ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concepts of the widened mud weight window (MWW) and cohesive cracks and presents a workflow that models and calculates a widenedMWW for a wellbore within a naturally fractured formation. Hydraulic plugging and stress caging are numerically simulated and analyzed. Workflow and numerical models are presented to obtain a widened MWW through hydraulic plugging and stress caging. A validation example from a vertical well section within a subsalt formation in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is presented.Another application of the proposed workflow presented includes a case of a horizontal well that was drilled through a natural fractured shale gas formation.
