Process of a Horizontal Well Drilling Procedure

Terms of Reference

This report will outline the overall process of a horizontal well drilling procedure till its completion. It also highlights several challenges that are likely to be faced during this drill development process. Techniques such as circle interpolation and other necessary methods employed in each step of development are also explained in details.

Abstract

Drilling in engineering is used mainly under petroleum engineering Russell ( 2015). It is all about implementing procedures of drilling wells as efficiently with a few resources as possible. Engineers in drilling are always in charge of the process of planning and drilling of wells. They are entitled to responsibilities such as:

Specification of equipment, ratings, and grades to be used in the drilling process.

Developing contracts with vendors.

Performing audit and technical support during the process of drilling.

Designing casing strings and cementing plans, drilling fluid and drill bit programs.

The design of suitable programs.

As in the fluted drill bits, all the chips involved are subjected to removal by the available flutes. Chips may either be spiral or made of the flakes that are small in size. This is dependent on the process aspects as well as material. Such chips are elaborate indicators of the various machinability of such materials with longer chips portraying poor machinability.

Introduction

Drilling process influences the mechanical properties of the work piece by creating stress around the opening of the hole Russell (2015). As a result, the work piece may be susceptible to crack propagation around the areas of stress. As a result of such consequences, a finish operation is advised to be carried out. Additionally, the drilled holes have to be vertical to the surface of the work piece. This is to minimize the drill bit which is usually deflected from the purported middle section of the region being drilled. The greater tendency to distract is influenced by ratio (length to diameter) of the drill bit and when it is higher the tendency becomes higher as well.

Methods

The kinds of drilling techniques likely to be employed at different stages of development include:

Spot drilling

The technique is employed when drilling a bore that is intended to suffice as a guide to enable the drilling of ultimate hole. The guiding hole is always drilled half way since it is exclusively a guide to beginning the second hole.

Centre drilling

The primary purpose of drilling here is to create a hole that will pave way and portray the center of other processes to continue.

Gun drilling

Its primary objective is to drill out gun barrels. It is worth noting that its key feature is the self-centering of the bits which allows the drilling of very accurate holes. The process is done at high speeds and low feed rates.

Circle interpolating

This technique is also called the orbital drilling. It involves creating holes using machine cutters. Low thrust force employed in this method results in a more or less blur hole when drilling into metals. Another advantage is that in cases where drilling is done on composite materials, delamination is eliminated.

Deep hole drilling

Refers to the drilling of holes with depths ten times greater that the diameter of the created hole. Such should be specially equipped to maintain the strength and straightness of the hole. It can be achieved by using specialized equipment like the gun drill or the BTA drill. Secondary tools are inclusive of but not limited to pull boring, skiving, burnishing, bottle boring as well as trepanning. A rather new technology, vibration drilling is employed to tackle this issue.

Drilling activities are extremely dangerous to carry out. It is therefore important to identify the hazards likely to result to injury of any employee at in the site. Quantification of injury likely to occur is always recorded as high risk, medium risk or low risk in a process called risk assessment. Control measures to such risks are therefore tabulated to ensure safe working conditions.

Risks most likely to be identified in work sites include:

Being struck by pipes.

Being stuck between collars and pipes.

Experiencing strains during processes of lifting and controlling movements of drill collars.

How to avoid hazardous circumstances

Implementation of the actual pipe handling techniques, make-up, and break out procedures is recommended. These methods include:

Use of proper hand and finger placement plus proper tongue latch techniques.

Clear off the rotary table while in use.

Incorporate proper lifting techniques to avoid strains

Ask for supervisor clarification before implementation of any procedure.

Always wear appropriate Personal Protective Equipment

Ensure that the drill site layout reduces the effort required to handle drill rods.

Work plans and health safety systems should be provided to assess the establishment of training pads.

Eliminate double handling of drill rods where possible.

Provide enough space for the driller's offside to move the drill away from the rig quickly.

Ensure completion of hazard identification at every drill site to ensure comprehensive measures are useful.

Regularly check and test hoist limits on the pull rope.

Results

Horizontal-Well design.

The design process should incorporate the functions of an experienced environmental driller. This specialists job is first to analysis the background history of the site. Questions such as how much contaminated the property are, what is the contaminant and how long the contaminant has been in the property should ring in his head.

The next step of the design includes gathering information required. These pieces of information are triggered by asking leading questions as:

Is the plan feasible?

Is there a site plan showing the plum?

What is the real depth and location of the plum in case it exists?

Is there a site plan showing the plum?

Are there underground utilities capable of influencing the design of the horizontal well layout?

Are there footers to be considered with regards to the depth of the horizontal well?

After giving appropriate responses to such questions, the design of the well is then recommended to begin. This layout is very critical to the success of the whole project. It is therefore taken seriously. The initial well design is first outstretched then it is tweaked and changed until actual horizontal installation process commence. The original placement design then undergoes another scrutiny and feasibility study to decide on the parallel remediation system to be installed. After this whole process, the engineer then begins the design of the horizontal well screen.

The key elements that would lead to successful design of horizontal wells include:

Zone of influence calculations for proper smooth bore path design.

Engineered horizontal well screens

Environmental directional drilling experience.

Discussion

Drilling schedule

Development of drilling program is usually a tedious job that incorporates a great deal of manual input. It is viewed as an individualistic contribution to the process of developing production of required resources.

The process of scheduling involves:

Choosing automatically generated well count

Specify drilling duration

Drilling duration must be determined with absolute uncertainty for each completion.

Specify real life constrains and policies

These policies to be determined include the number of rigs, type of platforms to be used, the number of rigs per drilling location and drilling deferment plans.

Fully integrate active drilling schedule.

Well cost including drilling and completion

The cost of a well will solely depend on the daily rate of the drilling rig, extra services required to drill the well, duration of the whole drilling program and the remoteness of the area of drilling. These rates vary depending on the capability of a particular rig. Onshore wells, for example, can be relatively cheaper compared offshore wells. The total cost of the well as estimated should not include those costs incurred during its development. For example, costs like those associated with risk of explosives or linkages but instead should include expenses incurred while protecting the well against such disasters plus those due to cleanup efforts and the hard to calculate the cost of tainting the company's image

Offshore Costs and onshore

Include all logistic supply costs mainly depending on daily rate of drilling rig, the duration that the drilling process would take, extra services the procedure would incur and the remoteness of the area identified for drilling.

Onshore wells are relatively cheaper especially if the field of drilling is shallow. Total well cost could therefore dismiss costs associated with other risks such as explosions during the process of development.

Conclusion

The whole process of development takes courage and financial strength to fulfill. The whole project require corporation from different specialists in order to be successful. Each and every stage should therefore not be taken lightly.

Reference

"How 'Orphan' the Wells Leave States Holding the Cleanup Bag."By Frosch, Dan; Gold, Russell ( 2015)

Modeling the Vibratory Drilling Process to Foresee Cutting Parameters. CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technologies. By Paris, Henri (2005).