DOE notes advance of microhole smart-motor, LWD system

Jan. 23, 2007
The Department of Energy has identified a microhole "smart" steering motor and logging-while-drilling (LWD) system as among the most advanced projects under development in its microhole initiative.

Nick Snow
Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 22 -- The US Department of Energy has identified a microhole "smart" steering motor and logging-while-drilling (LWD) system as among the most advanced projects under development in its microhole initiative.

"The system provides the capability to more-accurately steer the drillbit to drill smooth, straight boreholes, while providing real-time information about the rock being drilled," DOE's Office of Fossil Energy said on Jan. 22. "The result is faster drilling, improved well-path accuracy, better hole quality, and longer horizontal sections."

Baker Hughes Inc.'s Inteq division is developing the system.

While the technology is not new in the oil and gas industry, it has not been deployed in tools that are only 2 3/8 in. in diameter, DOE said. The microhole initiative focuses on miniaturizing key oil-field tools to reduce drilling costs, risks, and environmental impacts. It uses coiled tubing rigs to drill wells of less than 4.5 in. in diameter or small-diameter sidetrack boreholes from existing wells.

After BP America Inc. used the microhole smart steering motor and LWD system to drill a well on Alaska's North Slope, Inteq described the tools' performance as "an overall technical success, showing that both components add benefit when drilling reentry wells," DOE said.

DOE said Inteq also is developing a miniaturized, wireless steering-while-drilling system that enables precise, real-time geosteering by incorporating a two-way power and communications module, and a surface control system that communicates with the downhole tool assembly. Plans call for field trials of the two tools, which are intended to work with the Inteq microhole steering motor and LWD system, during the first quarter of 2007.

The federal agency said it is funding 75% of the cost of the two projects, each valued at about $1 million. Although microhole technology's roots extend to the mid-1990s when DOE funded early experimentation, it said its National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) formally launched the new initiative in 2004. About 20 projects are active under the $20 million, cost-shared program.

DOE also said other NETL-funded microhole tools moving toward commercialization include a prototype drilling tractor, which Western Well Tool Inc. will deploy at three North Slope demonstration wells this winter, and Stolar Research Corp.'s project to develop a radar navigation and radio data transmission system, which the company field-tested last summer. DOE funded 80% of the first project's nearly $1 million cost and 56% of the second project's $900,000 price tag.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].