To achieve a high level of drilling efficiency, it is paramount to correctly identify reasons of drilling events from available data in a timely fashion. Many surface or downhole events share common root causes. Drilling fluid thermal expansion, wellbore ballooning and formation kick share similarities in terms of surface observation such as pit gain volumes. However, resolution for each of them is completed in a totally different manner. Treating a wellbore ballooning effect in the same way as a kick will likely result in losing the current borehole after days or weeks of unsuccessful operations.

In this study, pressure while drilling technologies and software simulations are discussed to analyze variances in the wellbore parameters over time to investigate drilling fluid thermal expansion, wellbore ballooning and formation influx during flow checks in riserless drilling operations. A transient simulation software was used to study the fraction of gas in the annulus and fluid level inside the drillstring on several flow checks following flow and gas bubbles at the well head. Availability of continuous pumps off annular pressure while drilling measurement helps calibrate the simulations and verify its validity.

A new workflow combining modelling, simulations and downhole annular pressure profiling measurement was successfully applied to a riserless pilot hole deep water well Gulf of Mexico. The flow contribution from each drilling fluid thermal expansion, wellbore ballooning, formation influx and u-tube flow was identified and decomposed.

Transient flow simulator working together with pressure while drilling data gave the operator an exact knowledge of wellbore dynamics in an operation usually performed with limited information. This proved extremely valuable in the pursuit of drilling prospect.