In the realm of well control, encompassing both drilling and completion operations, the terms kick and influx hold significant importance. This article aims to explain the distinctions between these two terms, offering insights into their unique characteristics within the context of well control.
As you know, we’ve always been trained or told to minimize influx (kick). Nowadays, there are several tools and procedures guiding us to prevent large influx; however, interestingly there are quite a lot of people who don’t understand why we need to do this. In this topic, we will demonstrate how kick volume will affect wellbore and surface casing pressure.
Main concept of minimizing kick coming into the wellbore is to minimize surface casing pressure when shut in. If you have excessive surface casing pressure, you will have a chance to fracture the weakest formation in the wellbore such as formation at casing shoe. You need to remember that more influx equals to more surface pressure. We will do basic calculation to see the effect of kick volume and surface pressure.
