The Combination of Ridge and Conical Elements is a New Approach for Drilling Out Hard Carbonates and Sandstones Without Drop in ROP

Designing and developing competitive tools for use in the oil and gas industry to meet the high-demand market requires years of experience and a high-level knowledge base. In today’s drilling environment, innovations in bit technologies play an increasingly important role to improve overall drilling performance and reduce drilling time. Cylindrical cutters had their own limitations and restricted the drilling industry from advancing the operations performance to the next level. 3D-shaped cutters were developed to provide maximum drilling efficiency in the most challenging applications by mitigating cutting structure damage and improving its technical limits. The invention of the 3D polycrystalline diamond cutter (PDC) is helping operators to drill wells faster by improving rate of penetration (ROP) and reducing in-out trips. The combination of ridged diamond element (RDE) and conical diamond element (CDE) on bits is a new method for drilling formations. These bits improve drilling ROP by maximizing the shape of the PDC cutters. This combination also improves cutter durability, which in turn, enhances bit performance and drilling efficiency. Bits equipped with these 3D cutters require less mechanical specific energy during drilling compared with bits having conventional cylindrical cutters, which helps to reduce shock and vibrations and weight on bit required to drill hard formations. Field data have proved, beyond any doubt, the benefits from using the combination of 3D PDC cutters in drilling hard formations. These cutters, depending on the shape, are able to improve ROP and durability, and by placing them in the right position on the bit, can improve the overall durability of the bit. Multiple field tests were conducted in various applications with customers in Russia. The results clearly showed that the combination of these unique 3D cutters helped operators achieve a step change in performance by improving ROP and depth drilled. In some cases, operators were able to drill an entire section using bits equipped with 3D cutter combinations, whereas traditionally more than one bit was used to complete the section. This paper will present the advantages provided by 3D cutters and by implementing a combination of CDE and RDE 3D elements in challenging applications in Russia, in addition to performance benchmarks achieved using this unique combination of 3D cutter combinations.