Oil & Gas

From exploration to distribution

Week 3 V13 Drilling
Isabelle Rey-Fabret

W3V13 - Drilling p. 1
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015

Introduction
In the previous lesson we saw with the reservoir engineers how to define, in the field
development scenario, where to drill the wells.
Now, during this lesson, we will see how to drill them.
1. First of all, lets see how to describe the subsurface characteristics, in order to plan
the design of the future well and to define the phases of the drilling job.
2. Then, well describe the drilling system, and how the driller can manage the drilling
process safely.
During the exploration phase a well is needed to confirm the presence of oil or gas in the
reservoir.
Some appraisal wells are needed for the delineation process.
Moreover, at the end of the reservoir strategy study, a reservoir model defines how to
develop the field, and, more particularly, where to drill the wells and the contribution of
each of them to the production plateau.
The role of the driller is to build these wells required for the field development.
A well is an expensive item. It must be carefully studied and planned before being drilled.
The well preparation phase involves coordinated work between geoscience engineers and
drilling/completion engineers.

How to design a well?

In order to set up the drilling program, the driller needs to know the location of the rig,
where the well has to enter the reservoir, the trajectory of the well in the reservoir for a
good connection between the well and the reservoir, and the formations to be drilled. Lets
detail the description of the subsurface.
For each formation to be drilled, there are 2 characteristics that need to be known
accurately:
1. the pore pressure
2. and the fracture pressure.
The pore pressure is the pressure of the fluid within the grains of the rock. It depends on the
depth of the formation and on its nature (sandstone, shale, ).
The fracture pressure corresponds to the minimum pressure to be applied on the rock to
generate a fracture.
When the formation is drilled, the well is full of a fluid: the drilling mud, which is directly in
contact with the rock, and applies a pressure on it: Pmud.
The mud pressure depends on the depth. One of the roles of the mud is to maintain the
interstitial fluid within the rock, in order to avoid a kick.
W3V13 - Drilling p. 2
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015

During the drilling process, the mud is in contact with the rock, which contains a fluid within
the grains.
A fluid always flows from high pressure to a lower pressure. If the mud pressure is higher
than the pore pressure, the formation fluid cannot enter the well. It remains in the
formation and there is no risk of blowout.
During the drilling process, the mud is in contact with the rock, which contains a fluid within
the grains.
The mud pressure has to be lower than the frac pressure, in order to avoid the rock being
fractured. To conclude, keep in mind that the mud has to be designed so that the mud
pressure belongs to the interval between the pore pressure and the frac pressure. This
interval is called the mud window.
Both Ppore, in red, and Pfrac, in
blue, can be plotted on a
(pressure/depth) graph.
The mud pressure has to be in the
yellow zone, which is called the
mud window. For each lithology to
be drilled, the mud has to be well
adapted to its characteristics. The
well is therefore drilled in
different phases, each phase
corresponding to a new mud to be
used.
At the end of a phase, a casing is installed and cemented to protect the well from the
formation already drilled and to finalize the well walls.
W3V13 - Drilling p. 3
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015

The definition of each of these phases is called the well design.

A typical well design is as follows:
1. The first tubular is the conductor pipe installed by the civil engineer before the rig
arrives on site.
2. The next phases are drilled using
the rotary drilling technique.
3. The surface casing maintains the
unconsolidated
surface
formations and protects the
groundwater.
4. The intermediate casing protects
the well from the formations or
fluid which could prevent the
drilling process from continuing.
5. The last casing is the production
casing which allows the reservoir
to be isolated.
6. During the last phase the well
enters the reservoir.
When a well is an exploration well, designing is much more difficult , due to a lack of
measurements and information to describe the subsurface. The mud window is not
accurately known. Such uncertainties have to be taken into consideration in the drilling
process.
When a well has to be drilled in a new region, there are many uncertainties about the data,
including that related to the pore and frac pressure profiles. On the contrary, when a
development well is planned, it benefits from data from the surrounding wells already
drilled. In this case, the pressure profiles are well known, and the uncertainties are lower.
Lets mention that the trajectory of a well can be vertical, deviated, or horizontal. The
choice of the trajectory depends on the location of the rig, the location of the target of the
well when it enters the reservoir, and the trajectory of the drain in the reservoir itself. These
two last data are defined and given by the reservoir engineer to the driller.

W3V13 - Drilling p. 4
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015

How a well is drilled in practice? Mechanically, a vertical force applied on the drilling bit (the
weight on bit), together with a movement of rotation, generates down to the bit the power
necessary to destroy the rock. A hook hangs up the drill string, which is composed of
several tubulars screwed together, and, at the bottom, there is a drilling bit.

Both the weight on bit and the rotation per minute, which is given
by the rotary table located at the rig floor, are controlled by the
driller to maximize the rate of penetration of the bit.
Their optimization depends on several parameters, including the
kind of rock to be drilled: the regulation of the hook height controls
the part of the total weight of the drillstring applied on the bit, the
rotation is often given by a rotary table located at the rig floor.
The mud circuit is combined to the mechanical part of the system.
Firstly, the pump sends the mud at high pressure through the
discharge line, the stand pipe, the rotary hose and the top drive,
into the pipes.

The mud flows in the drill string down to the bit and catches the
small pieces of broken rock, the cuttings, to transport them up to
the surface in the space between the drill string and the well walls.

W3V13 - Drilling p. 5
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015

At the surface, the cuttings, the sand and the silt are removed from
the mud through shale shakers and other systems.

The mud can be sent to the tanks in order to be re-injected.

In order to control the well in case of blowout, a Blow Out Preventer is installed between
the top of the well and the rig floor. This BOP stack is composed of an annular BOP and
different rams able to close the well in case of emergency. The size of the BOP is adapted to
the maximum pressure that can be encountered during the drilling process.

W3V13 - Drilling p. 6
IFPEN - IFP School 2015 / TOTAL SA 2015 / IFP Training 2015