15Þ
T f þ RRan
to
ðT h  T f Þ ¼ T a
m/s2; h is hole deviation angle,°; Ur is heat loss along well
radial direction, J/s; ke is formation thermal conductivity, where Ran is the thermal resistance from tubing to annulus, m °C/
W/(m °C); Rto is radial thermal resistance of wellbore, m°C/W; W; Th is external surface temperature, °C; Ta is the original average
TD is dimensionless temperature [31]; tD is dimensionless time; temperature of annular fluid, °C.
 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298 297

Fig. 6. Annular temperature change as production time and rate.

Fig. 7. Mitigation casing number as production time and rate.

R zo
Combining Eqs. (14) and (15), the annular temperature change zi
T a dz
can be expressed as: DT ¼  T ai ð16Þ
zo  zi

T f ð1 þ T D Þ þ 2pke T e ðRto  Ran Þ

Ta ¼ ð17Þ
Table 2 T D þ 2pke Rto
Parameters of wellbore temperature.

Parameter Value
where zo is the distance from annulus top to well bottom, m; zi is
Formation thermal conductivity 1.62 W/(m °C) the distance from annulus bottom to well bottom, m; Tai is the orig-
Cement mantle thermal conductivity 0.39 W/(m °C) inal average temperature of annular fluid, °C.
Thermal conductivity of casing & tubing 50.5 W/(m °C)
Annular liquid thermal conductivity 0.63 W/(m °C)
Table 2 is parameters to calculate temperature change of Annu-
Formation thermal diffusion coefficient 8.7  107 m2/s lus B in Well HG-2. As shown in Fig. 6, temperature change
Production fluid specific heat capacity 2850 J/(kg °C) increases with production rate and time, but the rising speed
Formation density 2.15 g/cm3 decreases gradually. The highest temperature change is 103.26 °C
Production fluid density 0.93 g/cm3
(3000 d, 800 t/d), which is much lower than extreme value
298 B. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 118 (2017) 292–298
(120.02 °C). This means cost will be wasted if mitigation casing is
designed according to extreme annular temperature change.
3.2.2. Number of mitigation casing
As analyzed above, mitigation casing number is determined by
annular temperature change. As shown in Fig. 7, the mitigation
casing number distributes like stairs and increases with production
rate and time. The mitigation objective is 0.9 acceptable annular
pressure (15.30 MPa). The largest number of mitigation casing is
24 (3000 d, 800 t/d) and 9 mitigation casings are saved compared
with extreme annular temperature change. The trapped annular
pressure is reduced to 13.75 MPa, which is lower than the accept-
able annular pressure. It is obvious that less mitigation casing
means low cost while mitigation effect is not undermined. To
determine the optimal mitigation casing number, it is necessary
to get the well structure, production schedule and formation prop-
erty first. And then the optimal casing number can be calculated by
Eqs. (11) and (2) according to mitigation objective and annular
temperature change.
4. Conclusion
A new casing is proposed in this paper to mitigate trapped
annular pressure. Based on the analysis, a design process is finally
provided. The main conclusions are as following:
a. Open pressure is determined by acceptable trapped annular
pressure and the pressure in drilling and completion opera-
tion. It is a key parameter for successful mitigation. Mitiga-
tion casing overcomes the limit of formation property and
well structure. The mitigation effect is permanent and can
completely eliminate annular pressure.
b. The mitigation effect becomes stronger and stronger as the
mitigation casing number increases. The trapped annular
pressure keep zero when mitigation casing exceeds a certain
number. The open pressure should be as low as possible to
reduce cost.
c. The number of mitigation casing should be designed accord-
ing annular temperature change and mitigation objective.
Annular temperature is determined by production time
and rate. The mitigation objective should be lower than
acceptable annular pressure. Suitable design can reduce
the number of mitigation casing while maintain strong mit-
igation effect.
Acknowledgment
This research is supported by China National Natural Founda-
tion (No. 51574275); China University of Petroleum graduate stu-
dent innovation project (No. YCXJ2016011); China Scholarship
Council (No. 201606450036); Program for innovation team of Min-
istry of Education (IRT_14R58).
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