Drilling industry activity has been a rollercoaster ride in recent years, with drilling contractors scrambling during the activity peak in the winter of 2000-01 to mobilize rigs and crews at a breakneck pace.
Robust natural gas prices had driven rig acquisitions and an extensive rig new-build program (OGJ, Sept. 17, 2001, p. 78).
The peak gave way to the latest slump, as this year's Drilling Report that starts on p. 43 reveals, leaving drilling contractors to manage complex capital-investment structures, deal with rising insurance costs, find ways of keeping skilled workers, and maintain and even continue to expand their rig fleets.
The industry seems mystified, however, by the current disconnect between high commodity prices and flat activity levels.
Speaking to the American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE) this month, Tom Kellock, senior research analyst for ODS-Petrodata Group, Houston, said the current rig count was as flat as he had ever seen it and attributed the lack of a trend to companies' not knowing what might happen next.
Some contractors have cited the opportunity of mobilizing for the next wave of drilling activity as the motivation for maintaining their organizations in a state of readiness, hoping for a 2003 recovery and a brighter future.
When discussions focus on issues that affect the drilling industry, energy supply and demand changes and commodity prices capture the headlines. Major changes occurring in the well-construction process, however, also significantly impact the drillers.
Well construction's future
A group of organizations led by the Houston-based Drilling Engineers Association, a research-operations forum, sponsored a 2-day workshop in League City, Tex., in May called "The Future of Well Construction."
The other sponsoring organizations included AADE, The Woodlands, Tex.-based Energy Research Clearing House, Calgary-based Completion Engineering Associates, US Department of Energy, US Minerals Management Service, and Petroleum Technology Transfer Council.
The impressive gathering brainstormed a list of the "must-have" and "would-be-nice-to-have" technologies the drilling industry will need going forward.
Michael Utt of Unocal Corp., re- viewing the workshop's highlights to AADE in September, explained that the focus was on new drilling technologies that were within the industry's reach but "just beyond its grasp."
Utt said, "A major reason (for having the workshop) was to identify the technical direction the drilling industry is going, identify gaps in the technology that are preventing us from doing things we'd like to do, and see if we can generate cooperative research ventures that will fill in the technical gaps."
During the workshop, the presenters discussed technologies the industry is in the process of developing and bringing to fruition as well as beyond-the-grasp technologies.
Presentations included smart wells, multilaterals, stimulation trends, exploration without drillstem tests, rigs of the future, rig automation, coiled-tubing drilling, and casing drilling.
The workshop identified drilling efficiencies and improved technologies required for wells and rigs of the future.
Paradigm shift
Several technologies on the horizon have the potential to create a paradigm shift in well construction that will affect rig operations, either directly or indirectly.
Some examples of technologies that have come or soon will come to fru- ition are drilling with casing, intelligent drill pipe, and expandable tubulars.
Kyle Fontenot of ConocoPhillips at the May workshop presented the company's work in drilling with casing in its South Texas Lobo natural gas trend (OGJ, Mar. 18, 2002, p. 64). With Calgary-based Tesco Corp.'s system, the casing transmits the mechanical and hydraulic energy to the bit as it simultaneously drills and cases the well. The companies say that the drilling speed was faster than the conventional drillpipe average by up to 200-300 ft/day.
Shell Exploration & Production Co. (Sepco) and Enventure Global Technology, both of Houston, announced last week the successful completion of the first monodiameter well in Starr County, Tex.: the Thomas-Rife Gas Unit No. 15.
The company completed the well with 95/8-in. expandable casing that can run inside itself and expand to 10.4-in. ID. Sepco Pres. and CEO Raoul Restucci referred to the development as being as important to the industry as horizontal wells have been.
He said, "…No matter what happens out there, no matter what the fracture gradient, no matter how hard the rock is, we will reach TD."
The petroleum industry will decide how it will use the technologies. Drill- ing operations likely will change.
