OFFSHORE DRILLING AND COMPLETION

Nonretrievable Rotating-Liner Drilling

System Deployed Successfully
The full-length paper presents some
of the geomechanical drilling hazards encountered in an ultradeepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico
(GOM) Walker Ridge area, the effect
of those hazards on the drilling operation, and the outcome of deployment
of a nonretrievable rotating-liner drilling system. This drilling system, in
conjunction with a specially designed
liner drilling polycrystalline-diamondcompact (PDC) bit, enabled operators
to drill through and isolate a challenging highly stressed rubble zone
found adjacent to a problematic tar/
bitumen layer.

Introduction
It is well known in the industry that,
because of seismic acoustic-wavevelocity uncertainty across thick salt
bodies and the high acoustic-wavevelocity contrast between salt and
surrounding formations, the subsaltenvironment characteristics and pressure regimes cannot be determined
accurately by seismic models. As a
consequence, unexpected events commonly are encountered, which include
lost circulation, stuck pipe, highly
This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains
highlights of paper SPE 124854, NonRetrievable Rotating Liner Drilling System
Successfully Deployed To Overcome
Challenging Highly Stressed Rubble
Zone in a GOM Ultra-Deepwater SubSalt Application, by Jim Kunning and
Yafei Wu, Anadarko Petroleum, and
Ian J. Thomson, Larry Marshall,
Derrick Daigle, SPE, Henry J. Mata,
SPE, Robert Pena, Matt Hensgens,
and Billy Eppley, Baker Hughes, originally prepared for the 2009 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition,
New Orleans, 47 October. The paper
has not been peer reviewed.

stressed rocks, and tar zones below the

salt body. Lost circulation and tar are
among the most dreaded hazards in
the subsalt drilling scenarios, mainly in
exploration and appraisal wells, where
only limited information about the
area being drilled is available.
When these hazards are found, drilling time and cost increase significantly.
In many cases, these lead to unplanned
sidetracks, suspension of operations, or
even abandonment of the well. Casing/
liner drilling traditionally has been used
to solve localized drilling challenges
related to wellbore instability while
drilling through depleted reservoirs.
Recent oilfield advances, including
improved tubulars, and pipe handling,
have proved that nonretrievable rotating-liner drilling is a viable cost-cutting
option to overcome some of these new
deepwater subsalt challenges.
Nonretrievable Rotating-Liner
Drilling System
Advances in connections, rig technology, liner equipment, and mud systems
have allowed liner drilling to move
forward as a solution to challenges of
drilling wells today, where conventional drilling may not be the best option.
In deep- and ultradeepwater subsalt
wells, it is proving more difficult to get
a liner to bottom as a result of the challenging formations being drilled. The
ability to wash, ream, or drill the liner
string to depth always has been limited by the high circulating pressures
that may be required to achieve such
goals. Circulation rates have always
been kept sufficiently low to avoid
presetting the hanger or prereleasing
the running tool during drilling operations. To overcome these issues, an
improved design of a nonretrievableliner drilling system that is easy to
implement and practical in application
was introduced.

Liner-top
packer,
with
hydraulically
balanced
setting-tool
profile

Hydraulically
balanced
setting tool

Hydraulically
balanced
liner hanger

Liner-drilling bit

Fig. 1High-torque liner-drillingsystem schematic.

For a limited time, the full-length paper is available free to SPE members at www.spe.org/jpt.
JPT APRIL 2010

49

Liner-Drilling Method. This drilling

system is a nonretrievable system that
combines a drilling liner system and
a specialized PDC liner bit. Fig. 1
shows a schematic of the system. The
system is designed so that the operator
can ream or wash to bottom if necessary and then continue drilling with
the liner to the required target depth.
Drilling with a liner requires every
component of the liner system to handle the torque and loads created during normal drilling operations such as
rotation, reciprocation, vibration, and
drilling torque. The liner system uses a
hydraulic hanger that remains hydraulically balanced throughout the drilling operation and permits high rates
of circulation. The system also uses a
running tool that allows the operator
to push, pull, and rotate the liner and
keep it hydraulically balanced when in
drilling mode. The running tools must
also have a reliable latching mechanism with erosion-resistant ball seats
and a secondary left-hand release that
are capable of being used under drilling conditions.
Deepwater GOM
Walker Ridge Case History
Tar Attack. When drilling a 24
tangent at 25,413 ft measured depth
(MD)/25,367 ft true vertical depth
(TVD) through the thick salt body
and approaching the predicted base of
the salt, the borehole started to pack
off, standpipe pressure increased, and
high torque developed causing the topdrive to stall. The bottomhole assembly (BHA) was picked off-bottom, and
the well was gaining. A wash and ream
to bottom was attempted unsuccessfully while monitoring gains on the
trip tank, but the borehole started to
pack off and gained 67 bbl. The upper
annular was closed and the choke line
monitored. The well was circulated at
full drill rate and the riser was boosted
while increasing the mud weight from
14.3 lbm/gal to 14.5 lbm/gal (92% of
overburden gradient) when gas units
at surface increased significantly and
tar bars were noticed at the shakers.
The tar was deemed to be very
active, and within a few hours, a tar
attack followed, plugging flowlines,
shakers, and the rotary pan. The well
also was gaining, and mud weight
was increased to 15.1 lbm/gal (96%
of overburden gradient) in an attempt
to stabilize the well. With the well

50

partially stabilized but still with a

significant amount of the tar getting
to surface, the BHA was tripped out of
the hole and a cement stinger was run
to bottom. While tripping the BHA out
of the hole, borehole swabbing and
lost circulation were an issue because
of the large amount of tar packing off
the borehole.
The cement stinger was run to
24,630 ft and circulated with partial
returns while continuing to address
the tar attack and associated issues
(i.e., stuck pipe, swabbing, ballooning,
and lost returns). Well control was an
issue because of the large amount of
tar inside the borehole and tar plugging flowlines and blowout-preventer
(BOP) lines. The stinger was pulled
to 22,639 ft, and finally the hole was
abandoned, bullheading 2,000 sacks
of cement.
A total of 1,144 bbl of tar was collected at surface, and 26 days were lost
in nonproductive activities directly
related to the tar attack. These included well control, cleanout runs, surface
handling of the high volume of tar,
and the cementing/abandonment of
the original hole and the sidetrack.
The associated cost of the unplanned
events was estimated to be approximately USD 23 million.
Sidetrack Well. The well was sidetracked out of the cement plug at
23,900 ft. The directional plan was to
increase the hole inclination slightly
and then drop it back to exit the salt
as close to vertical as possible, and to
move the well path 270 ft away from
the location where the tar was encountered in the original hole.
The 105/8-121/4-in. sidetrack hole
was drilled with 14.8-lbm/gal mud
(94% of overburden gradient) to a
vertical depth of 25,367 ft, where the
tar had been intercepted in the original hole. From this point, the hole
was control drilled and backreamed
every 30 ft; sweeps were pumped
regularly but there was no evidence
of tar. Drilling continued on the basis
of a predetermined salt exit strategy.
The base of the salt was detected at
25,712 ft MD/25,704 ft TVD, or 337 ft
TVD deeper than the tar layer on the
original hole.
At 25,739 ft MD, just below the base
of the salt, the hole started to pack
off. The topdrive stalled out, and high
equivalent circulating density induced

mud losses. After lost-circulation material on bottom was spotted, the mud
weight was increased to 15.0 lbm/gal
in an attempt to prevent the wellbore
from packing off.
Drilling the subsalt interval continued through what was considered a
highly stressed rubble zone that caused
many wellbore-stability problems
(i.e., reaming, packoff, partial returns,
and well control). At 25,961 ft, the
well was ballooning, showing gains
of gas and seawater, and losing a significant amount of 15.0-lbm/gal mud.
Ten days were spent trying to control
the well, without success. Analysis
indicated that drilling with conventional assemblies was too risky under
current conditions. The decision was
made to increase the mud weight to
15.2 lbm/gal while spotting a heavy
pill on bottom, to fill the riser with
15.5-lbm/gal mud, and to circulate
out of the hole to pick up the linerdrilling assembly.
Nonretrievable Rotating-Liner
Drilling-System Run
The great challenge at that point was
to drill through and isolate part of the
subsalt highly stressed rubble zone
that was causing most of the wellborestability problems. It also was paramount to drill as deep as possible and
set the liner below the current depth
of 25,961 ft to reach the well target total depth without an additional
string of liner.
The nonretrievable-liner drilling
system with a 105/8-in. liner drilling
bit (with six blades and 13-mm cutters) was used to drill in the 95/8-in.
liner on 65/8-in. drillpipe. The assembly drilled the highly stressed rubble
zone without returns from 25,961
to 26,584 ft (for a total of 623 ft) in
26 hours at an average rate of penetration of 24 ft/hr. To minimize the
chances of borehole packoff, the mud
weight was maintained at 15.2 lbm/
gal and the drilled hole was backreamed 15 ft at every connection.
After total depth was reached, the
liner hanger was set and the running
tool released. Drilling with the liner
stopped at 26,584 ft because of the
lack of liner overlap.
At the time the job was completed,
it set a record as the deepest and
longest liner-drilling run successfully
accomplished in the GOM deepwater
JPT
environment.

JPT APRIL 2010