IADC DEC Tech Forum Minutes
“Contemporary Challenges in Exploration Drilling”
Date: 19 September 2018
Time: 8:00 am – 1:00 pm
Venue: Weatherford
Location:
11909 Spencer Rd (FM529)
Houston, TX 77041
Minutes from 9/19 IADC DEC Tech Forum, “Contemporary Challenges in Exploration Drilling” now available
The event was hosted by Weatherford at its facility at 11909 Specer Rd Facility (FM529) in Houston.
DEC Advisory Board Member Dennis Moore of Marathon Oil, Chairman, opened the meeting, welcomed the attendees and reviewed the agenda.
Agenda
08.00-08.20 Refreshments and networking
08.20-08.30 Welcome & review agenda – Dennis Moore, Marathon Oil, Chairman
08.30-09.15 JIP Updates
09.15-09.45 Program Briefing on Deepstar’s Drilling, Completions and Interventions (DC&I) Committee: Dave Barrow, Senior Advisor for Subsea Completions, Chevron, and Co-Chairman of Deepstar DC&I Committee, and Halvor Kjorholdt, Leader Drilling and Well Solution, Equinor
This presentation will provide a review of Deepstar’s past and recent research efforts, with a focus on the current portfolio of projects and opportunities. These include shear ram technologies and a fast fix to SCSSV issues. There are near-term, as well as potentially long-term, implications for making progress on both of these topics, which have generated multiple suggestions for future study that Deepstar members have put forward.
This presentation will focus on the use of a new acoustic telemetry system, how it works and how it is being used to manage risk in deepwater applications from drilling to completion installation.
This presentation will examine reasons for the long lead times to introduce new technology into the drilling industry. Even product with great potential to reduce cost and increase safety are rarely adopted with any great speed. This presentation will focus on the experience with one company’s electrical BOP and subsea RCD for riserless drilling.
10.45-11.00 Break
11.00-11.30 Increased Performance and Reduced Risk as Wired Drill Pipe and Along-string Measurements are Introduced to Exploration Drilling: Tony Pink, SVP Strategic Sales, Automation and Optimization, National Oilwell Varco
The ability to utilize Wired Drill Pipe (WDP) to enable along-string measurements (ASMs) has been discussed previously. The adoption of this technology at a large scale had been limited due to reliability issues and sensors accuracy, but these challenges have been resolved. The deployment of this new generation of tools on extended offshore campaigns has led to a deeper understanding of flow-off events in real time, such as pack offs, severe losses and FIT/LOT data not normally seen in real time. This presentation focuses on the deployment of the WDP, ASM tools and high-speed telemetry in different offshore exploration drilling applications.
11.30-12.00 Downhole Early Kick Detection Sensor: Jim Hall, Director, Letton Hall Group
Current downhole pressure sensors are unable to detect small density changes that would indicate the onset of inflow from a high-pressure zone. Prototypes of a “fluid density sensor” (FDS) module that could be placed in the bottomhole assembly have been developed and tested in a simulated static wellbore-like test stand with fluids varying from water, salt water (brine) to mud with a density up to 18 ppg. The FDS sensor’s density response was linear over the density range and showed a sensitivity to a wellbore fluid density as low as 0.1 ppg, which would be sufficient for real-time kick detection and well control. This sensor would complement a typical PWD tool, which measures the entire annular pressure gradient from surface to the BHA. The current status of the qualification of the downhole FDS will be presented.
12.00-12.30 Well Complexity and Risk Evaluation through Relief Well Contingency Planning: Joseph D. Burke, Aaron G. Scheet, Wild Well Control
Typically, relief well contingency planning is performed on many exploration wells to help understand the feasibility of a kill operation during a worst-case scenario blowout from the target formation during the final hole section. While this evaluation can provide significant value to the design team for the particular hole section of interest, it fails to provide a true complexity assessment of the well design by neglecting to evaluate all potential flow scenarios leading up to the final hole section, as well as after the well has been put on production. A relief well intervention project is often thought by many to occur primarily for blowout events that take place during drilling operations. However, relief wells are rarely utilized in such an occasion. More often, a relief well is used to perform complex P&As where conventional access through the wellhead/tubulars has been lost and conventional P&A methods cannot be used. This understanding can allow for optimization of the well design to further reduce the operational risk throughout the lifecycle of the well. This presentation aims to overview several critical relief well/intervention well design elements, discuss how relief well planning/modeling techniques can be used to analyze the risk profile for a given well and provide methods on how to optimize a proposed well design for intervention well operations.
12.30-13.00 Active Wellbore Pressure Management – The Key to Managing Uncertainty in a Deepwater Exploration Scenario: Robert Ziegler, Global Director, Well Control Technology, Weatherford
The more uncertain the pressure regime in an exploration well, the higher the value of active and dynamic wellbore pressure management. This presentation describes how closed-system drilling reduces risk to make deepwater drilling more predictable and cost effective. Applications in all phases of well construction in an exploration well will be discussed, as will associated enhanced data collection and the inherent efficiency improvement and cost reductions achievable.
13.00 Adjournment and lunch (sponsored by Weatherford)
