Temporal borehole breakout evolution and its impact on stress estimation

The estimation of the in-situ stress state is required for the design and execution of deep engineering operations related to Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS). Borehole failures, often referred as borehole breakouts, which are controlled by local stress concentration around the wellbore, are recognized being a useful indicator to assess in-situ stress conditions. However, breakouts evolve with time and this may affect our ability to use them for quantifying the stress state. We use a unique data set from the deep geothermal well of Rittershoffen GRT-1 in order to verify the hypothesis concerning wellbore breakout geometrical evolution. In GRT-1 wellbore, imaging has been acquired 4 days, 348 days and 946 days after drilling completion. Thermal, hydraulic and chemical stimulations have been performed between the first and the second image acquisition. Using this data set, we were able to describe in-situ the breakout evolution with time. We show increase in the extension of breakouts along the well. Contrary to the common assumptions, we also show that breakout widen, but within the limit of the accuracy of our analysis they do not deepen. The consequences of the breakout evolution for stress characterization are significant and add up to other important uncertainties in such analyses like the estimation of strength parameters.

, 2018