Pressurized Mud Cap Drilling (PMCD) is a drilling technique that has been used for over seven years in many wells where conventional drilling proved impossible or uneconomic 1-5 . PMCD is typically used to drill fractured carbonates, where the pore and fluid loss gradient are virtually the same, resulting in total mud losses and kicks in the same hole section. However, it is not restricted to just carbonates, it can be used on any fractured rock that is very competent in respect to wellbore stability, or formations prone to severe to total loss with good wellbore stability characteristic.Traditional PMCD typically requires the periodic injection of sometimes large volumes of weighted mud into the annulus in order to maintain a reliable mud cap. The process is highly cyclical, often unpredictable, and can be prohibitively expensive. The process also requires highly skilled and experienced people to run it properly, an increasingly rare commodity these days.Use of the Micro-Flux Control (MFC) method with PMCD could permit the process to be automated and controlled to a much higher level of accuracy, allowing less experienced people to confidently run the system. While continuously injecting across the wellhead, and using delta flow as the control variable, the casing backpressure would be monitored. Casing pressure increases, indicating a loss of mud cap fluid downhole, would be automatically controlled by precise adjustment of the continuous delta flow, together with pressure monitoring, rather than by periodic injection of large volumes of fresh mud cap fluid. This paper will briefly describe the MFC method, rig up details and operational issues. It will also describe how to apply the procedure to automate and operationally enhance PMCD, explaining the benefits when compared

Foreword During Underbalanced Drilling (UBD) a dilemma arises over which practice to use whenever the drill string has to be tripped out of the hole. Options are to kill the well, which may cause formation damage and defeat the object of UBD, to use a snubbing unit, or to trip with a live well, both of which have serious safety and cost implications. Setting a packer which is subsequently pushed down the hole on re-entry has been attempted on several occasions with varying degrees of success, but can only be used for completion operations and not for routine bit trips. The Downhole Deployment Valve (DDV) was developed specifically to address this issue and provides the capability to close off the well at depth, allowing the wellbore above to be de-pressurised and thereby greatly facilitating tripping operations. When the DDV is closed, reservoir pressure reaches balance point below the valve, but the wellbore above is vented, which eliminates the "pipe light" condition completely and removes the need for snubbing. The DDV is a full-bore casing valve, hydraulically controlled from surface via control lines; it is run with the casing and can be cemented in place. One onshore high pressure, high volume gas well was drilled underbalanced in early 2003 in North Eastern Thailand. The positive result from this well led to two further appraisal wells being drilled underbalanced in 2004. The DDV was used in both of these wells and this paper is a case history of the use of the DDV in Thailand, covering the following issues:DDV installation summaryDDV operating practices and proceduresTime & cost saved by the DDVImprovements suggested for subsequent wells Background The Phu Horm 3 well originally commenced operations using conventional drilling in 2002, but had to be suspended due to uncontrollable mud losses in the fractured Limestone and Dolomite reservoir. Operations re-commenced in 2003 when Phu Horm 3 became the first onshore high gas rate UBD well to be drilled in Asia Pacific. UBD not only delivered the capability to reach the well target by eliminating mud losses, but also provided a "step change" in well productivity, ensuring it would form an integral part of subsequent field development plans. Underbalanced drilling of the Phu Horm 3 well was performed without a downhole casing shut-off valve system and therefore required a snubbing unit to overcome the "pipe light" situation resulting when the drillstring weight is too low to overcome wellbore pressure resulting from UBD. In this application, the snubbing unit was used to control pipe movement in and out of the well above the pipe light point. Snubbing is slow compared to conventional tripping; resulting in extended rig time and snubbing services can be costly, with a team of up to 8 persons required for 24 hour operations. The Phu Horm 4 and 5 wells were designed as vertical wells to a TD of 2,950mMD with 16", 12_" and 8_" hole sections culminating in 7" casing being set above the reservoir. Underbalanced drilling of the reservoir was a 6" hole section, completed using a 4_" slotted liner. Reservoir pressure was expected to be 3,730psi at the top limestone with a gradient of 0.0692psi/ft and the gas stream was expected to contain 0.5% CO2 and a maximum of 5ppm H2S. A tender exercise sourced the "Downhole Casing Shut-off System" and submissions were received from interested vendors in October 2003. The tender invitation stipulated the following:A downhole casing valve capable of isolating the lower wellbore to enable tripping under atmospheric conditions.The valve should be capable of being run inside 9–5/8" casing (47lbs/ft) and 8_" open hole.The ID of the valve should be equivalent to the 7" casing string (26lbs/ft).The valve should be capable of isolating a pressure differential of 3,500 - 4,000psi.