bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Overview: Wellbore Tubulars (May 2005)
Authors: Mabile Claude
Published: February 2015

More and more is asked of the tubulars used downhole, such as for drilling deeply buried reservoirs or for producing acidic oil or gas. Therefore, improvement must be continuous in the steel and the connections. Breakthrough technologies, such as expandable casing and the intelligent drillstring, also are necessary to enable producing from new reserves.

Tubing strings are exposed to corrosive fluids during completion and production. Tubing strings also are subjected to different kinds of stress induced by their own weight and also by pressure and temperature. Even chromium steels can corrode in these conditions. It is, therefore, necessary to have a good understanding of how corrosion-induced cracks can be generated and grow so that we are able to predict the service life of tubing strings.

Expandable casing is used more and more. In most cases, cement must be set in the annulus between the expandable casing and the formation. The cement slurry must have very particular characteristics because it must remain in a liquid state for a longer time than usual, yet it must provide a perfect seal in a narrower annulus.

The technology of transmitting data while drilling has made little progress since the 1970s when the mud-pulse system was invented. Different solutions were developed in efforts to increase the data rate drastically, but none came to the market. Recently, a new solution having nearly the same data-rate transmission as that of an electric cable, but avoiding the weak-ness of electric connectors, was developed, and field trials have been run. This type of “intelligent” drillpipe should enhance logging-while-drilling performances and could enable new techniques such as seismic while drilling.

Additional Wellbore Tubulars Technical Papers

Available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 90151 The Heat-Transfer Characteristics of Vacuum-Insulated Tubing

SPE 90904 A New OCTG Strength Equation for Collapse Under Combined Loads
Development Status of a Metal Progressing Cavity Pump for Heavy-Oil and Hot-Production Wells
Authors: Denney Dennis
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 97796, "Development Status of a Metal Progressing Cavity Pump for Heavy-Oil and Hot-Production Wells," by J.-L. Beauquin and C. Boireau, Total E&P, and L. Lemay and L. Seince, PCM Pompes, prepared for the 2005 SPE International Thermal Operations and Heavy Oil Symposium, Calgary, 1–3 November.

Progressing cavity pumps (PCPs) often are used for cold heavy-oil production because of their adaptability to viscous and abrasive fluids. However, for thermal recovery, a standard PCP is not adaptable because the elastomer of the stator, the heart of the pump, cannot withstand fluid temperatures higher than 160°C. An all-metal pump, avoiding the elastomer weakness, has been developed. Validation tests began in early 2005 using extra heavy crude with temperatures up to 200°C, pressure up to 75 bar, and flow rates up to 260 m3/d at 350 rpm. The flow-rate range will be as high as 1000 m3/d.

Introduction

Most oil fields require some type of artificial lift at some point in time. When sufficient gas is available, gas lift may be a viable lift method because it involves relatively low-cost well interventions and tolerates numerous flow constraints, such as high gas content, gas slugging, sand production, and high temperature.

When a gas lift system is inadequate, too expensive, or not possible, the artificial-lift needs challenge downhole pump capabilities and features. Some wells are able to use hydrodynamic pumps such as centrifugal, helicoaxial, or hydraulic-jet pumps because of the very high volume to be lifted. However, these pumping technologies are expensive. Most pumped wells are equipped with positive-displacement pumps, which can be adapted to changing conditions of pumped fluid.

Beam- and rod-driven plunger pumps can be adapted to handle many types of fluids because they are simple, robust, and well understood. However, in heavy oil, rod failure is the most common limitation, which leads to limiting the well production, which, in turn, worsens the risk of sand settling in the pump. Also, slow closure of traveling and standing valves is a cause of poor efficiency in viscous mixtures.

Pumping in horizontal or highly deviated wells also limits the plunger downstroke because it is powered by the driving part of the rod-string weight. Thermal production methods generate fluctuating inflow properties that change rod-failure causes and reduce the run life of the system.

During the 1980s, rotating-rod-driven PCPs were developed for oilfield applications. PCPs are used for viscous oil, horizontal wells, and sandy production. Rod-driven PCPs are used for cold pro-duction of heavy oil and often are used in conventional mature fields as a cheaper lift method than beam pumps. The standard PCP stator is made of elastomer, which is the source of most of the pump's limitations including fluid temperature and gas and aromatics content.
Overview: Wellbore Tubulars (May 2006)
Authors: Baker David A.
Published: February 2015

Last year, this section opened with a statement that tubulars were being asked to do more and more. This was ever apparent at last year's SPE High-Pressure/High-Temperature (HP/HT) Sour-Well-Design Advanced Technology Workshop in that tubulars are being used in deeper, hotter, and more-challenging environments. In fact, we are trying to do more and more with less and less: drilling with casing, using thinner-walled tubulars downhole, and using less weight offshore.

As a relatively new engineer in this industry, I am still exploring and still asking questions. What fatigue life can we get out of the threaded connection? What materials really are required for the HP/HT application? We need to ask the questions not only for product development, but also for product implementation.

Understanding the fundamentals is an important aspect of all our endeavors, especially if we are trying to achieve "more with less." There is an appropriate systematic process to evaluate the appropriate use of tubular technology for each application. This process requires not only taking advantage of the modeling and experimental tools available to us, but also an understanding of the mechanics of the application. For example: Are the proper equations or models being used to describe the anticipated behavior?

The papers presented on the following pages and in the additional reading take a step back to help us understand and explore these fundamentals. Materials selection is a key aspect in the tubular-design process, especially in a sour or otherwise challenging environment, and it often requires a balance between longevity and economics. Fatigue arises in nearly every well, from drillstem vibrations to thermal-cycle loading. These two situations also represent different regimes of fatigue behavior: high-cycle (low-stress amplitude) and low-cycle (high-stress amplitude). Other loading scenarios, such as wear, collapse, burst, and buckling, are examined in detail in the additional reading.

Wellbore Tubulars additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 94300 "Contact-Pressure Threshold: An Important New Aspect of Casing Wear," by R.W. Hall Jr., SPE, Mohr Engineering, et al.

SPE 94304 "Casing Burst Strength After Casing Wear," by J. Wu, ChevronTexaco, et al.

SPE 96131 "Tubing Buckling—The Rest of the Story," by R.F. Mitchell, SPE, Halliburton Digital & Consulting Services

SPE 95691 "Collapse Resistance of Tubular Strings Under Geotectonic Load," by N. Morita, SPE, Waseda U., et al.
Building Bridges: My Journey Continues… SPE Board Meeting Update
Authors: Cobb Bill
Published: February 2015

President's column

The SPE Board of Directors meets four times a year. Our most recent meeting was at the end of March in Bangkok, Thailand. The board does its work through five board committees—Finance and Administration (comprising the SPE officers and chairs of the other board committees), Print and Electronic Media, Technical Programs and Meetings, Education and Professional Activities, and Membership. Here are some highlights of the March meeting.

Finance and AdministrationWe reviewed the expected budget outcome for Fiscal Year 08, ending 31 March. I'm delighted to report that our income from operations was forecast to be roughly USD 4 million, with meetings contributing the lion's share.We established an Investment Advisory Committee to offer advice on management of SPE's investment portfolios and the Society's investment policies. Committee members are Behrooz Fattahi, SPE Vice President of Finance; Bruce Bernard, 2001 SPE President, SPE Foundation Treasurer; Ian Phillips, SPE Europe Board member; Janet Handley, Investment Director, Texas A&M Foundation; and David Meade, General Manager Pension Investments, Shell Oil Company.

Print and Electronic MediaThe board committee approved the prototype for a multi-language "wiki-type" glossary of oilfield terminology, to be introduced on SPE.org in June. During meetings with members in China, Russia, and Latin America in the last few years, members told us that oilfield terminology is not always easily translatable from English into other languages. The online glossary will allow members to contribute terms and definitions in English and, initially, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The SPE staff presented a high-level assessment of future enhancements for SPE.org. The report addressed the evolution of SPE's website in three areas:Content collection—expanding and disseminating content on a broader scale;Technology—using information technology to connect the parts and make content consumption easier; andInteraction—ways to serve our members, volunteers, and customers through innovative Internet services. The board committee will in coming meetings look at specific initiatives in these areas.

Technical Programs and MeetingsThe board committee discussed a Strategic Meetings Initiative proposal, designed to look at the relationship of SPE meetings and member needs. This initiative is meant to evaluate each of SPE's technical meetings as it relates to SPE's mission of value to members, exhibitors, sponsors, and the industry, as well as both strategic and financial value to SPE.The board committee discussed implementation of procedures to reduce the number of authors who do not show up to present a paper that has been accepted for meeting presentation. Presenting authors will now be required to give written notice no less than 45 days prior to the first day of the meeting to avoid censure.
Technology Focus: Intelligent Fields Technology (May 2008)
Authors: Borgman Russell
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus

To be quite honest, I am not sure exactly what an "intelligent field" is. Reading through recent literature, I was impressed with the breadth of the intelligent-field topics—topics such as intelligent-well systems, wireless technology, robotics, barriers to implementation, and organizational effects were covered. I struggled to find a common thread that defines the intelligent field. As the deadline for this issue approached, I turned to Webster's Dictionary for help. Webster defines intelligence in terms of the capabilities to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, use language, and learn. Now I was on to something (I thought). Until recently, we would have said these capabilities are all very human, but as technology advances, machines, and now even oil fields, appear to be developing these capabilities. Does this mean as our oil fields are becoming more intelligent, they are becoming more human?

Next, I looked for a common thread in the value proposition cited for the intelligent field. The goals of the intelligent field usually are cited as increasing production, reducing capital and operating expenditures, improving total hydrocarbon recovery, and improving safety and environmental performance, but these are the same goals we have had in the upstream oil and gas industry for many years.

I returned to the recent literature and extracted what I believe to be the technical capabilities that are required of an intelligent field—continuous monitoring of surface and subsurface operating conditions, assimilation and analysis of huge amounts of complex data from diverse sources, automated recommendation of corrective and proactive actions, and optimization of the total asset over its life cycle. However, these technical capabilities cannot be exploited without the advancement and evolution of work processes and the capabilities of our people.

As you read through the literature, remember that the promises of the intelligent field cannot be delivered through technology alone. As technologies advance, we must commit to the advancement of our processes and to the development of our people. Only through a holistic approach to technology, process, and people can we realize the goals of the intelligent field.

Intelligent Fields Technology additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 110296 • "Production Optimization by Real-Time Modeling and Alarming: The Sendji Field Case" by Jacques Danquigny, SPE, Total, et al.

SPE 110525 • "Optimizing the Production System Using Real-Time Measurements: A Piece of the Digital-Oilfield Puzzle" by Robert B. Thompson, Aethon, et al.

SPE 112152 • "A Standard Solution for Upstream Oil and Gas Surveillance" by Mark L. Crawford, SPE, ExxonMobil, et al.
Your SPE: Board Actions Guide SPE Programs
Authors: Roodhart Leo
Published: February 2015

President's column

The SPE Board meets four times a year. Our most recent meeting was late February in Doha. The Board and Board Committee meetings span 3 days and cover a lot of business. Here are some highlights from that meeting.

Fiscal Year 2010 Budget. We spent a lot of time discussing the budget proposed for FY 2010, which runs 1 April 2009 through 31 March 2010. SPE is budgeting a positive result of USD 127,000. This will be a challenging financial year for SPE, just as for others in this economic downturn. While we intend to keep the quality of our programs high and to continue to provide the services our members need, we will be very attentive to our operating costs.

Industry Advisory Council.

The Industry Advisory Council, formed in 2007 to help ensure that SPE's programs are aligned with industry needs, met with SPE officers in June 2008 and January 2009. Those dialogs identified five primary areas of key concern: globalization; industry image and attracting young people; education and talent development; cooperation on cross-industry issues like reserves and carbon sequestration; and keeping the quality of SPE programs and services high. At the Doha meeting, SPE's five Board Committees—Education and Professional Activities, Finance and Administration, Membership, Print and Electronic Media, and Technical Programs and Meetings—began discussion of current programs and possible new initiatives related to those areas. We will report back to the Council after these considerations are complete.

Council members are Mark Albers, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corporation; Malcolm Brinded, Executive Director Exploration & Production, Shell; Chad Deaton, Chairman, President, and CEO, Baker Hughes; Yves-Louis Darricarrere, President Exploration & Production, Total; Guilherme Estrella, Director Exploration & Production, Petrobras; G. Steven Farris, Chairman and CEO, Apache; Andrew Gould, Chairman and CEO, Schlumberger; Stephen Hadden, Senior Vice President Exploration & Production, Devon Energy; Andy Inglis, Chief Executive Exploration & Production, BP; Datuk Abdullah Karim, Managing Director/CEO, Petronas Carigali; George Kirkland, Executive Vice President Global Upstream and Gas, Chevron; Amin Nasser, Senior Vice President Exploration & Producing, Saudi Aramco; Farouk Al Zanki, Chairman and Managing Director, Kuwait National Petroleum Company; and Zhou Jiping, Senior Vice President, China National Petroleum Company.

SPE Financial Plan.

We approved a new section, Funding and Financial Robustness, for the SPE Strategic Plan. Our fiscal vision is that "SPE will continue to be financially strong, and will use its financial strength to grow its programs for the benefit of members and the industry, as well as to support SPE's vision of becoming a truly global organization." The Strategic Plan is posted on www.spe.org; you can get to it from the About SPE tab at the top of the home page.
Increasing Sakhalin Extended-Reach-Drilling and -Completion Capabilities
Authors: Denney Dennis
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 119373, "Increasing Sakhalin Extended-Reach-Drilling and -Completion Capabilities," by Michael W. Walker, SPE, Andrew J. Veselka, and Shane A. Harris, SPE, ExxonMobil, prepared for the 2009 SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, 17-19 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Extended-reach-drilling and completion capabilities at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin Island, Russia, have evolved in well-design and operational practices to increase well reach to more than 10.5 km. Disciplined redesign has been based on learnings acquired through-out the program. Learnings and design changes were applied to Well Z-12.

Introduction

The Chayvo field is on the northwest coast of Sakhalin Island, where operations must contend with harsh arctic winters and limited infrastructure. The field is a gas-filled anticline having an oil rim that is the current development-program target. The field is developed with horizontal completions from the Yastreb land location and from the Orlan offshore concrete-island drilling and production platform. Production from both wellsites is delivered to an onshore production facility, with oil subsequently delivered to tankers in protected waters off the Russian mainland. Most of the produced gas is reinjected to assist reservoir-pressure support, with lesser amounts consumed as fuel or sold.

During Chayvo development drilling, wells became increasingly complex. Longer throws have resulted in higher demands on rig equipment (especially the top drive and drillpipe) and have made successful placement of completion equipment more challenging. Twenty-one wells have been drilled and completed (17 oil producers, three gas-injection wells, and one cuttings-injection well).

Z-12 Case History

Well Z-12 has an ultimate total depth (TD) of 11 680 m measured depth (MD). Drilling operations on were completed in January 2008, and the well reached TD in 68 days. The well, on the north end of the Chayvo field, was designed to encounter potential productive sands on both the western and eastern flanks of the field. Previously drilled Well Z-11 had similar objectives but encountered significant difficulties with hole instability and placement of the production liner.

After analyzing learnings from Well Z-11, several areas were determined as critical to the success of Well Z-12.

Wellbore stability balanced against equivalent-circulating-density management in the 8-in. hole.

Successful placement of the completion liner in the 8 1/2-in. hole and the use of a designer running string.

Torque management facilitated by a smooth wellbore trajectory and use of lubricants.

Optimized rate of penetration (ROP) and improved bottomhole-assembly (BHA) life through application of the operator's drilling-performance-management system.
Technology Focus: Wellbore Tubulars (May 2009)
Authors: Miska Stefan Z.
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus

The subject of wellbore tubulars evolves continuously. The drilling of deeper and longer wells in more-inhospitable places, both geological and environmental, demands essential improvements of tubulars. Drilling, completion, and production of extended-reach, high-angle, short-radius, and multilateral wells require better modeling and design techniques.

Over the last few years, many improvements have been achieved in modeling and design of 3D wells that find more applications in both offshore and onshore operations. Essential progress has been made in understanding the mechanics of tubulars better—in particular, buckling and axial-force transfer along the string to the drill bit.

It also has been found that for accurate force and moment calculations, information about wellbore curvature and torsion are required. Only 2D wellbores have no torsion. For practical purposes, all wellbores are 3D in shape even if they are designed to be in a 2D plane. Good understanding of contact forces and their magnitude cannot be overestimated. High contact forces are responsible for grooves in casing, keyseats in uncased parts of wellbore, and frequent overheating of tool joints and components of the bottomhole assembly.

Creative solutions have been applied successfully to overcome many organizational, economic, and technical challenges associated with drilling modern extended-reach (in the range of 40,000 ft), multilateral, and high-pressure/high-temperature wells. Ultrahigh-torque double-shoulder drillpipe connections, corrosion-resistant pipe coatings and alloys, and a 3D-rotary closed-loop steerable system with an integrated downhole motor are just a few examples of recent technology developments. It also is very important to mention the high-speed-telemetry-drillpipe (intelligent drillpipe) network that permits real-time monitoring of downhole conditions and drilling data. However, perhaps the most important advancement is in increased precision of well placement in 3D sections of wellbores.

Taking this opportunity, I wish to encourage all readers to acquire a copy of the book Advanced Drilling and Well Technology that should be available from SPE by Fall 2009. This book covers many aspects of modern drilling including advances in mechanics of tubulars and design.

I also hope that readers interested in tubulars and related technologies will take time to review the papers highlighted here.

Wellbore Tubulars additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 119552 • "Evaluating the Expandability and Collapse Resistance of Expandable Tubulars" by J. Agata, Nippon Steel Corporation, et al.

SPE 115708 • "Titanium-Alloy Tubing for HP/HT Applications" by Manuel Gonzalez, SPE, Chevron, et al.

SPE 115221 • "First Commercial Deployment of New Third-Generation Rotary-Shouldered Connections Demonstrates Cost Savings" by J.N. Brock, SPE, Grant Prideco, et al.
Technology Focus: Casing and Cementing (May 2009)
Authors: Gonzalez Manuel
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus

The current trend in well construction technology is focused on reducing the risk associated with capital-intensive wells in deeper and/or increasingly hostile environments. With a water depth between 4,000 and 11,000 ft, total depth approaching 30,000 ft, and a total cost per well of USD 200 million to 300 million, the deepwater projects being developed around the world are a prime example. One significant design error or oversight can lead to well failure and have serious effect on a company's bottom line. With mudline temperatures as low as 34°F and production temperatures as high as 250°F, annular temperatures may increase by more than 100°F during production cycles. As the annular fluid heats up, it expands. If that fluid is in a confined section of casing/casing annulus, the annular pressure can exceed 10,000 psi. This phenomenon has led to rupture or collapse of casing strings and loss of some wells. One approach to mitigating this phenomenon is to use vacuum-insulated tubing to limit heat transfer to the trapped fluid. Another is the novel use of a new annular fluid that shrinks rather than expands as the annular temperature increases.

A greater proportion of our future energy will come from more-hostile environments as we increase the pursuit in deepwater, high-pressure/high-temperature, geothermal projects while using CO2-storage wells to reduce CO2 emissions. These wells may contain high levels of H2S, CO2, and/or chlorides and have temperatures in excess of 350°F. Proper selection of tubulars, anatomic seals, and cement will be critical to reducing total well cost and environment and commercial risk.

I asked one of Chevron's cementing experts (Robert Carpenter) for help with current cementing technology. With the growing concern about "carbon emissions" and "carbon capture," CO2 injection for geological storage is our next big area of activity. The success of this industry segment is predicated on very-long-term isolation of injected CO2. We are in the investigational stage of this rapidly growing industry segment, and the primary issue is ensuring the long-term integrity.

There is extensive debate and conflicting laboratory and field investigations into the suitability of Portland cement for a CO2-rich environment. Recent investigations indicate identifying and preventing existing cement defects as the primary concern, and the CO2 attack on Portland cement as less of an issue.

Casing and Cementing additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 115638 • "Advanced Cement Systems Used to Improve Geothermal-Well Reliability in Java" by K. Ravi, Halliburton, et al.

SPE 119504 • "The Effect of Carbonic Acid on Well Cements as Identified Through Lab and Field Studies" by A. Duguid, SPE, Schlumberger.

SPE 112624 • "Analysis of Control Lines Strapped to Tubing" by Robert F. Mitchell, Halliburton, et al.
En Route: Safety First?
Authors: Labastie Alain
Published: February 2015

President's column

Following the Macondo disaster, safety in our industry has been at the epicenter of many discussions and debates, and has been the subject of many articles in very diverse publications. I have attended a couple of related panel sessions at SPE meetings, and I have read the two very informative official reports (U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Commission). After all of that, I would like to give you my personal thoughts on the subject of safety in our industry.

That 11 offshore workers lost their lives last April is without doubt an unforgettable tragedy. However, I believe that we can still say that, overall, our industry has had a fairly good safety record, especially if compared with other extractive industries. That being said, I believe that the safety standards in our industry are not adequately rigorous. I will illustrate with two examples:

First, last November, I attended a panel session at the IADC/SPE Asia Pacific Drilling Technology Conference. One panelist, from an operating company, explained that his company, when contracting a new rig, was checking the BOPs. In 50% of the cases, the BOP was not functioning according to specifications, which to me means they were malfunctioning. There are two possible explanations: either the specifications are relevant, and it is a mistake not to ensure the BOPs comply with them, or the specifications are inadequate, and it is acceptable not to fully comply; in that case, let’s change the specifications. Neither option is very rigorous.

Second, we all know of cases on our drilling rigs when the gas detection alarms have been deactivated because they frequently malfunction with false alarms (this was the case on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon, but that did not play a role in the accident). This is clearly not a rigorous approach to safety. If these alarms are necessary, let’s make them work; if they are unnecessary, let’s remove them. Intentionally bypassing a security device does not communicate the safety standards we expect from our industry.
The Five R&D Grand Challenges Plus One
Authors: Judzis Arnis , Felder Richard , Curry David , Seller Bernard
Published: February 2015

R&D Grand Challenges - This is the first in a series of articles on the great challenges facing the oil and gas industry as outlined by the SPE R&D Committee. Subsequent articles will examine each of the challenges in depth. The R&D Grand Challenges Series, comprising articles published in JPT during 2011 and 2012, is available as a collection on OnePetro (SPE-163061-JPT).

The SPE Research and Development (R&D) Committee would like to share with SPE members the results of a recent committee effort to identify the oil and gas industry’s major R&D challenges. Defining these challenges is important because the committee’s primary goal is to encourage R&D and promote dialog between industry and research groups with the aim of matching industry needs with R&D activities. Another key committee goal is to ensure that R&D capabilities and resources are used most effectively by addressing the highest priority E&P business needs.

The R&D challenges comprise five broad upstream business needs:

Increasing recovery factors

In-situ molecular manipulation

Carbon capture and sequestration

Produced water management

Higher resolution subsurface imaging of hydrocarbons.

Increasing recovery factors refers to the need for innovative and cost-effective improved and enhanced oil recovery (IOR and EOR) and well geometry solutions for maturing reservoirs. In-situ molecular manipulation concerns the need for subsurface alteration of fluids or matrix to facilitate the production of very heavy oil, sour gas, or shale oil/gas while reducing the environmental footprint of production. Carbon capture and sequestration focuses on the need for effective methods for CO2 storage in subsurface geological structures. Produced water management refers to the challenge of safely and economically processing increasing volumes of produced water from mature reservoirs and the opportunity to serve growing needs for fresh water with this resource. Finally, higher resolution subsurface imaging of hydrocarbons concerns the need for more accurate and complete imaging of hydrocarbons during exploration, appraisal, field development, and production.

Each of the five R&D challenges will be described more completely in upcoming JPT articles and white papers. With these publications, the authors will explain the scope of the industry’s current and future technology needs and discuss examples of emerging technologies or new R&D efforts that may improve the current approaches. Our hope is that the articles will promote further interest and discussion of technology needs within the industry. The white papers will be posted on the SPE website with the goal of acquainting basic science and R&D groups from both inside and outside our industry with our technology needs. The papers should provide researchers with sufficient information to stimulate innovative thoughts and to develop new research project proposals.
Technology Focus: Well Construction (May 2011)
Authors: Carpenter Bob
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus

This year, most of the well-construction papers focused on long-term durability in high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT), tight gas/-shale, steamflood, and carbon-capture and -storage (CCS) environments, a shift toward nonconventional wells. Previously, we discussed the growing awareness of the value of measuring cement mechanical properties and modeling mechanical stresses imposed upon the cemented annulus in HP/HT, deepwater, and steamflood applications. Recognition of the technology’s value has now expanded into CCS and tight gas applications. Paper SPE 139668 discusses the many aspects and value of modeling cement-placement mechanics, cement mechanical properties, and imposed stresses. It also provides excellent tutorial insight into the complexity of modeling cement behavior in fluid and solid states.

As discussed last year, lost circulation and narrow pore-/fracture-pressure windows remain key challenges in achieving casing points and targeted cement coverage. Paper SPE 130319 details field results for drilling a liner to setting depth and cementing it with a new automated managed-pressure-drilling system while providing a nearly constant bottomhole pressure, a very promising technology.

Traditionally, casing- and tubing-design engineers have used a deterministic stress-limits approach that uses the API Bulletin 5C3 and the von Mises criterion. However, depending upon which of the different empirical equations and safety factors are used, the resulting tubular design may be significantly over- or underdesigned. Paper SPE 134550 details a new design methodology that uses a 3D finite-element model, variation in tubular dimensions, sensitivity modeling, and stochastic study to develop a better design specification. Manny Gonzalez, SPE, Alliance Manager for Chevron ETC, noted that when applying new metallurgies, such as titanium and high-end corrosion-resistant alloys, this statistical approach becomes critical because there is no single guide for use of the current API formulas.

Well Construction additional reading available at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org

SPE 142150 • “Ongoing Development of Cementing Practices and Technologies for Kuwait Oil Company’s Deep HP/HT Exploration and Gas Wells—Case History” by M.J. Al-Saeedi, SPE, Kuwait Oil Company, et al.

SPE 132541 • “Determining Production-Casing and -Tubing Size by Satisfying Completion, Stimulation, and Production Requirements for Tight-Gas-Sand Reservoirs” by Y. Wei, SPE, C&C Reservoirs, et al.

SPE 131489 • “Solid-Expandable Tubular Combined With Swellable Elastomers Facilitates Multizonal Isolation and Fracturing, With Nothing Left in the Wellbore To Drill, for Efficient Development of Tight Gas Reservoirs in Cost-Effective Way” by M. Ghufran Anjum, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, et al.
A New Automated MPD System Used in an Onshore Depleted Gas Field
Authors: Bybee Karen
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains highlights of paper SPE 130319, ’Experience and Results with a New Automated MPD System while Drilling and Cementing Liner in an Onshore Depleted Gas Field,’ by Paul Fredericks, SPE, and Ossama Sehsah, SPE, At Balance, and Julio Montilva, SPE, and Phil Vogelsberg, SPE, Shell E&P Company, originally prepared for the 2010 SPE/IADC Managed Pressure Drilling and Underbalanced Operations Conference and Exhibition, Kuala Lumpur, 24-25 February. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

An automated and modular managed-pressure-drilling (MPD) system recently was used in two wells to hold constant bottomhole pressure (BHP) in a very narrow pressure window without a backpressure pump. In the first well, the system was used to drill in 740 ft of 75/8-in. liner in an 8½-in. hole with 15.0-lbm/gal mud statically underbalanced relative to wellbore stability. 

Introduction

The McAllen and Pharr fields are in Hidalgo County in south Texas. Those fields were acquired by the opera-tor in 2006, and over the 7 decades since discovery, nearly 1.4 Tcf of gas has been produced from reservoirs in the Frio formations. Initial production was from shallow zones, many of which now are depleted by as much as 5,000 psi. The fields have an extended history of commingled production and complex patterns of difficult-to-map faults that make pore pressure and depletion difficult to predict. Isolating the severely depleted zones with liners is impractical because often they are found between overpressured virgin sands.

Compared with nearby fields in the Vicksburg formations, those in the Frio have higher permeability and require heavier mud weight to avoid influx. Another limiting factor in the McAllen/Pharr fields is the ease with which losses occur in many of the reservoir sands as a result of the lower minimum horizontal stress caused by depletion. The resulting narrow pressure profile and the inaccurate pore-pressure predictions complicated early drilling efforts with excessive lost circulation and well-control events.
The Post-Macondo World: Two Years After the Spill
Authors: Beckwith Robin
Published: February 2015

Post-Macondo world

During the 87 days that followed the 20 April 2010 explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the US Gulf of Mexico (GOM), an estimated 4.9 million bbl of oil flowed from the Macondo well. This is the fourth-largest offshore oil spill, based on official estimates, to have occurred worldwide (see sidebar on World’s Largest Oil Spills).

Response to the shock of this event continues in the human impetus not only to regain levels of economic health that prevailed before the blowout but also to put in place people, technology, and systems whose job is to ensure such a disaster is unlikely to occur again. There is also an ongoing effort by environmental scientists to gain understanding of how the spill has impacted other life forms—both plant and animal—as well as the land and ocean.

Seeking Regulatory Oversight Balance

A 6-month moratorium was placed 27 May 2010 on new deepwater drilling (500 ft or greater) in the GOM. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar lifted the moratorium less than 5 months later, on 12 October, “provided that operators certify compliance with all existing rules and requirements, including those that recently went into effect, and demonstrate the availability of adequate blowout containment resources.”

Despite oil and gas industry fears that the long-term impact of stepped-up permitting requirements would be catastrophically negative, 355 deepwater permits requiring subsea containment capabilities have been approved since mid-February 2011. These are for 102 unique wells, with 24 permits pending and 21 permits returned to the operator with requests for additional information, particularly information regarding containment. For deepwater activities not requiring subsea containment, 64 permits have been approved, with one permit pending and one permit returned to the operator with requests for additional information; such activities include water injection wells and procedures using surface blowout preventers (BOPs).

In addition, 121 new shallow-water well permits have been issued since the implementation of new safety and environmental standards on 8 June 2010. Seven of these permits are pending, with seven having been returned to the operator for more information.

During a conference call 16 February to discuss fourth-quarter earnings, Schlumberger Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Paal Kibsgaard told analysts that the rig count in the GOM could return to pre-Macondo levels by the end of 2012. “We are quite optimistic in terms of the outlook for the Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “We see steady growth in deepwater drilling rig counts during 2012, roughly about a rig a month. So we would be at pre-Macondo levels for drilling rigs in the deepwater by the latter part of 2012.”
Bridging the Generation Gap
Authors: Sprunt Eve , Howes Susan , Capello Maria Angela
Published: February 2015

Talent & Technology

A recent SPE Talent Council survey of SPE members under the age of 45 unveiled an important generation gap. Most SPE members under the age of 45 are part of a dual career couple and most of them believe that the careers of both partners are equally important. However, managers who rose through the ranks as part of a couple with a single dominant breadwinner consider the concept of equally important careers to be unrealistic. We believe that management needs a better understanding of how the evolution of domestic relationships has changed the constraints and motivations of the workforce.

More women worldwide are working for compensation that has reached greater parity with compensation for men in the past few decades. Many women now contribute as much or more income to the household than their partner does. Of the SPE members in the survey, 76% consider themselves to be part of a dual career couple, with 53% of the women, and 35% of the men in a relationship in which each partner contributes between 40% and 60% of the household income.

Employers use a human resources career development model that is based on the outdated assumption that there is a single breadwinner. As part of their career management process, they ask employees who are known to be part of a dual career couple, “Whose career is more important?”

In a separate December 2011 Talent Council survey on corporate policies for the management of dual career couples, we received the following responses from managers as to why they asked this question:

“This is an appropriate question so that we know the couple’s desire.”

“Always, one career has to lead and the other follows.”

“It is a must for one of them to accept being the second one or relegated employee.”

The responses indicate that many managers do not believe that both careers of a dual career couple are equal-ly important.
Training and Development: A Key Battleground for Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
Authors: Shoultz Don
Published: February 2015

Talent & Technology

Global energy growth over the next 20 years is expected to be dominated by emerging economies, with primary energy use growing by nearly 40%. As a result, the exploration and production (E&P) industry will be tasked with accessing hydrocarbons in new, more challenging frontiers. This challenge will require increased skills, capabilities, and technologies across the world, and meeting it starts with a disciplined, methodical, and long-term learning and development plan.

Along with steadily increasing global energy demand and fierce competition for talent among oil and gas industry sector employers, there are three additional factors driving the demand for progressive learning and development programs:

The aging workforce and corresponding skills gap. Experienced professionals are retiring and being replaced by younger, less experienced hires.

The complexity of the resource plays being explored and the vast, rapidly changing portfolio of technology required to enable production.

Forging long-term partnerships with national oil companies (NOCs) in disparate global regions necessitates a new orientation to how the oil and gas industry engages and develops employees.

Bridging the Talent Gap

There is a sense of urgency across the energy industry—one that stems from the need to attract, retain, train, and develop top talent that will see us through the challenges to come. A recent BP-sponsored SPE survey of more than 750 participants from 24 countries revealed an industrywide desire for training.

Three-quarters (74.6%) of the survey’s participants stated that access to training and development programs is important in their choice of position, and more than half (53.3%) said that a lack of opportunities would be enough for them to consider leaving their employer. Whether leaving a particular employer or the oil and gas industry altogether, this statistic cannot be ignored. It is imperative to position E&P as the industry of choice among scientists and engineers seeking fulfilling and challenging careers.

The SPE survey also sheds light on some noteworthy differences in preferences for the mode of training, with younger respondents expecting their employer to be the primary facilitator, providing almost all training, whereas more experienced professionals were more self-reliant in procuring training. Fortunately, the industry is taking deliberate steps to close the talent gap while aligning and accelerating all areas of development with overarching business objectives.
Technology Focus: Deepwater Projects (May 2013)
Authors: Salies Jacques Braile
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus

Last year, I wrote my Technology Focus on innovation and commented on all the wonders and innovations of the Cascade and Chinook fields in the Gulf of Mexico. One year later, I had the pleasure of seeing an announcement for the semisubmersible hull destined for the Jack/St. Malo project leaving a South Korean shipyard for another in Texas. Once completed, the floating production unit (FPU) will be installed in the Jack/St. Malo field, allowing for a total production of 177,000 B/D at 2100 m of water depth. Startup is planned for 2014. Even though Jack/St. Malo and Cascade and Chinook have different concepts—semisubmersibles vs. floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels—both have in common subsea development tied back to the FPU or FPSO. I strongly believe that the lessons learned from those fantastic deepwater projects will be paving the way for a lot more development of the Tertiary play in the Gulf of Mexico.

For a clever engineer, one of the great opportunities to learn is a case study of a field after many years of production with its lessons learned for future field development. The first paper I chose is a case study of the Mensa field, a deepwater gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico. Just to spark your curiosity, I will write one of the conclusions: Be flexible; phase development may be the only and best option sometimes.

Going now to the other side of the word, we have a dedicated paper for drillers, showing many lessons learned and how to be successful while drilling in deep water in a new environment. Remember, drilling and completion contribute to more than 50% of the cost of any development today.

To recover all the money invested in a deepwater project, the wells must produce at their maximum possible rates, maximizing and accelerating recoveries. How can one achieve this? Some of the techniques are found in one of the recommended papers, about stimulation in the wells of the Gulf of Mexico.

Subsea development and flow assurance are inseparable. To be successful in a deepwater subsea environment requires strong flow-assurance planning and execution. This can be seen in the “Subsea Who Dat Project” paper.

For the drillers again, do not miss the additional reading on dual-gradient drilling and managed-pressure cementing. There is no more easy oil. As a consequence, there are no more easy wells. For drilling in deeper and deeper waters, managed-pressure drilling and dual-gradient drilling may be the only solutions. Be ready, and enjoy your reading.

Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.

OTC 23430 Jubilee Project Overview by Dennis McLaughlin, Kosmos Energy (See JPT, October 2012, Page 102.)

SPE 153504 Hydrate Inhibition—Optimization in Deepwater Field by Gaurav Gupta, Reliance Industries, et al.

SPE/IADC 164561 Successful Application of Deepwater Dual-Gradient Drilling by Robert Ziegler, Petronas, et al.

SPE/IADC 163426 Innovative Managed-Pressure-Cementing Operations in Deepwater and Deep Well Conditions by Youssef Elmarsafawi, Schlumberger, et al.