The Queensland Curtis Liquefied Natural Gas (QCLNG) project is the world's first project to convert coal seam gas (CSG) into liquefied natural gas 1 . The project involves drilling thousands of wells in the Surat basin, installing an underground 540 km long pipeline to Gladstone and the building of a plant on Curtis Island to liquefy the natural gas. The project, which has been under construction since 2010, is on schedule to provide LNG for export from the end of 2014.The multi-billion-dollar investment by QGC, the Australian business of BG Group, is one of Australia's largest current capital infrastructure projects. Schlumberger has been contracted to deliver on the drilling and completion phase of this critical project.The "Factory Drilling*" project operates nine rigs using a multidisciplinary team consisting of project management staff utilising/coordinating logistics, warehousing, wellsite management, cementing, wireline, bits, solids control and directional services/personnel. The project has overcome significant challenges in the business development and start-up phases. Through the application of the "excellence in execution" philosophy, records have been broken and new performance benchmarks set in this unconventional CSG market.Since the start of the project in early 2012, using the team's project management abilities and incorporating LEAN (the identification and steady elimination of waste from operations) initiatives, the project has drilled and completed more than 1000 wells, some in as little as 2.15 days (drilling time) and 1.04 days (completion time).The optimisation initiatives have contributed towards reaching a state where the project is currently performing very close to the technical limit, yet challenges are still ahead to maintain and mature the safety culture and improve the operational efficiency even further.

The HPHT Exploration field is located in Block PM on the Northern side of the Malay Basin, Malaysia, and is notorious for its steeply rising pressure ramp, narrow drilling operation window with only 0.5ppg-0.6ppg in the 14-3/4" and 9-1/2" sections and inter-bedded sand/coal and shale formations Block PM is still at the exploration and appraisal stage and therefore there is limited petrophysical information. Well SBD-2 was the second attempt to reach and cross the F & H sands of this basin. This paper will detail how Formation Pressure While Drilling (FPWD) and Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) were successfully applied to drill this HPHT exploration well with a very narrow safe mud weight window. FPWD provided a direct pressure measurement while drilling to set the lower boundary and the Dynamic Formation Integrity Tests (FIT) with MPD provided the upper boundary.All the benefits of using a fully automated managed pressure drilling system were necessary to reach Well TD for the first time in this field; including Early Kick Detection (EKD), Dynamic Formation Integrity Tests (FIT), Dynamic Flow Checks and Constant BHP control within a narrow pressure margin.The result of the combined technologies and operational procedures is safely drilling the first successful HPHT well in Malaysia drilled with MPD constant bottomhole pressure application. This well is so far the deepest gas discovery for the north Malay Basin.