Technological Development as a Way for Operational Cost and HSE Optimisation
Authors: Ferrari G. , Calderoni A. , Cecconi F. , Maglione R. 
Published: December 2007

The long standing period of oil price decrease and the monetary and financial crisis hitting the Far East has led, in the last year, to a drastic worsening of the economic results of many Oil Companies. In order to face the frequent change of the oil price fluctuations most Oil Companies have chosen a cost effective policy.

However this attitude, affected and forced by the economic crisis as above reminded, should not be simply limited to an indiscriminate cost cutting, on the other hand very easy to pursue, because even if a reduction of overall costs is reached, an increase of the cost of the well construction phase and a worsening of the HSE conditions could arise behind the corner.

The technology development is one of the key factors in the cost reduction policy and in the HSE improvement. From the analyses and studies, carried out in house, emerged that the introduction of new technologies can lead to an increase of the NPV of a project, together with an improvement of the HSE aspects. Such results can be obtained only with a multidisciplinary and integrated approach among all the DSC and Management Units.

This paper reports the results of the analyses and studies recently carried out in the Drilling & Completion Dpt, which were aimed to check and verify the matching and the congruence between the most common presently used operational procedures and the targets, indicated in the "Environmental Program" of the ENI/Agip Division.

Our drilling and workover activities are generally carried out with procedures and technologies reflecting the basic rules listed here below, that is:

♦ health and environment safeguard; ♦ respect for local, national and international laws; ♦ minimization of effluents and wastes production, privileging their recovery, etc. 1

This analysis has not been confined only to the examination of the existing waste disposal technologies, but also has tried to adopt an integrated approach, considering the upstream process in its completeness.

In particular, some recently developed drilling technologies, which could have a high potential on the limitation of the environmental impact, have been taken into consideration and thoroughly evaluated. The most important ones are the following:

♦ the Straight-hole Drilling Device (SDD) and Lean Profile, G-125 Drilling Rig and Cheap Drilling (wells with reduced profile) technologies, which, although not specifically designed for the reduction of the environmental impact, all the same strongly contribute to this purpose because of their very high performances; ♦ the Close Loop System (Val d'Agri experiences); ♦ a more generalized use of Low Toxic Oil Base Muds (i.e.Lamium base oil).

This analysis has shown the fundamental importance of the time factor in improving the whole HSE process. ln fact, it has been recognised that the impact on the environment of a certain activity is directly proportional to its duration. A further consideration, that emerged from these studies, is that the use of oil base muds instead of water based muds is still to be preferred in particular circumstances. In fact, though the use of oil base muds (to-day their potential impact on the environment is significantly reduced because of the introduction of the low toxicity Lamium base oil in place of the usual diesel oil) is generally considered to pose greater environmental risks with respect to water base muds, however the reduction of both the waste volumes produced and the operational times makes this system preferable, at least in certain situations.