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10308-MS-P-Underbalanced Coiled Tubing Drilling Practices in
10308-MS-P-Underbalanced Coiled Tubing Drilling Practices in
occurrence of soft formations in the field has meant that a lot stripper failure or leaking deployment rams. The BOP design
of WOB isn’t normally required to drill. Consequently, only a has been a success in that all of the common contingency
small percentage of the laterals are limited in length by situations that can occur during a CTD job have occurred and
running out of WOB to drill. Owing to the trajectories, the have been handled safely using a strict two-barrier approach at
depths of the kickoff points, and the low bottomhole pressure; all times.
the laterals are almost always limited by one of two reasons: The fluid and nitrogen pumps used on the project are
either the pickup weights at total depth (TD) become standard well-servicing pumps. Because the pump rate while
uncomfortably close to the coil working limit, or the length of drilling is much lower than during a standard well service, two
the lateral generates such an excessive amount of friction of these pumps have been modified with smaller plungers to
pressure while drilling that the degree of overbalance at the bit operate at very low rates, as low as 6 gal/min while drilling.
can no longer be tolerated. The fluid pumps also have a flowback line to the mixing tank
The coiled tubing drilling (CTD) tower used to support the with a choke to allow pumping at any rate and still remain
injector head while drilling is a four-piece modular tower that within their operating parameters.
was custom built locally for use in the Sajaa field. The tower The standard coiled tubing operations cab was also
provides support only for the injector; the string weight is modified before the project started to increase its size, which
supported by the wellhead and blowout preventer (BOP) while allowed the CT driller, directional driller, underbalanced
drilling. It was designed with close cooperation between the drilling engineer, and coiled tubing engineer to work in the
BHA provider and the coiled tubing provider to meet the same space comfortably.
spacing requirements of pressure deploying the BHA. The All of the important valves on location on both the
various work decks were positioned to provide easy access to injection and return side, more than 90, are identified with
the BOP deployment rams. It was also designed to withstand steel nameplates and tracked in the CT operations cab on a
maximum anticipated wind loading during sandstorms, yet large valve-layout schematic. When valves are operated there
lightweight for ease of rig-up. is a call either to or from the CT operations cab; also at the
beginning of every tour (twice daily), each service company
completes a status sheet for their valves and passes it to the
control cab to update the board.
This valve board has been very valuable for both routine
and non-routine processes, keeping all the surface equipment
with varied pressure ratings running smoothly together, and
keeping high pressure and wellbore gas away from where it is
not expected or wanted.
system is robust and needs only common network cables and through the window, a round, molded cap made of composite
equipment to run. resin is now used on the bit, which guides it through the
window and then disintegrates within the first few minutes of
Downhole Equipment drilling.
The BHA is a 3-in. OD wired assembly, powered from Gauge bits are now used exclusively on this project, it was
surface. It has both upper and lower double ball valves with a found that gauge bits gave better ROPs, less vibration, and the
nonrotating connection between the two. This allows the tool slightly smaller hole size did not have much impact on
to be broken apart while maintaining double isolation from production.
both the wellbore pressure and the CT pressure. The upper
double ball valve eliminates the need to bleed off the CT each Pressure Deployments
time the tool is broken. Pressure deployment of the BHA in live well conditions is
The BHA’s data acquisition includes internal and external required because it is longer than the available height of the
pressure, external temperature, weight on bit, vibration, stick BOP stack above the swab valves. The procedure for pressure
slip, gamma, azimuth and inclination, and near-bit inclination. deployment has been changed 20 times since the start of the
Multiple propagation resistivity tools have also been utilized project, and the result has been a 62% reduction in pressure
on some of the wells. deployment and undeployment times.
Vibrations while drilling two-phase are severe; on the first Some of the key improvements made to the pressure
few wells, vibrations caused many low-hour tool failures. deployment procedure since the start of the project include:
Several things were done in order to minimize this: • Use of predrilled mouseholes. The original plan called for
• The electronic components of the BHA were spaced out assembling the BHA in three sections on the rig floor
from the motor with weight bars and flex joints as far as while deploying. Now, 100-ft mouseholes are drilled prior
reasonably possible. Moving the directional package to to the rig arriving on location, which allows the BHA to
the upper portion of the BHA caused more headaches for be made up offline and deployed as a single piece.
the directional driller, but it increased the life of the tool. • Gas testing the lubricator. The first deployments called for
• Bicenter bits are no longer used. Gauge bits provide a a hydro-test of the deployment lubricator, which was a
more balanced rotation and less wobbling of the motors. time-consuming process. Now a kill line below the swab
• Injection rates were reduced for the long wiper trips. Most valves allows the leak test to be done with reservoir gas.
of the vibration-related failures occurred while off-bottom • Bleeding off pressure during deployments. This was first
• The BHA included a vibration sensor that measured done with a ½-in. high-pressure hose run to the edge of
lateral and axial vibration, so that the effect on the BHA the location. Now it is done with a 2-in. hardline run to a
of changes in fluid and nitrogen pump rate could be seen cold-flare pit far from the wellhead. This bleeds off
in real time. deployment lubricator pressure in a few seconds
• The drilling team managed the wiper-trip strategy to compared to 5 min or longer using the high-pressure hose.
maximize on-bottom drilling time.
• Recommendations from the field were incorporated into A toolbox talk to review hazards and assign crew’s
the tool to make them more robust. responsibilities is still done prior to every undeployment and
deployment, even though more than 300 have been done over
These measures have improved BHA reliability a 2-year period. This is mainly done to guard against
considerably. Now BHA runs of several days are normal and a complacency during this operation, which is now quite routine
week or more not uncommon. but still presents risks.
The motors used are 2-7/8-in. air drill motors (ADMs) that
have given excellent performance, some lasting a week or Rig Moves
more on bottom drilling and the longest lasting more than 12 Rig moves are now done in 2.5 days, as compared to the first
days and drilling 9,763 ft. Trips due to motor failure are now well-to-well move, which took almost 9 days. Training of
rare. The rotor-stator clearance and material technology has team members and detailed planning and preparation are the
been optimized over the course of the project to extend motor biggest contributors to this improvement.
life in the harsh wellbore conditions that exist in the Sajaa In the planning stages before the rig move, a dedicated
field. A bit shank nozzle is often used to avoid over speeding move team plans the layout of equipment for the next location.
the motor when higher gas and liquid rates are needed for Surveys are used to fix equipment location, within an inch,
cleaning the well. The nozzle sizing is determined by following an established layout plan. This layout is then
anticipated bottomhole pressure and flow rates. marked with string lines on the ground to eliminate multiple
Initially all drilling was carried out with 4-1/8-in. bicenter lifts of the equipment. The move team will then prepare the
PDC bits because the larger gauge hole was perceived to be location well in advance of the rig move.
beneficial with respect to hole drag and production. In Duplicate equipment such as offices, major pipe work, and
addition, the early windows proved to be impassable with a security gate are installed and manned before the move to
conventional 3¾-in PDC bits. As the project has continued, save time. Critical-path equipment is identified and the move
there have been improvements in window milling techniques is then planned during a pre rig move meeting with
that have produced better windows which have allowed easy representatives of all the service companies, rig-site
passage of the 3¾-in gauge bits. Also, to assist in getting supervisors and the move team supervisor.
IPTC 10308 5
Every item that is lifted has a lift plan associated with it. However, it was known that some of the wells in the field
Included in this is the risk assessment for that particular lift, would not tolerate such excessive amounts of water.
certifications for slings and shackles used, and a copy of the Therefore, when it was time to drill these wells, two-phase
layout diagram that shows where that equipment goes and its window milling was again tried, with a couple of differences
orientation. A green-tag system is used with the tag signifying from the first time: there were no electronics in the BHA and a
that a piece of equipment is designated ready by the completely different mill design using PDC cutters was used.3
appropriate supervisor and the lift plan has been given to the As of this writing, two 3.8” windows have been milled
lift supervisor. Once tagged, the equipment is handed over to successfully in underbalanced conditions using two-phase
the lift supervisor for movement. This system eliminates the fluid without downhole pressure sensors.
problem with miscommunication and uncertainty whether
something is ready to be moved. Drilling and Sidetrack Initiation
Once the rig move has been initiated, manpower is tripled. The outstanding feature of drilling in the Sajaa field is the
Very strict job allocations and responsibilities are identified extremely low reservoir pressure. Underbalanced drilling has
and made. Risk assessments are all in place and discussed and been successful with bottomhole pressures equivalent to 1.2
appropriate toolbox meetings are held while the rig move is lb/gal; the average generally is 1.5 to 2.5 lb/gal. Drilling is
ongoing. done with nitrified drill water consisting of fresh water with
To ensure that the move is safe, one lift supervisor and friction reducer and a raised pH. The friction reducer is easily
assistant lift supervisor are assigned at each site. One truck biodegradable and reduces pickup weights and pump pressure.
boss at each site is also employed, and one overall supervisor All additives have been tested to satisfy stringent
is also appointed to each location. environmental requirements, so that the returned drill fluid
Immediately after the move, a lessons-learned meeting is plus cuttings can be pumped directly to a bioremediation pit
held to capture experience and action improvements. From without further processing. (The pit is later cleaned using
past lessons learned, some of the equipment has been modified bioremediation techniques.) Additives were also tested for
to become more modularised to reduce the amount of work motor stator and BHA compatibility in yard tests prior to
required to rig it up and down. being used.
In most cases the well is shut in long before rigging up to
Milling Windows allow the near-wellbore pressure to build up. On very low-
Window milling and windows, in general, have been the most pressure wells it is essential to get a long shut-in period to
challenging part of the project, and the one that has improved achieve underbalance conditions while drilling and to use the
the most. The pre-spud design called for milling the window choke to conserve what little pressure there is for as long as
underbalanced with water and nitrogen, which had never been possible while drilling.
done before. This was tried on the first well and briefly on the As the lateral is extended, additional pressure due to
second but abandoned after high attrition rates in the BHA friction is added with every foot drilled. Therefore, to maintain
inventory. The BHA used on this project is meant for underbalanced conditions it is necessary to continuously find
openhole drilling and is not able to survive for long the severe pressure in the reservoir at a faster rate than friction pressure is
vibration encountered during two-phase window milling. being added. In higher pressure reservoirs this is possible, and
Therefore, the first windows were milled single phase with Pwf (flowing bottomhole pressure while drilling) can be
water in a routine fashion and presented few difficulties. A manipulated using the choke to maintain the desired degree of
step change during this phase of the project was the use of a underbalance to satisfy hole-cleaning and hole-stability
choke sub above the motor to hold a fluid column in the CT criteria.
while milling. In this way, stalls could be detected at the Unfortunately this is seldom possible in a depleted field,
surface using pump pressure. This eliminated entirely the need Pwf will usually overtake reservoir pressure Pres at some point;
for any electronics in the BHA while milling and, as a result, it’s only a question of at what depth it will occur and if drilling
greatly improved the service life of the electronic components can continue past this depth. Figure 3 illustrates this point
in the toolstrings. with an idealized plot of Pwf, the flowing bottomhole pressure
A serious drawback to this method was the huge amount of while drilling, and reservoir pressure Pres vs. distance r from
water used, which was lost to the formation. The low BHP did the well. Although Pwf is dependent on many factors, in a
not allow any returns while window milling and, in fact, most horizontal well with constant surface flow rates and ROP, it is
of the windows and subsequent 10 ft of rathole were milled seen that Pwf increases linearly, which is the effect of adding
with the wells shut-in, always losing several thousand bbls of only friction pressure.
water to the formation in the process. This presented some
problems when it was time to start drilling the sidetrack. With
the motherbore and surrounding area saturated with water, it
was often difficult to start the well flowing again.
To mitigate this, nitrogen was bullheaded down the kill
line of the well while milling the window to energize the fluid
lost to formation or at least push it far enough down or away
from the motherbore so it wouldn’t be a problem. This
strategy was successful in allowing UBD to start in the near-
wellbore area.
6 IPTC 10308
Currently it is standard practice (if well conditions allow) to and active on-location HSE recognition by senior
perform short wiper trips every 100 to 150 ft, and to perform a management from BP and the service companies helped
single long wiper trip back to the window midway through the to promote safety.
lateral. • BP and partners were committed to the project and to
The multilateral wells are typically drilled with 3 or 4 legs getting through the early learning curve. The early phase
of approximately 3,000 ft, producing through a single window. of the project had equipment and rig-up problems that
Sidetrack initiation in the open hole is achieved by troughing resulted in 79 days spent on the first well, as compared to
the hole section with a lowside toolface or simply time drilling 20 to 30 days currently. Everyone recognized that there
off the parent leg if the dogleg severity at the sidetrack point is would be a learning curve, and that it would take a
high enough. After a bit of trial and error it was found that the positive, problem-solving approach to get through the
keys for a successful openhole sidetrack are (in order) early days, and this is what happened.
patience, dogleg severity at the sidetrack point, and formation • Continuous improvement was achieved through lessons
characteristics at the sidetrack point. Other factors affecting learned. Knowledge sharing well-to-well used a “Lessons
the success of the sidetrack such as bit type, hole size, Learned” database, which captured all learnings from
inclination at the sidetrack point, and motor bend were found each contractor. This included everything to do with
to be of secondary importance. drilling, milling windows, rig moves, and rigging up.
After finishing the previous leg and while sidetracking for Extensive knowledge sharing occurred also with other
the new one, the choke is closed as much as possible to CTD locations in the startup phase, and drew on BP and
pressure up the motherbore and the area of the sidetrack contractor CTD expertise in other areas.
junction. This uses the pressure that was hopefully uncovered • An extensive pre-spud design and review of all operations
in the last leg to help achieve underbalance conditions in the was done. More than eight months were spent planning
new one. If the motherbore and sidetrack junction is and reviewing all surface and downhole equipment and
maintained at a higher pressure, losses will be minimized if a processes. The core team of operator and service company
higher pressure zone is later drilled into. personnel was in place several months prior to the spud
The order of the sidetracks and the sidetrack initiation date to resolve equipment interfaces and establish the
points are determined by geometric and hydraulic QHSE interface between the various contractors.
considerations. It is not desirable to drill the anticipated Procedures for all processes, more than 30 normal
strongest leg first, because a weaker (lower pressure) leg operating procedures and 20 emergency procedures, were
drilled after that will have a hard time flowing against the in place with enough time to be extensively reviewed by
stronger leg; consequently, poor hole cleaning may be everyone. Despite the fact that all these procedures have
experienced while drilling the weaker leg.4 Almost all changed extensively since the pre-spud (in fact none of
sidetracks are performed with the standard 0.8-degree motor them survived unchanged), the establishment of the
bend drilling BHA that is used to drill the horizontal sections; interface and review was one of the keys to the project’s
this eliminates tripping just to start a sidetrack. success.
Due to extensive faulting in the field and an overlying • A Basis of Design exhaustively modeled the feasibility
shale zone that is prone to sticking problems, a stratigraphic and underbalanced operability of the first well and set
control leg several hundred feet below the main leg is often some limits and guidelines for candidate selection as the
drilled first. This has sometimes detected faults that extend drilling program continued.2 This document provided an
upward that would have been problematic if drilled through on accurate idea of the UBD parameters to expect when
the upper leg. drilling started.
• Turnover was minimized, keeping the learning curve
Keys to the Project Success intact. Every effort was made to keep the crews consistent
The overall success of the project is attributed to many factors, as the project progressed.
but a few key points stand out: • The BP management team have taken a positive approach
• HSE performance has been excellent. In the 2 yr that this to manage difficulties with all the equipment on location
project has been in operation there have been more than but primarily the downhole tools. Instead of demanding
900,000 man-hours worked without a “Days-Away-From- 100% functionality at all times, if a downhole sensor
Work” Case (DAFWC). Empowerment of everyone on failed, the rig drilling team was empowered to evaluate
location is mainly responsible for this. Initially, the whether drilling could continue safely and effectively or
culture of the area made it difficult for a junior team not.
member to stop or even remark on a given task. With • BHA reliability has improved considerably. Since the
encouragement and by example, this attitude was changed start of the project, recommendations from the field and
so that every member of the team did not hesitate to stop a improvements from the manufacturing facility have been
job and discuss the risks, then resume it safely. One of the incorporated into the tool. Currently, BHA runs of several
major drivers of this performance was the “HSE incentive days are normal and a week or more, not uncommon.
bonus.” The bonus could only be earned after the rig team • The project was started sooner rather than later. It was
had achieved certain HSE goals, which included numbers
recognized that pressure decline throughout the field
of safety observations, drills, and first aid cases. Making it
would put an end limit on when the project could start. If
a team goal made everyone more aware of keeping each the project had been delayed even a year or two, the
other out of harm’s way. In addition, the high visibility
8 IPTC 10308
References
1. Pruitt, R. et al.: “Sajaa Underbalance Coiled Tubing
Drilling, ‘Putting It All Together’,” paper SPE 89644
presented at the 2004 SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing
Conference and Exhibition, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.,
23–24 March.
2. Suryanarayana, P.V. et al.: “Basis of Design for
Coiled Tubing Underbalanced Through-Tubing
Drilling in the Sajaa Field,” paper SPE/IADC 87146
presented at the 2004 IADC/SPE Drilling Conference,
Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., 2–4 March.
3. McNicol, J. et al.: “First true, CT underbalanced
casing exit performed,” World Oil (March 2005) Vol.
226 No. 3
4. Rennox, J. et al.: “Problems and Solutions for the
Underbalance Coil Tubing Drilling of Multilateral
Wells in a Mature Field,” IADC paper presented at the
2004 SPE/IADC Underbalanced Technology
Conference and Exhibition, Dubai, U.A.E., 7–8
December.