Frank Hartley • Houston
Simulated downhole testing
The greater working depths and extended lives needed for intelligent well installations now drive the development of reliable electrical equipment and instrumentation for down hole and wellhead use in deep-sea oil and gas operations.
The combination of high pressure, high temperature, and aggressive working fluid make for a hostile environment with high rates of attrition. Proper testing and development of components is essential if the high costs of in-service failures are to be avoided.
BHRSolutions says it can simulate downhole, subsea environments for component testing using pressure vessels and temperature-controlled chambers that can handle a wide range of well operating fluids.
Long-term installation requirements also mean that ultra low level leakage (ULLL) and permeation become significant phenomena in maintaining sealing integrity. Specialized permeation testing facilities and finite element analysis based lifetime simulation software are used to design and test in virtual reality the seals for these systems.
This simulated downhole testing can perform:
- Function and reliability testing of thermocouples, pressure transducers, flowmeters, connectors, motors, and cabling.
- Specialized components development such as multi-wire penetrators to enable remote monitoring and measurement of devices under test
- Compatibility, function and permeation testing and simulation of seals and materials used in component construction.
New integration platform
A new integration platform for drilling and completions and production operations workflows has been designed and released. Landmark Graphics Corp., a wholly owned business unit of Halliburton, has developed The Engineer's Desktop, an integration platform for drilling and completions and production operations workflows. According to the company, the platform provides a suite of well design, real-time operations, field surveillance and economic tools in a common data management environment. E&P companies can integrate engineering workflows, enabling them to reduce planning cycle time, drill better, safer wells, and optimize well and overall field production the company says.
As the digital oilfield becomes a reality, integration of key workflows across drilling, production, and economics will enable companies to optimize management of their field operations and streamline engineering work processes by data coverage and application capabilities on one integrated platform.
The integration platform combines the capability of the Drilling Desktop, released last year, with production and economics. The company says the technology brings together drilling and field operations, which have never been tied together before, to maximize return on investments as operators venture into more hostile environments or push to achieve maximum recovery from mature fields.
New full-rotation system
A new rotary steerable system includes a fully integrated high-torque power section that converts mud hydraulic power to additional mechanical power. Benefits of the new full-rotation system are fast drilling and a reduction in nonproductive rig time, according to Schlumberger Oilfield Services, which recently announced its PowerDrive vorteX rotary steerable system (RSS). The system is the newest addition to the PowerDrive family of rotary steerable tools.
The power generated by the rig surface equipment combined with the downhole high-torque power section of the RSS provides a significant increase in available torque, rotation speed, and downhole power at the bit, Schlumberger says. All available energy is used to drill the hole and maximize the rate of penetration (ROP). The increased revolutions per minute result in faster drilling for higher ROP, more efficient drilling, and longer runs in the toughest environments, such as offshore, the company says.
The system includes an optional inclination hold function, which allows a tangent or horizontal section to be drilled automatically, without intervention from the directional driller. The automatic downhole control makes it possible to drill a hole section at a higher rate of penetration and with greater accuracy than can be achieved with a conventional surface-operated control setup. The system can be stabilized at any of four locations along its length, and allows the system to be tailored to suit all directional drilling needs.
In addition to performance drilling in hard-rock formations, the system is suitable for rigs that lack the power to rotate the drillstring during conventional directional drilling. The system's integrated power section increases bit RPM and allows reduced drillstring rotation speed, preventing damaging downhole vibrations and lowering the risk of drillstring fatigue and excess casing wear in hole sections with high doglegs. Even in demanding applications such as kickoff from vertical, openhole sidetracks, tangent sections, slimhole extended-reach drilling, long lateral sections, and drilling under harsh conditions at elevated temperatures, the system has resulted in exceptional ROP and efficient hole cleaning, the company says.
New PDC bit performance
Halliburton and its product service line Security DBS says it has released the Z3 polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) cutter technology for Fixed Cutter drill bits. Z3 technology a proprietary development made in conjunction with long time diamond technology provider US Synthetic, represents a step-change advance in the abrasion resistance of PDC cutters, leading to significantly longer and more cost effective drilling operations. This breakthrough technology will further expand the application of the FM 3000 PDC product line into hard rock and more abrasive formations says James Bement, vice president, Halliburton Energy Services, Security DBS.
RSS downhole test
Precision Drilling Corp. has completed a successful downhole test of a new rotary steerable system (RSS). The Revolution 4 3/4-in. rotary steerable system designed and manufactured at Precision's research and engineering facility in Cheltenham, England, drilled 940 m (3084 ft) at an average rate of penetration of 41 m/hr (135 ft/hr) during a recent field test in western Canada's Farrow field for EOG Resources Canada Inc. Additional field tests are currently underway in Mexico.
Using this system results in more efficiency in controlling the hole deviation and direction than with conventional mud motors, the company says. Precision Drilling says the system should result in substantial cost and timesaving on future drilling projects. Having a 4 3/4-in. rotary steerable system will open up different hole-size and casing-design options to make wells very cost effective.
Rotary steerable systems allow operators to orient and control well trajectory while rotating the drill string. The result is faster penetration rates, smoother wellbores, and fewer doglegs than in wells drilled with conventional mud motors. This is the first 4 3/4-in. rotary steerable system to use point-the-bit technology to control the well path. Point-the-bit systems have been proven to drill better quality boreholes, with less spiraling and tortuousity than other competitive push-the-bit systems. A point-the-bit rotary steerable system in a 4 3/4-in. tool size offers benefits over smaller boreholes.
