Application of the Advanced Methods to Investigate Incidents and Drilling Engineering Principles to Prevent Critical Wear-Out of Downhole Equipment When Drilling Wells in Chayandinskoye Field

Abstract

The pressing challenge is the abnormally rapid wear of well logging equipment and drilling tools when drilling wells in pay zone of Chayandinskoye field. Wear-out of BHA stabilizers within one run makes directional drilling inefficient and results in additional trips to replace equipment. Wear-out of drill pipes results in emergencies risk increase. To prevent such incidents the necessity arises to conduct an unscheduled inspection, reject and replace drilling tools. All these conditions entail increase in drilling time and decline in profitability. Problem analysis and expert review was made by drilling optimization specialists from DD Contractor jointly with the experts from R&D Center and Operator Company. This paper discusses how cooperation of the engineers from three companies as well as a particular approach to incident investigation and drilling engineering made it possible to identify the most critical factors, which contribute to a standard BHA wear, to work out measures to prevent similar situations in future and select an alternative BHA. The gained experience has been successfully disseminated to the other wells in Chayandinskoye field and other fields in Eastern Siberia; and the incident investigation methods and drilling engineering procedures are effectively applied under the other projects.