The recent years have witnessed the explosion of number of horizontal wells that are being drilled around the world. Drilling of horizontal wells presents challenges not only for operators, but also for well planners. The framework of questions to be addressed include “What are the present challenges associated with drilling horizontal wells?” and “What are the advancements in technologies needed to meet the challenges?” Although several challenges are inherently present, the presentation will particularly ponder the following primary drilling challenges: Drillstring integrity, Hydraulics management, Wellbore integrity and Well placement.
Wellbore mechanical friction attributable to pipe rotation or to torque and drag plays a significant role in drilling horizontally, and causes loss of weight transfer, tool failures and wellbore integrity issues. Also dynamic settling of solids results in zonal isolation problems. Many new operational challenges are associated because of simultaneous operations, such as drilling and fracturing nearby wells.
This presentation will draw upon the development of various advanced and improved technologies in the five challenging areas previously described, reinforcing the key points related to weight transfer, cuttings transport, true vertical depth control, positional/fracture uncertainty, and geosteering thin reservoirs. In addition, the presentation will discuss several improved mechanical and electrical downhole tools that are used to meet the challenges. Although the technology development has positively responded to the needs of horizontal drilling, its future advancement will include areas such as telemetry, sensors and data handling, and analytics.
The presentation will be informative and will appeal to a wider audience; the ideas that members can take away from this lecture are the challenge areas in drilling horizontal wells and how the industry is responding to the needs outlining the emerging future direction.
About the Author
Dr. Robello Samuel is a Technology Fellow at Halliburton with more than 24 years of multi-disciplinary experience in domestic and international oil/gas drilling and completion operations, management, consulting. An acknowledged lecturer in drilling engineering worldwide, he has for the past nine years concurrently served as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston in Houston, and at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He has published more than 90 technical papers. He has been invited as a keynote speaker at conferences, an invited guest lecturer at various universities. He has served as the chairman or a member of various SPE committees and several Journal editorial review committees. His unique blend of skills as a field engineer, researcher, and professor helped him to author 5 drilling books including the forthcoming book ‘Drilling Engineering Optimization’. He began his career by working on rigs as a rig drilling engineer at ONGC from 1983 to 1992. He holds BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering as well as MS and PhD degrees in petroleum engineering.