A 25,000 foot horizontal drilling system technology
- Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center, Port Hueneme, CA (United States)
- Petrolphysics, Inc., San Francisco, CA (United States)
- Bechtel National Corp., San Francisco, CA (United States)
- Naval Facilities Engineering Command, San Bruno, CA (United States)
A Horizontal Drilling System (HDS) has been developed for the US Navy by Petrolphysics, Inc. and refined by Western Instrument, Inc. The HDS approach combines three key features to overcome drillstring buckling in long horizontal penetrations: (a) by maintenance of the drillstring tension (b) a steerable water-jet drillhead and (c) a constantly rotating drillstring. With water jet drilling, the drillstring can be maintained in tension and the high compressive load requires for normal mechanical drill bits is eliminated. For the very long 7,600 m trajectories, it was necessary to develop a drillhead that could be steered while drilling. The Steerable Drillhead (SDH) can be pre-programmed or commanded via wireline in real time. It steers by valving on the various water jets as they pass through the direction in which the drillstring needs to move and valves them off as they pass the opposite direction. That process results in an off-round hole for the SDH to follow. The constant rotation of the HDS drillstring reduces the coefficient of friction: once the horizontal pipe is rotating, only a small force is required to move it forward at normal drilling rates. The final key technology for HDS is a high-torque, flush inside/outside joint for the drill string. The improved joint design, even within the limited wall thickness, allows drilling torque to limit the total length at about the same time as buckling. The civilian applications of the HDS could include long-distance river crossings, on-shore to offshore oil drilling, extension of existing drainage of offshore oil fields, environmental remediation applications and other programs. A major value of the HDS is the prospect of requiring fewer high cost platforms to drain large offshore oil accumulations.
- OSTI ID:
- 287838
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960154-; ISBN 0-9648731-8-4; TRN: IM9639%%458
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Energy Week `96: American Society of Mechanical Engineers and American Petroleum Institute energy week conference and exhibition, Houston, TX (United States), 21 Jan - 2 Feb 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of Energy week `96: Conference papers. Book 3: Drilling and production economics; PB: 419 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Impact of integrated 3D reservoir modeling/flow simulation on development of deepwater sands, Mars Field, Gulf of Mexico
Impact of integrated 3D reservoir modeling/flow simulation on development of deepwater sands, Mars Field, Gulf of Mexico