Technology Focus: Wellbore Tubulars (June 2016)
Authors: York Pat 
Published: January 2017

Technology Focus

Today’s economic situation within our industry has been harsh, harder than any downturn I have witnessed during my 44 years in the industry. However, it has provided the environment to influence positively the forging, application, field trialing, and acceptance of innovative technologies within our industry. Recent oil-industry technical publications are filled with a wide variety of applications of models, tools, and techniques being developed and applied to the drilling, completion, intervention, and even wellbore-abandonment arenas, allowing us to be more efficient by driving costly nonproductive time out of our operations.

While the development of innovative technologies is critical, their correct and cost-effective application is even more important. No matter how good, technically impressive, or even innovative a technology is, if its application is not operationally practical as well as cost-efficient, then in the end it is just a cute widget.

The papers within this Wellbore Tubulars section focus on delivering efficiencies to us, converting nonproductive time into new dollars for the bottom line.

These papers span the application of

A 1000-m steerable drilling liner directionally drilled in through an unstable shale in the åsgard/ Midgard field in the Norwegian North Sea after multiple attempts to drill and case this same hole section failed.

A subsea completion string that would provide efficient hydraulics during fracturing operations while ensuring mechanical and pressure integrity. This high-pressure/high-temperature system was developed to be the answer to extreme completion challenges within multiple deepwater Gulf of Mexico projects within the Jack and St. Malo field reservoirs.

A drilling software that delivers operational surveillance in real time, assisting in the avoidance of stuck pipe and with application within a variety of drilling environments. The proposed software was tested with historical data sets from 36 stuck-pipe incidents in the Eagle Ford, Utica, Permian, and Gulf of Mexico. The paper contains discussion of case histories in several shale horizontal unconventional wells.

The extended-reading references selected further explore various applications and evaluation techniques spanning tubular-application areas from completion intervention to casing remediation to drilling-challenge mitigation. These include case-history references to assist readers in expanding the applications knowledge within their wellbore-tubulars toolbox.

We all strive to deliver quality well construction, production, intervention, and abandonment to our industry. During the evaluation of the writings to be included within these few short pages encapsulating the extensive base of information published that surrounds the application of wellbore tubulars, I was struck by the quality and diversity of information available. Therefore, the reader is encouraged to search further within the industry’s technical-paper and article archives in the OnePetro online library (www. onepetro.org) to explore additional aspects of wellbore tubulars and the tools and techniques that are currently available to responsibly apply and critique their applicability. JPT

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

SPE 175878 Steerable Drilling Liner Matches the Industry’s Common Theme Regarding Cost-Optimization Approaches and Minimizing Geomechanics-Related Challenges—Technology Overview, Applications, and Limitations by Wael El Sherbeny, Baker Hughes, et al.

SPE 168271 Tubing-Retrievable Surface- Controlled Subsurface-Safety-Valve Floating-Flapper Remediation by B. Gary, Halliburton, et al.

SPE/IADC 178780 Solid-Expandable Solution To Qualify Existing Nonsour- Service Production Casing by Jesus D. Contreras, ConocoPhillips, et al.