Expandable liner and sand-screen technologies are setting new records and being installed in more-difficult environments.
Enventure Global Technology, a company formed by Shell Technology Ventures Inc. and Halliburton Energy Services, said it set new records for an ultra-deepwater installation in a Gulf of Mexico Alaminos Canyon well and for total length of an expandable casing in a West Texas test.
In a sand-control application, Weatherford International Inc.'s completion systems division said it completed the world's first multizone expandable sand-screen (ESS) installations in Shell Brunei wells.
Expandable liners
For the water-depth record, Enventure placed a 1,186-ft openhole solid expandable tubular liner in a Shell Exploration & Production Co. well in 7,790-ft water (Fig. 1). The drilling rig used was R&B Falcon's Nautilus semisubmersible.
Enventure said the liner enhances Shell's ability to explore deeper potential pay zones because the 133/8 in. by 16-in. liner increases overall well length with negligible reduction in casing diameter. It indicated that 6 hr were required to expand the liner with propagation pressures of 1,500-1,800 psi. Pressure tests at 1,000 psi for 30 min indicated no leaks.
Liner dimensions changed after it was expanded. Enventure said post-expansion ID was 14.170 in. compared to a 12.615 in. pre-expansion ID. Based on previous surface tests, it estimated post-expansion yield and collapse were 3,420 psi and 570 psi, respectively.
It said overall length of the 133/8, 54.50 lb/ft liner decreased by 4% after being expanded 12.3% into the 16-in. base casing and open hole.
After installing the liner, Enventure said operations included drilling the next hole section, in which 133/8 casing would be set. Should conditions dictate, it said two additional contingency strings, 95/8 in. by 113/4 in. and 75/8 in. by 95/8 in. were available.
Enventure said this was its twelfth solid expandable tubular installation.. Six of these installations were in open holes with the other six in casing.
In South Texas, Enventure said it set records for the longest (2,016 ft) solid expandable tubular string in a single installation and the most connections (54) expanded in a single installation. This was Enventure's eleventh expandable liner installation.
It indicated that this record run was made in a Shell E&P Co. well to field test the expandable tubular technology for deepwater applications.
The dimensions of the 133/8-in., 54.5 lb/ft liner after expansion increased to 14.150-in. ID from its 12.615-in. pre-expansion ID. Enventure estimated post-expansion yield and collapse was 3,420 psi and 570 psi, respectively, and liner length decreased by 4.3%.
Expandable screens
Weatherford International Inc. said Brunei Shell wells were first in the world to have multizone expandable sand screen (ESS), single-selective installations. The expandable sand screens were placed in three Champion West wells, CW 13, 14, and 15, which have four, five, and three zones, respectively, and total depths of 2,700-4,000 m with deviations of 55-65
Under terms of the project, Weatherford said it provided Shell with a complete sand-control system and that Shell chose the ESS technology after carrying out a full comparison of all available sand-control methods.
Shell indicated that installation of the ESS systems took slightly more than 2 days with only four Weatherford personnel on the rig. It said the multizone ESS represents a significant time savings compared to conventional internal gravel packs that would take up to two to four times longer for a similar completion design.
The work included the lower zones on wells CW 13 and 15 being completed separately with an ESS, while the upper zones were completed with a single-string that combined seal bores, spacer tubing, expandable isolation sleeves, and ESS.
The 4-in. and 4.5-in., 316-stainless steel, 150-mm weave, expandable sand screens were hung off in 7-in., 29 lb/ft casing with a 95/8-in., upper zone, and 7-in. arrow-pack, lower zone, ESS deployment systems.Weatherford expected Brunei Shell by early 2001 to install nine more ESS completions, including three in openhole horizontal laterals.
Weatherford licenses that ESS technology from Shell.
