Modern Day Drilling

A short introduction
Controlled directional drilling
 What is directional
drilling

directional or Slant hole drilling. The technique of controlled

drilling at an angle from the vertical by deflecting the drill bit.

This is the major drilling application offshore

Controlled directional drilling makes it possible to

reach subsurface areas (targets) laterally remote
from the point where the bit enters the earth.
 Platforms

The most common application of directional drilling

techniques is in offshore drilling. Many oil and gas
deposits around the world are situated beyond the
reach of land based rigs.

To drill a large number of vertical wells offshore would be both costly and impractical.

A more conventional approach for an offshore oilfield would be to install a fixed platform
to the seabed, allowing many directional wells to be drilled with bottomhole locations of the
carefully planed and spaced for optimum recovery. As many as 36 well may be drilled from
one location
 Straighten crooked holes
Before Directional drilling was excepted as a
techniques we us today it was used to “straighten
crooked holes”.

In other words, if a deviation occurs in a well that was

supposed to be vertical, various techniques were used
to bring the well back to vertical.

Cement plug set and

hole reamed to
straighten it out

This was one of the earliest applications of directional drilling and an application that is
still used to-day on almost every well drill.
 Side Tracking
Often while drilling the well we will encounter problems,
problems that sometime means having to leave tools in
the well.

If the tools can not be removed and we need to continue

Well Path drilling we must go around them we call this “Side
Tracking”
Point of
deflection

obstruction
Side
track

Over the years there has been some very clever side track. But on average a side track
is just a means of bypassing such obstacle as drilling assembly's that have been backed
off after the string became stuck or junk that could not be retrieved
Mechanical Sidetrack using a Whipstock

whipstock are designed to cut a window in the casing of the existing

well bore. This design allows it to be run in vertical or high angle holes.
 Relief wells

Directional drilling techniques are used to drill relief wells. The relief well or wells are
designed to pass as close as possible to the uncontrolled wells reservoir.
In the case where a reservoir lies offshore but quite close to land, the most
economical way to exploit the reservoir may be to drill directional wells from
a land rig on the coast.
 Inaccessible locations

Directional wells are often drilled because the surface location directly above the
reservoir is inaccessible, either because of natural or man-made obstacles. Examples
include reservoirs under cities, mountains and, lakes.
 Fault drilling

To avoid this problem, the well can be drilled on the “up dip” or “down dip” side of
the fault and deflected into the producing formation.
Horizontial drilling

The turning point

 Early 80’s
Towards the end of the rig build upsurge in the late 70’s
early 80’s three major changes took place

The Top Drive enter the industry 1982

The polycrystalline diamond compacts (PDC)

bit was tried and tested 1982 (PDC) bit

And the Measure while drilling tools started to

show up 1984

This lead to a change of thinking and in many cases a Tooth Bit

change in people.
Carbide Button
Graphic courtesy Hughes
Christensen’s
Horizontial drilling became a reality
 Horizontial Long Radii
Long-radius wells typically have a curvature radius of
1,000 to 4,500 feet, and can extend a great distance
horizontally.

2°- 6°/100ft
4500-1000ft radii

Shallow
Kick-off
point

Horizontal world record 26,000 ft+

These wells are typically used to reach deposits offshore, where it is economical to drill
outwards from a single platform to reach reservoirs inaccessible with vertical drilling.
 Medium Radii
Medium-radius wells typically have a curvature radius
of 300 to 700 feet, with the horizontal portion of
the well measuring up to 3,500 feet.

6°- 60°/100ft
700-125ft radii

These wells are useful when the drilling target is a long distance away from the drill-site,
or where reservoirs are spaced apart underground.
Multiple completions may be used to gain access to numerous deposits at the same time.
 Measure while drilling (MWD)
Measure while drilling (MWD)

Logging while drilling (LWD)

Pressure while drilling (PWD)

Lead to what we now have

The Rotary-steerable systems (RSS)

No other equipment or tools have advances so quickly as these

 Rotary-steerable systems (RSS)

Drilling with steerable motors is divided into

two activities: Sliding and rotating.

Rotating involves no
active guidance of
the trajectory.

Sliding involves
precision guidance of
the assembly towards a
prescribed target
 Current concepts

Steerable motors direct the bit along a particular path by providing a relatively rigid
“three-point” geometry that biases the bit to drill along the arc of a circle.

The geometry of the tool prescribes the position of the bit relative to the two non-
cutting, upper-contact points. The side-cutting capability of the bit allows it to move
along the circular arc trajectory that continually minimizes the side force on the bit.
The Automated Guidance System
Steering is accomplished by pointing the bit in the target direction through
controlled flexure of the Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA).

During operation, the AGS steers to a particular, predetermined, programmed

course.

This course, defined in terms of an inclination and an

azimuth, can be programmed at the surface before
the AGS is run in hole.

Alternatively: and at any time, it can be selected from a

library of predetermined stored courses, while the system
is downhole. In conventional directional drilling these are
the angle calculated by the directional driller
 Short Radii
Short-radius wells typically have a curvature radius of
20 to 45 feet, being the 'sharpest turning' of the three
types.

1.5°- 3°/ft
40-20ft radii

These wells, which can be easily dug outwards from a previously drilled vertical well, are
ideal for increasing the recovery of natural gas or oil from an already developed well.
They can also be used to drill non-conventional formations, including coal bed methane and
tight sand reservoirs.
 Re-entry or Multi-lateral wells
Re-entry and Multi-lateral drilling employs the full
range of directional drilling tools and techniques.

1.5°- 3°/ft
40-20ft radii

Including planning, wellbore engineering, and careful consideration of the numerous

aspects of drilling straight and deviated holes.

Well configurations can include dual stacked, dual opposing, dual opposing stacked,
spokes, lateral tie-back, and herringbone.
Underbalanced
drilling
Overbalanced

Up until the mid 90’s most wells were drill in

the Conventional way, overbalanced
Conventional
drilling where
Well control is normally maintained with the use the formation
of weighted drilling fluids. pressure is
controlled by
the fluid
These fluids increase the hydrostatic pressure weight
created by the drilling fluid column so that it
exceeds the pressure of the formation. The
result, an overbalanced.
 Introduction
Underbalanced drilling is the drilling process in which the wellbore pressure is
intentionally designed to be lower than the pressure of the formation being drilled.

This underbalanced pressure condition allows the reservoir fluids to enter the
wellbore during drilling, thus preventing fluid loss and related causes of formation
damage.

In underbalanced drilling, the concept of primary well control (containing the

formation fluids by means of hydrostatic columns greater than the formation
pressure) is replaced by the concept of flow control.

There are many advantages

Introduction

By lowering the hydrostatic head you will prevent

The UBD
the build up of wall cake (filter cake) thus
pressure
eliminating the invasion of drilling fluid and drilling
condition
solids that are normally forced into the formation
allows the
this will help to improve the productivity of the
reservoir
reservoir while at the same time help to reduce
fluids to
drilling problems such as stuck pipe
enter the
wellbore
Underbalanced Drilling Concepts

In flow control the bottomhole Formation pore pressure

pressure (BHP) and influx of
formation fluids must be controlled.

UBD pressure window

Therefore, in UBD operations the Wellbore stability or flow rate and

BHP must be maintained between two Bottomhole Pressure pressure capacity of the surface
pressure boundaries, which delimit equipment
the underbalanced drilling pressure
window. Reservoir influx
Enhanced recovery

Enhanced recovery
Due to the increased productivity of an
underbalanced drilled well combined with the
ability to drill infill wells in depleted fields, the
recovery of bypassed hydrocarbons is possible.

This can extend life of a field significantly. The

better productivity of the wells also leads to a
lower drawdown on the well, which can in turn
reduce water coning.
Closed in system
To Flare
The surface equipment and
separation system has to be Separator
Oil Storage
tailored to the expected
reservoir fluids. A
separator for a dry gas
field is different from a Nitrogen Units Choke & sample
separator required for a catcher
heavy oil field.

Therefore separation RBOP

system must be designed to
handle the expected influx BOP
Kill Line
and it must be able to
separated the drilling fluid Mud return line
from the return well flow
so that this can be re-
pumped Active pit Mixing Pit Sand traps

High Pressure Rig Pumps Mud tanks and mixing system

Pumps
Rotating Diverter (Rotating Blowout Preventer 2000 psi)

Upper-tapered
roller bearings
Canadian drilling contractor
Quik Change have long been recognised
packer assembly as a world leader of
Backed by
underbalanced drilling.
Inner packer
Here we see their latest
Outer packer contribution to safe drilling
Lower-tapered the rotating diverter. That
roller bearings now allows the rig to use
the topdrive and other rig
Annular pressure equipment
control and
diversion

Courtesy NORTHLAND ENERGY RBOP® the 2,000-psi rate RBOP

Casing Drilling
 Drilling Solution
• Casing Drilling

– Reduce losses
– Reduce risk
– Improved wellbore stability
– Equal or improved rate of
penetration
– Lower drilling costs
– Utilize a retrievable casing drilling
system
Required Casing Drilling Equipment

Split Blocks

Wireline BOP

Hydraulic top drive

Casing Drive Assembly

(Internal)
Required Casing Drilling Equipment

Wireline Winch

Split Crown Blocks

Wireline Sheave
 Purpose Built Casing Drilling Rig

• 3 Purpose built land rigs in operation

Additional equipment

– Automated single joint elevators

– Automated slips
– Automated catwalk
– Self release protectors

Automated Catwalk