Total-System Approach Through Wired-Drillpipe Technology
Authors: Denney Dennis 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 112742, "A Step Change in Total-System Approach Through Wired-Drillpipe Technology," by Vebjorn Nygaard, SPE, Mohammad Jahangir, SPE, Trond Gravem, SPE, and Eugene Nathan, SPE, Inteq; John Evans, SPE, Hughes Christensen; Mike Reeves, SPE, IntelliServ; and Henrik Wolter, SPE, and Sigve Hovda, SPE, StatoilHydro, prepared for the 2008 IADC/SPE Drilling Conference, Orlando, Florida, 4–6 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Increased oil and gas recovery requires drilling complex extended-reach wells with optimized reservoir exposure for improved production and minimum overall production costs. Introduction of wired-drillpipe technology has facilitated a step change in two-way data communication, resulting in high-speed data transmission providing greater volume, resolution, and quality of formation-evaluation data and drilling-dynamics data. Direct control of rotary-steerable tools has been enhanced to allow instantaneous programming changes and better use of dynamics data to enhance the decision-making process to address drilling-abnormality challenges, hole quality, gross rate of penetration, and bottomhole-assembly (BHA) reliability. The high-band-width technology was used while drilling two laterals in the Troll field in the Norwegian North Sea in 2007.

Introduction

The broadband network used in this telemetry drillstring enables an ultra-high-speed alternative to mud-pulse- and electromagnetic-telemetry methods. The network uses individually modified drilling tubulars to provide bidirectional, real-time, drillstring telemetry at speeds up to 57,000 bit/sec. This bandwidth, compared with existing technology, makes it possible to obtain large volumes of data from downhole tools (and other measurement nodes along the drillstring) instantaneously, expanding the quantity and quality of information available while drilling.

The network uses a high-strength coaxial cable and low-loss inductive coils embedded in double-shouldered connections in each tubular joint to convey information. Currently available telemetry tubulars include various sizes of Range-2 and -3 drillpipe, heavyweight drillpipe, drill collars, and many BHA components.

The network's bidirectional architecture allows simultaneous high-speed transmission of downhole data to the surface and commands from the surface to downhole devices, such as rotary-steerable systems (RSSs). Inserting a physical and electrical interface to the telemetry drillstring (an interface subassembly) makes existing measurement-while-drilling (MWD), logging-while-drilling (LWD) RSS tools fully compatible with the network, allowing high-bandwidth communication between all connected tools and a surface acquisition/control system.

During 2006, the operator selected the West Venture rig, a semisubmersible drilling unit operating in the Troll field, for their first use of this drillstring-telemetry technology. The selected project offered significant drilling challenges and presented an opportunity to use multiple MWD, LWD, and RSS tools in combination with the network. Drilling activity with these technologies began in 2007.