Detection of Loss Zones While Drilling Using Different Machine Learning Techniques

Fluid loss into formations is a common operational issue that is frequently encountered when drilling across naturally or induced fractured formations. This could pose significant operational risks, such as well-control, stuck pipe, and wellbore instability, which, in turn, lead to an increase of well time and cost. This research aims to use and evaluate different machine learning (ML) techniques, namely, support vector machines (SVMs), random forests, and K-nearest neighbors (K-NN) in detecting loss circulation occurrences while drilling using solely drilling surface parameters. Actual field data of seven wells, which had suffered partial or severe loss circulation, were used to build predictive models, while Well-8 was used to compare the performance of the developed models. Different performance metrics were used to evaluate the performance of the developed models. Recall, precision, and F1-score measures were used to evaluate the ability of the developed model to detect loss circulation occurrences. The results showed the K-nearest neighbors classifier achieved a high F1-score of 0.912 in detecting loss circulation occurrence in the testing set, while the random forests was the second-best classifier with almost the same F1-score of 0.910. The support vector machines achieved an F1-score of 0.83 in predicting the loss circulation occurrence in the testing set. The K-nearest neighbors outperformed other models in detecting the loss circulation occurrences in Well-8 with an F1-score of 0.80. The main contribution of this research as compared with previous studies is that it identifies losses events based on real-time measurements of the active pit volume (APV).