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Intelligent unconventional reservoir optimal production control technology is a comprehensive technology, involving geology, reservoir simulation, and efficient drilling and completion. Efficient drilling and completion provides a flow channel for unconventional oil and gas exploitation and a wellbore with good integrity for reservoir transformation, which is an important link in the efficient development of unconventional oil and gas. The application of industry standard method to evaluate the performance of oil-based drilling fluid has the problem of poor correlation. It cannot reflect the difference of performance among oil-based drilling fluid systems, which lacks the significance for field construction. Based on shale expansion, rolling dispersion experiment, and microporous membrane filtration loss test, the physicochemical mechanism of borehole wall instability in shale formation was investigated. The evaluation methods of shale lubrication, antiaccretion test, slake durability, buck hardness test, etc. are put forward, and the formula of oil-based drilling fluid is optimized. The lubrication and antiaccretion experiment method can effectively and intuitively characterize the cleaning and lubrication effect of drilling fluid on drilling tools. The slake durability evaluation method simulates the collision between drill cuttings and the drill string and well wall. The bucking hardness experiment is through testing the cuttings and the hardness change after drilling fluid action reflects its inhibitory effect. The new methods were used to evaluate the oil-based drilling fluid used in 4 wells in the Changning block. It was found that the drilling fluid of CN209H2 well adhered to the steel column with at least 0.41 g of cuttings; the recovery rate of the drilling fluid resistance of CN209H1 was up to 87.70%, and YX1200 oil-based drilling fluid plugging agent was selected through the microporous membrane experiment. In the process of drilling the well CN209H5, the new oil-based drilling fluid formulation improved the lubrication performance by 44%, accompanied by 95.48% recovery rate and less than 10 mL HTHP fluid loss at the same time. The research results show that the oil-based drilling fluid system optimized according to the new method can significantly inhibit shale hydration and dispersion and can effectively solve the problem of unstable performance of traditional oil-based drilling fluids in the Changning block.

Finding out the reasons for wellbore instability in the Longmaxi Formation and Wufeng Formation and putting forward drilling fluid technical countermeasures to strengthen and stabilize the wellbore are very crucial to horizontal drilling. Based on X-ray diffraction, electron microscope scanning, linear swelling experiment, and hot-rolling dispersion experiment, the physicochemical mechanism of wellbore instability in complex strata was revealed, and thus, the coordinated wellbore stability method can be put forward, which is “strengthening plugging of micropores, inhibiting filtrate invasion, and retarding pressure transmission.” Using a sand bed filtration tester, high-temperature and high-pressure plugging simulation experimental device, and microporous membrane and other experimental devices, the oil-based drilling fluid treatment agent was researched and selected, and a set of an enhanced plugging drilling fluid system suitable for shale gas horizontal well was constructed. Its temperature resistance is 135°C and it has preferable contamination resistibility (10% NaCl, 1% CaCl2, and 8% poor clay). The bearing capacity of a 400 μm fracture is 5 MPa, and the filtration loss of 0.22 μm and 0.45 μm microporous membranes is zero. Compared with previous field drilling fluids, the constructed oil-based drilling fluid system has a greatly improved plugging ability and excellent performance in other aspects.