Abstract
In a difficult situation where the oil market is down, reducing drilling cost is always an interesting outlook to be pursued. To do so, one should consider looking at the highest component on the drilling cost. Down-hole equipment failure and stuck pipe is avoidable during the engineering planning. It is well-known that billions of dollars have been lost and numerous Bottom-Hole Assembly (BHA) are left in the well due to such problems, related to stick-slip phenomenon. Thus, despite the low oil price, it is a new normal that some asset owners opt to invest on high-end tools to prevent stick-slip, meanwhile others are still reluctant because of its high initial costs and chose to solely focus on the technical skills to drill faster. The objective of this paper is to determine whether, and which, utilization of these automations will be an effective method to lower overall cost, between using Anti-Stick Slip Technology (AST), Surface soft-torque, Self-Adjusting PDC Bit or all three combined together.
The analysis of this project is conducted by providing conjecture in comparative method to visualize the configuration. In each case, estimated Rate of Penetration (ROP) is observed based on the recent literature of its application in similar lithology which is carbonate and interbedded shale. As the ROP increases, the overall drilling cost along with percentage of potential net saving for each case is evaluated in this study and select the most effective strategy.
The outturn suggests that despite the high initial investment, combining all technologies are economically advantaged. With the DOCC by the self-adjusting PDC bit and torque alleviation by AST to handle the rock interface in addition to BHA torque wave mitigation from surface by surface soft torque, the ROP is quantified as summation of all cases’ ROP gained as the tool complements each other. The estimated ROP of the case significantly gives high decrement of the overall cost and boosted the potential net saving. Moreover, prevention from NPT due to downhole failure and stuck pipe problem is also a contributing factor to increasing cost efficiency. Therefore, combining all the tool together is proven to be the most favorable option aside from, respectively from preferable to the less, utilizing Surface Soft Torque, Self-Adjusting PDC Bit, and AST. Although it requires high initial investment, it is worthwhile to explore the usage of automation technologies for the overall cost reduction contributes to make the case financially attractive.
An Optimum Bits Selection for a Southern Iraqi Oil Field Located in Basra Region by Depending a New Algorithm