Final Evaluation

The End is near.....

If there is anyone out there who has been following my blog or will even read this, you might know that my posts have kinda been all over the place in terms of the oil and gas industry.  For those of you who are taking a look at the blog for the first time, I will give a little summary or a list rather of some of the things I have posted about throughout this semester.  I created this blog (unwillingly) for a Science Communication class that I (unwillingly) had to complete to graduate from Colorado School of Mines.  In my cluster of posts, I started talking about some basic ideas; types of drilling rigs (onshore and offshore), horizontal drilling methods, new technological drilling tools.  As the semester went on, I learned communicating with the public was a lot more than throwing technical details at them.  I started posted more about how these advancements helped access uneconomical reserves and flatten out the production trend in the U.S. rather than it continuing and a steep downward trend.  Several of my posts have been about hydraulic fracturing and the doors it has opened for future production.  I guess my main point in the majority of my posts has been seen in the last few.  Oil and natural gas is a very good source for the energy consumed throughout the world today.  Technologies get introduced into the industry every few years and the production increases substantially.  Whenever talk about rapidly decreasing production becomes a topic of interest, production methods enhancing production pop out of no where just like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have done so in the aspect of tight gas and shale production.  It seems that when times get hard in energy outlook, a breakthrough is made in the industry and the future production of oil and gas is extended 100 years or so.  I'm going to work in the oil and gas industry for a service company, so I will keep my hopes up that this trend continues for many years.  Anyways, thank you for reading my blog if you have been following.  This will probably be my last post ever, and this blog probably won't exist longer than one more week unless I forget to delete it.  Thanks again.  DONE!

Safety is #1

The number one objective on every drilling company's, as well as other oil and gas operators, list is safety.  There are many issues during operations that can be harmful to personnel on location.  Substantially high reservoir pressures are regularly present during drilling operations which is the origin of blowout accidents.  Aside from that, thousand and thousands of pounds of steal are present in the field and is evident that it causes a risky environment to work in if precautions aren't taken.  The public often times, as I have mentioned before, doesn't hesitate to criticize oil companies as well as drilling service companies.  There are several regular statements that drilling operations are far too unsafe to continue executing them.  One comment from a lady being interviewed about the BP oil spill stated that the technology for deep sea drilling is simply not here today.  There are several hurricanes which have swept through several offshore platforms and drill ships and completely destroyed the multi-million dollar structures.  The technology in the blow out preventors however, have done exactly what they were designed to do, prevent a blowout.  These large pieces of equipment are always shut in and the platform is evacuated when a threatening storm is approaching.  Safety meeting, offshore and onshore, are conducted every single day of operations to ensure all personnel on location is fully aware of what to do in case of several different harmful situations.  Due to the emphasis of safety in the industry, accidents and spills have been mitigated several times.  There are several instances of destroyed drilling structures as I mentioned above, but the amount of oil spills related to those is extremely low.  As for nuclear energy, the experience of Fukushima sums it up. When a hurricane or other forceful storms decide to crash into the shore destroying everything in their path, there isn't much that can be done to prevent a reactor from exploding when it is being tossed around so violently that I know of.  Safety will always be number one in the industry, and I believe that will open doors in the future for extraction of much needed energy sources.

Opinion on Future Production

Here's a short video of an industry management stand point on the future of these unconventional shale plays which have changed the perspective of future oil and gas production.

Seismic Monitoring

Fracture optimization can lead to a huge turn around in the production of oil and gas.  This is especially true in these unconventional reserves which are beginning to be produced today.  There are many tight gas sand and shales which depend upon fracturing to flip them from being uneconomical to economical.  One large step in the optimization of fracture placement and well spacing is the use of microseismic evaluation.  There are a few ways to obtain microsiesmic data.  The most effective method is to place receivers downhole in a monitor well but the equipment is restricted to about 330 degrees Fahrenheit.  Another method is to obtain data with surface receivers but surface noise such as bypassing trucks can make data worthless.  Typical fractures create hypocenters which is where the origin of the acoustic waves is located.  The problem with this evaluation, is that the location of the hypocenter determined from wave velocity is that the origin of the acoustic data isn't necessarily the location where fracturing is occurring.  A typical fracture will be monitored between -1 and -4 on the Richter scale.  A felt earthquake can be around 3 or so on this logarithmic scale.  As you can tell, the monitors are very sensitive to acoustic activity.  Research today is being directed toward evaluating this obtained data in hopes of optimizing well spacing and fracture placement.  As I said before, this discovery would enhance the economic potential of unconventional reservoirs for the future.  Also, this could mean better management of limited resources and reservoirs and lead to a longer life of the effective energy that oil and natural gas provides to the world.

Optimaziton = $$$$

My last post had some information on the abrupt changes which are introduced into the oil and gas industry in the blink of an eye.  Hydraulic fracturing was a huge discovery several years ago which really changed the country's perspective on the whole idea of peak oil.  Many uneconomical reserves became economic to produce hydrocarbons out of with the technique of hydraulic fracturing.  Today, the industry faces another issue related to fracturing.  Fracturing has to be executed in stages to ensure more effective penetration into the reservoir.  Fracturing requires thorough study about the rocks mechanical properties (Young's Modulus and Poisons Ratio in particular).  When one zone is perforated, these moduli are changed for the neighboring zone which is set to be fractured next.  There is no clear answer to what number of stages is the optimum number to fracture a well with.  Although wells differ greatly, some wells being drilled with similar trajectories and into the same target reservoirs are being hydraulically stimulated in completely different ways.  As a guest speaker state "Everyone is doing completely different stimulation methods for similar well, but no matter who you ask, they are doing it the correct way despite the massive differences in techniques."  Monitoring the paths of the induced fractures in the rock is key to the answer of optimization of hydraulic techniques.  There have been several advances in this aspect and continue to progress.  I don't have a guess as to how much more economical these wells can become if fracturing optimization is achieved, but I do believe it has a great possibility of altering the perspective of peak oil once again in the near future. 

Sure Energy

The research being applied to sources of clean energy seem to be increasing throughout the years.  As observed with the disaster in Japan, each energy source has some flaws to it.  Nuclear reactors produce fear in the public just as the instance in Fukushima.  Radioactive elements released into the atmosphere is a big issue and despite the fact that statements have been made that there are minimal amounts present which are not "likely" to increase health problems, there IS still that possibility that radiation may raise chances of health problems to those individuals exposed.  The oil spill was certainly a disaster and set many businesses back for a period of time.  Oil exposed to the atmosphere however, has less (basically zero) human health impacts.  In the case of wind farms and solar power, large amounts of turbines as well as panels are required to produce incremental amounts of energy that oil and natural gas are capable of generating.  Technology in drilling seems to strike significant findings in the aspect of ways to improve economic operations in the extraction of hydrocarbons in spontaneous instances.  These advancements change the whole perspective of fossil fuels, like shale and tight gas sands have done so recently.  The minds of engineers and R&D staff in the oil and gas industry are always turning, and there are multiple methods to improve economic recovery out there that are waiting for that one spark to begin applying practices in industry.  The spark may come tomorrow, next month, or a year from now.  Natural gas is said to be cleaner burning fuel than oil, but a refining technique may arise an option to generate cleaner fuel in the future with the quick changes that the ever expanding oil industry experiences.  The public seems to want to through out drilling for hydrocarbons much more easily than other sources of energy which can result in a disaster such as a nuclear one for example.  Cleaner energy is more beneficial to the environment, but the fact is that the U.S. is starving for energy, and the one sure source which has been around for many years is oil.

Stimulation Video

As an extension to my last post, here is a video that shows the basics of the hydraulic stimulation of a well.  The video also shows the basics steps to followed to drill a horizontal well which is the majority of the type of wells being drilled today.

What is a Frac Job?

I've had several posts on frac jobs of oil and gas wells.  It is actually a complex process and there is a lot of chemistry that goes into the design of a frac.  Each frac is specific to the well and its properties such as pressure, temperature, pH level, lithology, and others.  Thousands of gallons of water are used for frac jobs and very miniscule amounts of chemicals (.004% per thousand gallons of water) can completely alter the properties of the fluid .  The idea of a fracture job is to create a super highway for hydrocarbons to travel into the producing wellbore.  The shape charge perforations which I explained in earlier posts are the first step to the job.  The frac fluid is pumped into the wellbore and uses a crosslinker to suspend sand proppant and carry it into the perforation.  The crosslinker can vary from fluid to a solid composition such as one that Schlumberger uses.  The crosslinker can be modified to delay the conversion of the fluid into gel so optimization of sand suspension and placement can be achieved.  The type of sand used depends on the pressure encountered at the fracture.  Some sand can be crushed if the pressure is too great and man made ceramics can be used in these cases.  Once the gel has carried the sand into the fractures to create a super hydrocarbon highway, a breaker is added to return the fluid system to a less viscous state.  The fluid is pumped back to surface returning the majority of chemicals and additives in the fluid system to tanks on surface while leaving the proppant to maintain the fracture open.  This method of stimulating a well has become routine for nearly every well drilled in order to enhance production.  This method is the technology driving these tight gas sands and shale research for economic production of new reservoirs being discovered today.  Multiple zone fractures are highly common and a 3D image is seen below to monitor the effectiveness of a hydraulic fracture stimulation job.  Each color represents a different zone.

A frac job also requires a lot of hydraulic horsepower.  This is achieved by connecting several pump trucks ranging from 1000 hp to 3000 hp each to a unit called missel located in between the group of all the trucks.  

Video Blog

Here is my very FIRST video blog post ever.  It's a little hairy, didn't really know what I was doing or what I wanted to talk about exactly, but there's some good background info about the drilling industry.  Enjoy!

Blog Evaluation #2

Frac for more oil.

This post is to add a little more on the last post as well as to give you a good laugh.  Fracturing and stimulating wells, to increase hydrocarbon production, has angered many people in terms of ground water contamination.  Groundwater contamination can be due to many other things rather than just drilling and stimulation, such as land fill waste, factory or plant waste disposal and other things.  The blame seems to be entirely aimed at drilling activity however.  Fracturing occurs in zones which contain hydrocarbons.  These reservoir zones are typically 8,000 feet deep or can be up to 12,000 feet in deeper wells.  This is the depth at which hydraulic fracturing and acidizing takes place.  The groundwater aquifer is near 100 feet deep and not remotely close to the fracturing chemicals being used to stimulate reservoirs.  The chances of these chemicals traveling through several alternating impermeable layers of rock to the groundwater source is very very unlikely.  Just another example of blame being fired at oil companies when other sources of contamination are igonred during the first steps of pointing fingers.  Below is a hilarious video (possibly slightly improper) in my opinion that doesn't have much to do about actual fracturing of wells but none the less will provide a good laugh.  Enjoy!



Drilling.....Safer than walkin' across the street blindfolder.

My last couple of posts have been about drilling's interaction with the environment and regulations which are strictly enforced to protect it.  I will continue with that subject in this post and talk a little more about regulations.  There are basic steel pipes which are called casing and are set in the wellbore in order to provide zonal isolation as well as wellbore stability.  Surface casing is VERY important in order to isolate groundwater (drinking water) from drilling fluids and chemicals used to acid fracture or stimulate reservoirs.  Groundwater is typically around 100' deep and is often isolate by conductor casing which is the very first section of casing set when drilling.  State regulations vary, but a relatively standard regulation is that surface casing must be set minimum of 300' below the bottom of the ground water zone and cemented properly.  Cement bond logs, which are legally required, test the integrity of the cement and make sure complete zonal isolation is achieved.

Many people have accused drilling companies to have contaminated ground water, but the fact is that strict regulations and monitoring of drilling through permits has been in the industry for many years and continue to become more strict as the years progress in order to mitigate these problems.  Members of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission presented in one of my classes this week and confirmed the increase in regulations of drilling are unavoidable.  These regulations include well spacing also, where wells being drilled have to go through a specific permit in order to ensure adequate acreage spacing between other wells.  They discussed a situation where a farmer's groundwater was suspected to have been contaminated with methane gas from a nearby well.  Immediate action was taken by conducting CBL's as well as sampling gas from the well and the farmer's water.  It was determined that a bad cement job of the casing had allowed gas to travel in between the intermediate and production casing and enter the water zone.  Cement squeeze jobs can be conducted in order to fix cement job problems such as this one, but the OGCC realized the matter was of huge concern and violation of regulations.  The operator of the well was required to plug and abandon the well and lose money from shutting down of production from the well as well as abandoning material costs.  Plugging and abandoning a well also has strict and strongly enforced regulations by states.  As Capt. Carbon Sequester mentioned on my last post, other industries have had failures as well such as the Minneapolis bridge collapsing.  Sure the bridges were subject to more strict inspections, but the civil and mechanical engineering industry did not take such huge hits as big oil companies, or small companies, have taken over many smaller incidents over the years.  Individuals need to become more informed about the regulations drilling operations are required to follow and possibly see the side that extreme caution is being take when trying to suffice the U.S.'s hunger for more oil by drilling oil and gas wells.  What do you think about that?

Can I drill here anyway!?.....NO!!!

I often hear drillers labeled as people who don't respect or protect the environment.  Well that may be true if the environment interaction is compared to that of someone who may like to give a tree a hug from time to time.  The fact of the matter is however, there are very strict regulations which drillers must follow in order to execute drilling a well.  Surface permits are the major step to drilling.  Over field session II during my Junior summer, we learned a little bit about permits in the oil and gas industry.  I could not believe some of the things preventing a drilling operation.  There was a particular species of cacti which was considered endangered.  A team of professionals from the oil and gas company went out to get a better look at the location and a small bud of the cactus, "about the size of a pencil eraser," was ran over by a four wheeler.  These small growing plants were being tracked by some method of gps and the company was in fact issued a fine for the cactus which was barely visible to someone who may know the exact location of it.  Prairie dogs were also another issue as they are vastly spread in rural areas.  They are actually a headache for farmers and ranchers in many areas and extermination of them would not hurt any feelings.  So basically, the worthless rodents have more of a right to the land than individuals.  How does that make you feel?

Aside from surface rights which can also include sacred Indian grounds, national grounds, and others important areas, there is more to it than simply a surface permit.  Well plans such as casing design and wellbore trajectory must also be reviewed.  Proper zonal isolation is a MUST in the industry as well as staying in the required boundaries.  Cement Bond Logs (CBL's) are actually required.  This measures the structural integrity of the cementing jobs which are used to isolate zones such as groundwater zones.  Drilling technology is making the ability to stay in required boundaries easier as it progresses.  These permits can be several inches in thickness of stacks upon stacks of paper and can take several years to be approved.  If a change in the well plan is found to be necessary during the process, changes have to be reported to the legal agency in charge of the permit and has to be cleared for further drilling.  Drillers may not have as particular urges to save a tree or two as others, but none the less, are legally required and in fact take drastic measures in an attempt to be "friendly" to the mother earth. 

Doesn't look like a rig to me.

Safety is a big issue in the drilling industry as well as considering the environment.  For these reasons, casing is set to protect ground water as well as multiple wells are drilled from one pad to avoid extreme foot printing.  Have you ever seen an offshore rig platform from the coast?  It is an interesting site and something one can appreciate, some more than others I guess.  In some cases, the site of an offshore rig close to shore can upset some people.  On my field session trip to California, I visited an offshore rig on a man made island.  This island was one of  four island called the THUMS islands.  The name THUMS comes from the companies which partially obtained ownership, Texaco, Humble, Unocal, Mobil and Shell until Oxy purchased the four islands.  The interesting aspect of this offshore drilling operation is the disguise which is contains to comply with regulations.  Can you see the drilling rig in the pictures?  The rig is the hotel like structure which can travel around the island via a set of tracks which are in place.  Surrounding the area are also, palm, trees, waterfalls, and other landscaping materials.  Below are a couple of pictures of how one of the THUMS islands appears in the day and night. 

Why not Drill?

Advancements in drilling technology as well as reservoir modeling and data acquisition in the Petroleum industry has been progressing for several decades.  With technology provided today, these advancements continue to grow.  With capabilities of rotary steerable systems and downhole measuring equipment, accuracy of drillers to access hard to reach reservoirs has increased also.  Research for enhanced recovery which can consist of surfactant and chemical injection to increase oil recovery is a continuing process.  With a high dependency on foreign oil due to high consumption, why shouldn't funding be directed towards this research as well as unconventional research to begin to stray away from importing oil?  Renewable energy attempts have not posed signs of providing sufficient energy as oil or natural gas are capable of.  As technology continues to boom in the drilling industry, the wells to be drilled become more economical and leave room for greater production of reserves which could not be produced prior to tool advancements.  Could funding unconventional reservoir research, and in turn lowering dependency on foreign fuels introduce benefits that the funding of renewable energy research has been striving to achieve in the increasing demand for energy?

Drilling Made Easier

While I was looking around for information about my last post on the RipTide Reamer, I stumbled across another amazing advancement in technology by Weatherford.  The previous RipTide Reamer was mechanically activated as seen in the video on the last post.  A ball pressured with hydrostatic pressure sheared sets of pins and forced the cutter blocks out for reaming and a termination of circulation through the wellbore allowed them to contract back into the tool's body.  RFDI reamers can be opened and closed by radio frequencies carried in a small pill.  The pill is pumped downhole with the mud and when passed through the tool, signals activate the tool.  Different pills are sent down to open or close, but the tool can be activated and closed several times in a single run.  This saves a substantial amount of rig time and money.  The video found on this page shows the amazingly small radio frequency identification pills in action.

Amazing Control Thousands of Feet Under

For Drilling class my Junior year, I put together a presentation on Weatherford's new introduction of the RipTide Reamer.  The RipTide Reamer is designed to accomplish efficient reaming of wellbores to save money and increase borehole diameter.  It is placed above the logging tools in the BHA and can perform underreaming below casing to produce a larger diameter for proceeding casing and usable drilling bit sizes.  The Rip Tide is capable of providing the driller with a 25% larger borehole than the bit is designed to achieve.  It is compatible with Rotary-Steerable Systems and has many other attributes which enhance the borehole diameter efficiently.  This tool also serves assistance in controlling annular fluid velocities and optimizing cementing jobs.  This video is slightly long, but if you have an itch to see how they activate this tool downhole using hydraulics, take a look at the video.  

Stretching Steel!

Expandable liner casing has been around the drilling industry for several years now.  This advancement allows for a troublesome permeability zone to be isolated when drilling in order to prevent drilling fluid loss into the formation.  This short clip show hows expandable casing can be set and provide an inner diameter almost equivalent to an inner diameter of previous casing which has been cemented.  This can help preserve wellbore diameter and allow for larger downhole radius for optimum production.

Let the Money Flow

One of my favorite aspects of drilling is the perforating of the reservoir.  Perforating takes place after the well is done being drilled in order to puncture holes into the formation and create a larger pressure drop and area of flow for the hydrocarbons.  Previously, when the first perforation operations began, a large bullet was shot into the formation in order to pierce through the steel casing, the cement, and several inches into the formation.  As technology progressed, perforations were conducted using shaped charges much like those used to fire a bazooka.  These charges had so much force and created an immense amount of heat that no bullet was necessary to create a hole in the casing, cement and the formation.  These depths into the formation also increased to a couple of feet depending on the size of the charge.  Take a look at the short video below for a visual of these charges. 

Starting in 1990, Penetrators Canada Inc. began developing a technology for perforating without firing a charge or bullet into the formation.  One of the main problem with shooting objects into the formation is the damage of the permeability which can inhibit flow into the wellbore.  A new technology to drill these perforation rather than blast them is what Penetrators Canada Inc. has developed.  The tool is capable of drilling a 1 inch hole up to a depth of 72 inches.  That is significantly further than the charge and more specs of the tool can be found here.  I'm not sure if this tool is still in testing phases or is being used in drilling applications today.  The tool is capable of less perforations per tool run and takes significantly longer to drill the perforations.  Time is money as we all know, but here is a video of how it should work downhole.  

Blog Self-Interview

What is the purpose of this blog?

     This blog was created to provide general information about advancements in drilling techniques and technology.  Looking forward to entering the petroleum industry, I would also like to keep myself informed about these advancements and increase my knowledge about the industry.  Another purpose which this blog can serve as would be to arise interest in drilling for people who might not be quite sure about what exactly is the process of drilling or what it may incorporate. 

Who is the imagined audience(s) of this blog?

     The audience which I would expect to be reading my post most often would be someone is already has a relative amount of interest in the drilling industry or someone who is looking to enter the industry like myself.

Why Read??

In Investigating Science Communication in the Information Age, Davies talks about the use of informal dialogue and how communicating science needs to be presented with thought about impacting the public.  A major key to communicating scientific facts is not to be an expert in writings and incorporate a plethora of technical terms but rather to strive to engage the public in the issue or capture their interest.  As described by Mr. Alda in the in class video, a conversational atmosphere can result in better communication of scientific knowledge to the public.  Getting to know the public and engaging them in the topic can result in more effective publishings by scientist or engineers.  In the media aspect, my specific topic is not the most popular for some individuals.  The media played an immense role in framing the perspective of the public about drilling for oil and natural gas.  The BP oil spill was seen on every news channel in the country.  It had a huge impact on both the industry and the public's opinion.  As a result, the bad reputation needs to be healed possibly by means of educating individuals about the issue.  It was rather likely a result of taking short cuts along the lines of safety procedures which should have been fully undergone to prevent such a disaster.  Nonetheless, media has a strong impact on communicating science to the public and scientist and engineers need to become more efficient at doing the same by educating ourselves about the subject.  One of the main methods to further knowledge is as I described above, by engaging the public in the topic. 

The Big Rigs

I decided to post a little bit of information about drilling rigs for those readers who might not be as familiar with operations as others.  Drilling takes place both offshore and on land as most know.  The four main types of offshore rigs are known as Semi Submersible, Platform, Jack Up Rig, and Drill Ships.  These all have certain environments or depths of water at which they are ideal to perform.  The main difference in these rigs is the method which they stabilize themselves at the surface.  Semi Submersible have floaters if you will that fluctuate up and down with the change in water level and are attached to the sea floor will pillars but can be moved from location to location using tug boats.  Jack Up rigs are similar but rather than adjustable floats, they have adjustable jacks which are more of a fixed mechanism to lower or raise the platform to accommodate for changes in water level and are mobile as well with the help of tugboats.  Platforms are fixed and used more for generation of greater force to drill deeper wells.  Drill ships are just as the name represents.  A drill rig is located on a large barge or ship and is completely mobile.  Technology today has equipped these large ships with rotors or fans at different corners of the bottom of the ship which electronically center the ship directly above the well being drilled by means of GPS location.  On land rigs have evolved from a structure of 2x4's in the first days of drilling to an amazing hydraulic operate rig which is used today.  Drilling rig operations have become significantly safer with these well designed machines due to their hydraulic capabilities of making pipe connections and self set up on rig sites.  Below is a video of the moving process which the FlexRig by Helmerich and Payne Drilling Company undergoes without the required presence of large cranes as other rigs require.  Throw some questions out if you would like and I'll do my best to answer them about these incredible machines.

Introduction

Welcome, this blog will contain posts about new technologies being used or introduced in the drilling aspect of the petroleum industry.  This includes advances in drill bits, drilling rigs, downhole tools, and others.  I am currently a senior at the Colorado School of Mines and looking forward to graduating this May of 2011 with a Bachelors in Petroleum Engineering and minor in Economics.  Throughout the semester, I will update my blog with posts about the drilling advancements being developed and used today to better econmically reach tough to produce reservoirs such as unconventional ones.  I hope you learn some intersting facts about drilling as I expand my knowledge of the petroleum industry as well.