Exxonmobil Upstream Research Company

Rachna Jain

Timothy J Nedwed

Kaustubh S Kulkarni

Douglas A Mitchell

Bill R Meeks

Methods of mitigating lost circulation while drilling a wellbore. The methods include circulating a drilling mud to a downhole end of the wellbore via a drill string and, during the circulating, drilling the wellbore with a drill bit of the drill string. The methods also include detecting lost circulation within the wellbore while drilling the wellbore and include providing a monomer solution to the wellbore. The methods further include providing a catalyst to the wellbore responsive to detecting the lost circulation event and combining the monomer solution and the catalyst to polymerize a monomer from the monomer solution, within the wellbore, and forming a viscous plug within the wellbore. Subsequent to the combining, the methods include flowing at least a portion of the viscous plug within the wellbore and into a zone of lost circulation that extends within a subsurface region. The methods further include at least partially occluding fluid flow from the wellbore and into the zone of lost circulation with the viscous plug.

Growing community of inventors

Collierville, TN, United States of America

Rachna Jain