Exploration and Drilling

When 3D seismic has been completed, it is time to drill the well. Normally dedicated drilling rigs either on mobile onshore units or offshore floating rigs are used. Larger production platforms may also have their own production drilling equipment.

The main components of the drilling rig are the Derrick, Floor, Drawworks, Drive and Mud Handling. The control and power can be hydraulic or electric.

Earlier pictures of Drillers and Roughnecks working with rotary tables (bottom drives) are now replaced with top drive and semi automated pipe handling on larger installations. The hydraulic or electric top drive hangs from the derrick crown and gives pressure and rotational torque to the drill string. The whole assembly is controlled by the drawworks.

The Drill String is assembled from pipe segments about 30 meters (100 feet) long normally with conical inside threads at one end and outside at the other. As each 30 meter segment is drilled, the drive is disconnected and a new pipe segment inserted in the string. A cone bit is used to dig into the rock. Different cones are used for different types of rock and at different stages of the well. The picture shows roller

cones with inserts (on the left); other bits are PDC (polycrystalline diamond compact, on the right) and Diamond Impregnated.

 Photo: Kingdream PLC

As the well is sunk into the ground, the weight of the drill string increases and might reach 500 metric tons or more for a 3000 meter deep well. The drawwork and top drive must be precisely controlled not to overload and break the drill string or the cone. Typical values are 50kN force on the bit and a torque of 1-1.5 kNm at 40-80 RPM for an 8 inch cone. ROP (Rate of Penetration) is very dependant on depth and could be as much as 20 meters per hour for shallow sandstone and dolomite (chalk) and as low as 1 m/hour on deep shale rock and granite.

Directional drilling is intentional deviation of a well bore from the vertical. It is often necessary to drill at an angle from the vertical to reach different parts of the formation. Controlled directional drilling makes is possible to reach subsurface areas laterally remote from

the point where the bit enters the earth. It often involves the use of a drill motor driven by mud pressure mounted directly on the cone (Mud Motor, Turbo Drill, and Dyna-Drill), whipstocks: a steel casing that will bend between the drill pipe and cone, or other deflecting rods. Also used for horizontal wells and multiple completions, where one well may split into several bores. A well which has sections more than 80 degrees from the vertical is called a horizontal well. Modern wells are drilled with large horizontal offsets to reach different parts of the structure and achieve higher production. The world record is more than 15 kilometers. Multiple completions allows production from several locations. Wells can be any depth from almost at the surface to a depth of more than 6000 meters. The oil and gas typically formed at 3000-4000 meters depth, but the overlying rock can since have eroded away. The pressure and temperature generally increases with increasing depth, so that deep wells can have more than 200 deg C temperature and 90 MPa pressure (900 times atmospheric pressure), equivalent to the hydrostatic pressure set by the distance to the surface., The weight of the oil in the production string reduces the wellhead pressure. Crude oil has a specific weight of 790 to 970 kg per cubic meter. For a 3000 meter deep well with 30 MPa downhole pressure and normal crude oil at 850 kg/m3, the wellhead static pressure would only be around 4,5 MPa. During production the pressure would go down further due resistance to flow in the reservoir and well. The mud enters though the drill pipe, through the cone and rises in the uncompleted

well. The Mud serves several purposes:

Bring rock shales (fragments of rock) up to the surface

Clean and Cool the cone

Lubricate the drill pipe string and Cone

Fibrous particles attach to the well surface to bind solids

Mud weight should balance the downhole pressure to avoid leakage of gas and oil.

Often, the well will drill though smaller pockets of hydrocarbons which may cause “a blow out” if the mud weight cannot balance the pressure. The same might happen when drilling into the main reservoir. To prevent an uncontrolled blow out, a subsurface safety valve is often installed. This valve has enough closing force to seal the well and cut the drill string in an uncontrollable blow-out situation. However unless casing is already also in place, hydrocarbons may also leave though other cracks in the in the well and rise to the surface through porpus or cracked rock. In addtion to fire and polution hazards, dissolved gas in seawater rising under a floating structure significantly reduces buoyancy.

The mud mix is a specialist brew designed to match the desired flow viscosity, lubrication properties and specific gravity. Mud is a common name used for all kinds of fluids used in drilling completion and workover, It can be Oil Base, Water Base or Synthetic and consists of powdered clays such as bentonite, Oil, Water and various additives and chemicals such as caustic soda, barite (sulphurous mineral), lignite (brown coal), polymers and emulsifiers.

Photo: OSHA.gov

 

A special high density mud called Kill Fluid is used to shut down a well for workover. Mud is recirculated. The coarse rock shales are separated in a shale shaker, the mud could then pass though finer filters and recalibrated with new additives before returning to the mud holding tanks