Drilling through bitumen pose significant challenges
Frank Hartley,
Drilling & Production Editor
HOUSTON -- Bitumen formations in deepwater GoM have posed significant challenges to operators such as Hess on Pony, BP's Mad Dog, ConocoPhilips' Spa prospect, and Chevron's Big Foot, said Gang Han with the Hess Corp. at the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. In many cases, bitumen encounters have resulted in significant delay in drilling schedule, often requiring sidetrack or even well abandonment, according to Han.
Han says understanding bitumen behaviors under in-situ stress and temperature conditions, bitumens formation geometry, and driving mechanisms through material modeling and applying 3D numerical analyses may help reveal the myth.
05/05/2008
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