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Innovating While Drilling

Expandables, deepwater MPD moving
into mainstream as drilling automation,
automated MPD come into focus

A l l D r i l l i n g • A l l C o m p l e t i o n s • A l l t h e T i m e

Regional Coverage: Tax hike takes toll on UK North Sea

sector; Europe gears up for shale gas
Cracking the Customized drilling fluids unlocking
resources play by play
Europe & North Sea development shale code
 Innovating While Drilling
No longer niche:
By Katie Mazerov, contributing editor
S
ince they came onto the scene nearly 15 years ago as the
game changers that were going to revolutionize drilling
and completions, expandables are finally coming of age.
Where they once lurked in wellbore niches trouble-shooting par-
ticles of sand, isolating undesirable zones and providing only
contingency solutions, expandable tools are going mainstream.
Continued improvements and years of testing are delivering
better solutions and greater reliability in solid expandable
technologies as well as sand screens. With today’s increasingly
complex wells, operators are recognizing the value of integrat-
ing expandable systems in well design, not only to circumvent
problems but also to realize increased production.
“Over the years, expandable technology has gradually
matured to the point that the technology is dependable to meet
business needs, such as resolving drilling trouble and being
part of a well deployment plan,” said Shaohua Zhou, petroleum
engineering consultant, Drilling Technology Team, for Saudi
Aramco. “More competition in the market has further improved
the services.”
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The company has used expandables primarily in mature
wells, for re-entry or workovers for maximum reservoir contact
wells. “Saudi Aramco is an industry leader in terms of solid
expandable technology deployment in the field, with close to 100
wells that have been installed so far, primarily with 5 ½- to 7-in.
expandable liners and/or casing repair patches,” Mr Zhou said.
“Expandables allow continuation of the drilling operation
to reach the target reservoir with acceptable hole size, which
enables us to directionally drill the remaining reservoir section
with geosteering capability,” he continued. “They also facilitate
deployment of slim-hole smart completions for production opti-
mization.”
Installed expandable systems fall into three categories, said
David Crowley, chief executive officer, Enventure Global
Technology, which provides solid expandable technologies for
upstream oil and gas operators worldwide. Planned-in systems
are designed into the well; a planned contingency approach is
when operators want expandable tools on board and experts on
call; a contingency installation occurs when there is no upfront

Expandables finally
going mainstream
planning but problems are encountered, typically in lower sec-
tions of the well, that require deployment of expandables to
address the problems and, in some cases, save the well.
“We are growing in the planned-in business,” Mr Crowley
said, “which speaks to the fact that expandables are gaining a
wider industry acceptance. With this option, we know upfront
that Enventure will be involved in engineering the well with bet-
ter insight into pressure regimes and wellbore stability issues.
The front-end knowledge sharing before we execute any work
often proves to be invaluable.”
Two-fifths of Enventure’s proprietary SET solid expand-
able systems are being deployed for exploration drilling, with
the same percentage for development drilling. The remaining
work involves well completions. “In the Gulf of Mexico, for
every exploratory well drilled, between two and six develop-
ment wells are drilled,” Mr Crowley noted. “Planning for chal-
lenging development drilling is started much further ahead.
Deep wells, below 28,000 ft, are being planned a year ahead
of time.”
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Innovating While Drilling
Drivers in the growth of planned-in expandables appear to be
basin-specific, particularly in the deep Gulf of Mexico and the
onshore re-fracturing and high-pressure markets, Mr Crowley
said. “In the first five offshore wells post-moratorium in the
GOM that were permitted and completed this year, we were
planned-in to four of them, with expandable sizes ranging from
13 3/8 in. to 7 5/8 in. The four wells were drilled by one major and
two independents; two were new wells and two were re-entries.
“In the GOM, where depths pose significant challenges, there
is enough offset data from adjacent wells to allow clients to
realize whether they are in an overpressured or loss zone,
and can expect problems with hole stability,” he continued.
The Baker Hughes GeoFORM sand management system
(above) enables activation of a shape-memory polymer to
fill the borehole, replacing the need for gravel packing or
any type of expandable metal product.
 Innovating While Drilling

This illustration shows the running sequence for Enventure’s MonoSET open-hole clad system. It was used on an older well in
the Middle East with loss zones that cost excessive drilling fluids and loss control materials. The system was set across the loss
zone and sealed it off against the formation above and below with no loss of wellbore diameter.

“They will put an expandable system in their arsenal to get to
the shoe depths required in one or more phases of the well. We
have an independent operator/client that has been consistently
drilling in the Wilcox play where the basement is ultra-deep,
sub-32,000 ft. To get a reasonable size of completion tubular
through the producing zone, they require an expandable
somewhere up the hole in order to maintain both hole size and
provide options should difficult conditions occur in the lower
well sections.”
In the re-fracturing market, expandables are sometimes
installed to address problems with completion tubular integrity.
“In some cases, the tubular is in good shape, but the operator
has produced and depleted a perforated zone and wants to re-
perforate in different areas of a horizontal section,” Mr Crowley
explained. “We will install a re-fracturing liner, sometimes as
long as 4,000 ft, inside the existing liner and expand it to get the
maximum internal diameter (ID) possible. Then, the operator
will perforate a new section of that horizontal leg.”
The expandable high-pressure repair market is occurring
in basins such as the Haynesville and Eagle Ford plays. There
have been cases where operators have installed completion sys-
tems on newly drilled wells and then encountered a lot of cyclic
loading, both pressure and temperature, during fracturing,
Mr Crowley said. “In some cases, when multistage fracturing
stresses the initial completion, the completion may break down
at a tubular connection. We will then be called in to put a high-
pressure expandable across the problem area. Five years ago,
we would not have been able to provide these solutions due to
the temperature and pressure ratings of our technology.”
Such advances in the technology, along with greater reliabil-
ity, have helped operators overcome concerns about the per-
ceived risks associated with expandable systems. “Our biggest
competitors are conventional casing and conventional mind-
sets,” Mr Crowley said, noting that eight years ago, Enventure
had a reliability rate of 80%. With more than 1,200 installations
worldwide, the company has been able to couple its depth of
experience with a culture of continuous improvement to achieve
a current reliability rate of greater than 98% and several indus-
try bests, including a record of one minor medical incident over
a 12-year period.
“We differentiate with people and technology, in that order,”
Mr Crowley said. “We have made several modifications over the
years to our expansion cone, to the metallurgy of our tubulars
and the configuration of connections. And we have put a lot of
effort on training.” More casing sizes are also available, ranging
from 16 in. to 4 ¼ in.

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The company also has modified its elastomers, the seals that
go on the outside of the tubes, to extend the temperature regime
above 325°F. “In the new-well drilling market, some of our cli-
ents are taking total depths past 35,000 ft,” Mr Crowley said.
“The deeper we go, the greater the requirement for higher pres-
sure- and temperature-rated equipment.” Enventure has devel-
oped a heavier wall on some sizes of expandable tubulars in
order to improve the collapse rating of the tubular, to withstand
the formation pressures, after the tubes have been expanded by
as much as 14%. “This is a significant step forward,” he said,
“as we are now able to deliver the conventional tubular collapse
rating to our clients.”
The newest technology, launched last year, is a single-diame-
ter open-hole clad for wells with underpressurized or loss zones
that cost clients excessive amounts of expensive drilling fluids
and loss control materials in a process that can take several
days. For an older well in the Middle East with those character-
istics, Enventure set an 8-in. MonoSET open-hole clad across
the loss zone, expanded it and sealed it off against the forma-
tion above and below the loss zone (a cement-less solution) with
no loss of wellbore diameter. The client shaved days off the well
and benefited from a lower drilling fluid bill and ultimately a
lower well cost without sacrificing hole size.
In the pipeline, there are solutions to enhance production in
mono-diameter, or monobore, wells. In this case, an operator
would drill a section of 12 ¼-in. hole, then set a 9 5/8-in. expand-
able casing and drill the next section of hole to 12 ¼ in. and
repeat the process. “We’re seeing a lot of interest from opera-
tors wanting this because they can move less dirt and will have
lower drilling fluid costs,” Mr Crowley said. “In some of the
deeper reservoirs, this will be an enabling technology that will
allow our clients to get a reasonable producing wellbore size
through the reservoir, enabling them to access oil and gas that
otherwise could be stranded.”
Also on the horizon is expandable liner drilling for complex
wells with stability issues. “Once the tubular is installed to the
required depth, it could be expanded between 10% and 20%,
resulting in much greater production than with conventional
liner drilling,” he said.
The industry is also seeing enhancements in expandable
screen technology. GeoFORM conformable sand management
system using Morphic technology, the newest addition to Baker
Hughes’ suite of expandable technologies, was launched in
March. The technology is designed primarily for open-hole sand
control in situations where no additional stimulation, or frac
packing, is needed.
“We perceive this system as a potential game changer for
the way sand control completions are conducted,” said Eddie
Bowen, product line manager, screen-equalizer technology, Sand
Control Marketing Division. “Earlier expandable sand control
solutions, such as Baker Hughes’ EXPress expandable screen
system, once considered unconventional, have now become
mainstream. With the GeoFORM sand management system, we
have taken our expandable screen portfolio to the next level.”
The GeoFORM sand management system enables activation
of a shape-memory polymer to fill the borehole, replacing the
need for gravel packing or any type of expandable metal prod-
uct, Mr Bowen explained. The shape memory material is mount-
ed on a perforated base pipe, run in the wellbore, exposed to an
activation fluid at downhole conditions and expands, filling the
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Innovating While Drilling
irregular shape of the borehole up to its manufactured diameter.
“In a full or near-gauge hole, it provides a residual stress,”
Mr Bowen said. “It is this conformance that provides optimum
filtration and inflow performance. The product is installed at a
run-in-hole diameter, and with the aid of a catalyst and bottom-
hole temperature, expands until it meets resistance of the bore-
hole without the need for a cone or outside hydraulic pressure.”
The system mitigates the risk of a collapsed hole when pump-
ing fluids as in a conventional gravel packing operation, partic-
ularly in long intervals. “Once we run it downhole, it is activated
in situ at bottomhole temperature with the aid of an activation
fluid,” Mr. Bowen said. “We’ve eliminated all the associated
health, safety and environmental risk issues that come with rig-
ging all the pumping equipment and bringing multiple personnel
on board. It eliminates the hardware, personnel and associated
costs of conventional methods as well as the rig time savings.”
The globally deployed system was designed for an open-hole
diameter of 6- to 6 1/8-in., with a temperature limitation of 145°F.
An enhanced version, for an 8 ½-in. open hole, will be marketed
soon, and a version for temperatures up to 195°F will be avail-
able later this year. The company sees a niche market in reme-
diation, where sand control was not considered in the original
completion design or an existing sand control solution has
failed. Morphic shape memory material could have applications
beyond sand control.
Among Baker Hughes’ mainstream applications is the TORXS
expandable liner hanger system that can be set conventionally,
before the cement sets. “This virtually eliminates any risk of
becoming stuck in wet cement,” said Robert Peña, project
manager, Wellbore Construction Group. “The system has broad
applications for high-load, high-pressure needs. Other applica-
tions include deviated and horizontal wells, deep and shallow
wells, straight holes, frac liners, monobore completions and
drill-down or ream-down liners.
“A lot of formations are depleted or contain lost-circulation
zones, where conventional drilling is too risky,” Mr Peña said.
“Often there is a chance of losing all circulation because any-
thing that is pumped downhole is lost to the formation, which
can cause stuck pipe, lost rig time, sidetracks and expensive
mud losses. Using drill pipe with a conventional bottomhole
assembly (BHA) and bit in these environments is inherently
risky. To minimize this risk, we actually drill the problematic
formations with the liner itself. “
Liner drilling is an old method, but in concert with the TORXS
hanger system, there is added torque capability to rotate and
bypass the area for cuttings removal. “The process is hydrauli-
cally balanced,” Mr Peña noted. “That is huge when we are
drilling down the liner because we are not limited by circulation
pressures. We won’t physically set the liner until we want to. We
drop a ball from the surface, to land on a ball seat. We then build
up hydraulic force and push the cone through the slips, expand-
ing the slips out to set the hanger. This allows the operator to
circulate at high pressures, drill a hole with the liner and clean
out the cuttings with circulation pressures at the rate needed.”
The TORXS system was used successfully in an offshore well
with complex formations that had experienced four sidetracks
and was on track to be abandoned due to continued fluid loss dur-
ing the drilling phase. Baker Hughes ran the TORXS liner hanger
with an 8 ½-in. EZCase liner drilling bit to drill 131 ft of a difficult
zone with complete lost circulation at more than 10,500 ft. The
 Innovating While Drilling

Weatherford believes that solid expandable systems have matured into a mainstream technology that operators are using
over the life of the well, whether in the early planning stages to improve the well architecture, to mitigate drilling hazards, or
later to overcome mature-field challenges.

well was drilled and cased successfully, after which the liner was
set and the annulus sealed. The customer was also able to drill
the next section with a seawater system. The operator estimated
a $7.5 million cost savings in nonproductive time and mud.
liner through the shale sections, the liner was pulled. The hole
was then conditioned further, the liner was picked back up and
run to depth, the hanger positioned in the recess shoe of the 9
5/
8-in. casing. Both the hanger and liner were expanded to the

A niche tool that is moving toward mainstream applications is
Baker Hughes’ linEXX solid expandable system that enhances
production by expanding both the hanger and liner from top
to bottom. The monobore expandable liner extension system
is enabled by a recess shoe on the previous casing string, said
Carl Stockmeyer, global senior applications advisor.
“If a drilling problem or casing design challenge occurs, we
can run the liner below the shoe, expand it and keep the same
hole size,” he said. The linEXX monobore system uses standard
bit and tubular sizes below the expanded pipe for continuity
and cost reduction in the well design. “Although the recess shoe
could be used on every well as a contingency, we are starting to
see customers include the system in their well designs, not just
as a contingency.”
The linEXX system was deployed successfully in 2010 in a
difficult onshore vertical exploratory well in Egypt. The well had
been compromised by lost circulation of 150 bbl/hr and drilling
breaks, resulting in caving, sloughing and swelling shale sec-
tions. After an unsuccessful first attempt to get the expandable
same inside diameter as the casing above.
The system was able to isolate the problematic zone with
no reduction in hole size from the previous casing. Prior to
cementing, the expanded liner was pressure-tested to 1,000 psi.
While cementing, collapsing formation packed off the casing
annulus preventing a full annular cement, therefore pressure
was applied inside the casing allowing 15 barrels of cement to
be squeezed into the hole.
Weatherford International’s proprietary expandable sand
screen (ESS) system has been used successfully for more than
10 years and in more than 650 applications globally as an alter-
native to gravel packs, particularly in long, single-zone reser-
voir sections. On the solid tubular side, the company is seeing
a shift among operators seeking solid expandable systems for
more mainstream applications.
“Solid expandable systems have matured into mainstream
technology that is currently being used over the life of the well,
whether it be in the early planning stages to improve the well
architecture, in hydraulics or to mitigate drilling hazards such

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as wellbore stability and pressure anomalies,” said Douglas
Farley, global product line manager, Solid Expandable Systems.
“This used to be a niche technology that was used when a
drilling problem was encountered. It was a last resort to avoid
downsizing the well.”
Weatherford’s MetalSkin line of products includes the
Monobore Open-Hole Liner Extension currently being used as
a contingency liner in several difficult deepwater wells in the
Eastern Hemisphere. “The value of this technology is becoming
ever more evident, not only as a contingency liner to address
wellbore stability problems and low- and high-pressure events,
but also as a conventional system to improve cementing effi-
ciency by providing more annular clearance,” Mr Farley said.
For wells with problem zones, such as lost circulation or frac-
tured carbonates, Weatherford’s MetalSkin Monobore Open-
Hole Clad system, now in field trials used below 9 5/8- to 9 7/8-in.
casing in the North Sea and Middle East, reduces the number of
expandable tubulars required to address drilling hazards and
serves as a steel mud cake. “We run the clad through previous
casing, and as we drill ahead and run into a problem in the
wellbore, we can set the clad to cover up the problem zone and
still maintain an 8 ½-in. drift,” Mr Farley said.
“As we drill farther, the operator can then run a second or
even a third clad through the previous clad to address addi-
tional problematic formations.” An 8-in. liner can be expanded
20% with a special compliant cone that creates the 8 ½-in. ID.
A 5 ½-in. liner can be expanded twice, to 28%, creating an ID
of 6 ¼ in. Weatherford is in joint development with a major oil
company for further development of the monobore clad and is
planning field trials for additional sizes in Q4 2011.
The newest application in the portfolio is a cased-tool method
for repairing 4 ½-in. casing using a solid expandable 3 ½-in.
pipe. “This system has been needed in the industry for a long
time because there are thousands of 4 ½-in. cemented produc-
tion casing strings that have problems, such as corrosion or
unwanted perforations, so remediation operations are very
limited,” Mr Farley noted. Here, the challenge is developing a
connection that will work with the thin-walled 3 ½-in. pipe. The
threaded connection cannot be any thicker than the pipe wall,
so the design will be weaker than the pipe mechanically but still
seal as much pressure as possible.
The connection piece of the equation is critical to the success
of all solid expandable systems. “It is important to remember
that with hydraulic expansion systems, the connections must
seal before, during and after expansion,” Mr Farley said. “The
pre-loads on the connections can be different at any point in the
casing string. During expansion, the loads change as the cone
passes through the connection.”
To that end, Weatherford has made perfecting connection
reliability a major focus through its Oil Country Tubular Goods
Technology Center (OCTG). “When pipe is expanded, the con-
nections in particular get worked over,” said OCTG director
Richard DeLange. “Advancements in solid expandable systems
have far outpaced connection development in terms of reliabil-
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Innovating While Drilling
ity. But Weatherford’s investment in the connection research
center is fostering the development of advanced connection
technology that has been performance verified using industry
testing standards. We’ve been able to develop much better con-
nection technology in terms of reliability during expansion.”
For example, the newest connection technology developed at
the center allows connections for 5 ½-in. monobore open-hole
clad liners to be expanded to a total of 28%, with an expanded
drift of 6.250 in. “The new expansion system and connection
design can be expanded first to 20% with a solid cone, and
expanded again with a segmented cone to a total of 28%,” Mr
DeLange said.
The center is playing a key role in developing more com-
prehensive industry testing standards for connections. “At
our testing facility, we have been able to develop connections
that we know will work at any point in these liners,” he said.
“Weatherford has the only expansion simulator in a lab environ-
ment that can expand test samples under exactly the same con-
ditions that occur downhole, from the bottom to the top of the
liner, during expansion. Without this capability, there is no other
way to make connection test samples under the same downhole
conditions without actually expanding the liner downhole and
then retrieving it.”
Solid expandable technology also is being used to overcome
mature field challenges by addressing casing integrity problems
and optimizing the completion side, Mr Farley added. Recently,
the company deployed solid expandables for a remediation proj-
ect in North America where the customer needed to repair some
old wells with corroded casing and cover unwanted perfora-
tions. “It was important to preserve hole size, and we analyzed
several techniques from a cost standpoint,” he said. “We found
that cased-hole cladding using solid expandables was 40%
cheaper than squeeze cementing and also significantly reduced
the number days, bringing the wells back on production earlier.”
In Q1 2011, Weatherford commercialized its TruForm expand-
able liner hanger product line, which complements the com-
pany’s proven conventional liner hanger systems. “Expandable
technology utilized in liner hanger and packers designs allows
the equipment to have functionality, without the traditional
external mechanisms on the equipment,” said George Givens,
global product line manager, Liner Systems. “For the right appli-
cations, this system provides potentially a stronger, more com-
pact and ultimately more reliable system.” The TruForm design
is ISO 14310 level V0 (gas) certified with 12,000 psi at 300°F
while supporting full liner weight. Achieving that performance
level with conventional liner systems has not been possible.
Additional developments continue.
SET and MonoSET are trademarks of Enventure Global Technology.
GeoFORM, Morphic, TORXS and EZCase are trademarks of Baker
Hughes. MetalSkin and TruForm are trademarks of Weatherford.
Animations demonstrating these expandable technologies can be found
online at www.DrillingContractor.org.