Eight casing failure modes and 32 risk factors in oil and gas wells are given in this paper. According to the quantitative analysis of the infl uence degree and occurrence probability of risk factors, the Borda counts for failure modes are obtained with the Borda method. The risk indexes of failure modes are derived from the Borda matrix. Based on the support vector machine (SVM), a casing life prediction model is established. In the prediction model, eight risk indexes are defi ned as input

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... tors and casing life is defined as the output vector. The ideal model parameters are determined with the training set from 19 wells with casing failure. The casing life prediction software is developed with the SVM model as a predictor. The residual life of 60 wells with casing failure is predicted with the software, and then compared with the actual casing life. The comparison results show that the casing life prediction software with the SVM model has high accuracy.