Abstract:
As deep-sea oil and gas development continues to expand into high-temperature, high-pressure formations, issues such as the inadequate adaptability of existing well control strategies in complex environments and the uncertainty regarding the timing of emergency responses have become increasingly prominent. There is an urgent need to establish a systematic safety analysis method to support the optimization of well control strategies. To systematically identify the key factors contributing to blowout risks in high-temperature, high-pressure drilling and to elucidate their dynamic evolution mechanisms, this paper employs system theory accident models and processes. Using the STAMP/STPA methodology, it identifies unsafe control behaviors and their root causes within the well control system, constructs a safety control framework adapted to high-temperature, high-pressure environments, and subsequently compares and highlights the distinct risk characteristics relative to conventional drilling. Building on this foundation, system dynamics methods are introduced to establish a simulation model for the evolution of well control safety levels. This model simulates the dynamic evolution of the system’s safety state under various scenarios of risk factor coupling, elucidating the patterns by which multi-factor interactions influence well control safety levels. Simulation results indicate that systematic analysis and dynamic modeling can effectively identify key risk pathways and control vulnerabilities in high-temperature, high-pressure drilling, construct a critical curve for well control safety levels, classify well control safety states into different grades based on this curve, propose combined active and passive well control strategies for typical causal scenarios, and clarify differentiated control measures for the early stages of risk and critical states. The research conclusions provide theoretical support and a basis for decision-making regarding the proactive prevention and precise control of well blowout accidents in deepwater high-temperature, high-pressure drilling operations.