The New Brunswick Department of Transportation (NBDoT) maintains over 18,000 kilometers of roads, 2,900 bridges, various ferry crossings, and other assets. Because of its limited budget, NBDoT faced significant challenges in rehabilitating its infrastructure assets valued at several billion dollars. Its goal was to develop transparent, defensible, long-term plans for managing New Brunswick's highway infrastructure, and secure commitment from decision makers and support from the public for these plans. The operations research component of the asset management framework uses a unique combination of linear programming and heuristic techniques. The model incorporates long-term objectives and constraints from an operations perspective—it weighs all options; considers costs, timings, and asset life cycles; and produces optimal treatment plans and schedules of activities. NBDoT anticipates $72 million (discounted) in annual savings, amounting to $1.4 billion (discounted) over the next 20 years. NBDoT has become a global leader in the field of asset management, and the success has attracted the attention of transportation officials around the world.

This paper describes the innovative engineering workflow which has been used to ensure the safe deployment of deep production liners on long step-out wells of a deep offshore development field. It highlights the importance of accurate Torque & Drag modelling during planning and operations and provides details on how the use of downhole data assisted in understanding downhole conditions on the first wells, which allowed to optimize the running and setting procedure for the next wells of the field. For this methodology, a unique Torque & Drag stiff-string model was used to simulate the evolution of side-forces, tension, stretch, torque and twist along the string at every stage of the deployment and setting of the liner. Simulations were performed both during planning phase and operations. Once the well completed, downhole memory data from a logging tool was compared with simulations, which allowed to calibrate the model, better understand downhole conditions, and provide recommendations for the next runs. Using this methodology, the operator succeeded in deploying the liner to total depth, setting the hanger and packer successfully on all the wells of the field. These operations were performed with only 40 minutes of non-productive time throughout the campaign. The paper shows how correlating downhole data with Torque & Drag simulations highlighted areas of improvement and allowed to optimize the running and setting procedure of the liner. It also led the operator to gain confidence in the feasibility of such critical operations even on the more challenging wells. Detailed engineering and collaboration were key to this success. Such methodology can be applied on every well where weight transfer is a potential issue. As the industry is heading towards digitalization and automation, this case study is a prime example which demonstrates the added value of combining advanced physics-based simulations with time based downhole data.

Liner hangers are designed to provide seal and anchoring capability for installation of casing. The expandable liner hanger has a uniform body with no moving parts that will expand into the parent casing and provide a permanent and reliable seal. Unfortunately, drilling a well can be problematic in certain situations, resulting in loss of a section or the entire wellbore. This leads to additional well construction costs from milling casing, running a sidetrack, or drilling a new section. Retrieving sections of the installed casing can reduce the cost but may require removal of the liner hanger. While milling conventional hanger systems has been performed before, there has been little experience with milling an expandable liner hanger. This paper discusses the first two cases in the North Sea where expandable liner hangers required milling because of drilling issues below the liners. The milling of the expandable hanger bodies provided several benefits when compared to the milling of conventional liner hanger systems. The benefits included reduced rig time and non-productive time (NPT), less well debris than when milling movable parts/slips, and no parent-casing slip damage. In the first case, during running of an expandable liner hanger, the hanger disconnected and was lost. A backup hanger was run, cemented, and set. Options for correcting the situation will be discussed in this paper along with why milling was considered the most feasible option. In the actual job, 10.5 feet of hanger were milled out in less time than anticipated. In the second case, a liner and expandable hanger were set in a long, extended mature reservoir. During drilling of the next section, the drill string became stuck, requiring a sidetrack. Milling of the expandable liner hanger system enabled the operator to pull the liner and perform the needed sidetrack.

Well construction activities including liners and lower completions deployment have historically realized downtime and unforeseen challenges. Surface data, torque and drag simulations, and previous experience are all sources of data commonly used to plan and facilitate these installations. Field development campaigns often include longer laterals, frequent three-dimensional bends, varying pressure profiles, and other challenges that cannot be sufficiently planned for by using surface data, torque and drag simulations, and experience alone. The industry requires a better quality set of data, and quicker access to this data, to more successfully and efficiently complete wells. Wired drill pipe is a real-time data acquisition platform that has been used on more than 146 wells, 65 of those offshore wells, since 2015. While improved drilling operations have been the primary use of the wired drill pipe platform, operators have since challenged providers to increase the scope of real-time data acquisition capabilities using the wired drill pipe platform. In order to address the challenges of understanding downhole dynamics during liner deployment and completion operations, a dynamic logging tool with real-time data transfer capability and restriction-less internal bore was developed. The dynamic logging tool couples the data acquisition capabilities of the memory-based dynamic logging tool with the wired drill pipe platform to provide operators with real-time access to axial loads, torque, temperature, pressures, vibrations, and RPM during the lower completion and liner deployment operations. The data provided by the inclusion of this tool can be used to facilitate the optimization and continuous improvement of liner deployment operations. This in turn allows operators to minimize non-productive time (NPT) and overcome a steep learning curve for challenging field development campaigns. This paper discusses the real-time logging tool technology implementation and its role in development campaigns. Examples of lower completion applications and data gathering techniques are presented, along with examples of how the data can be used to improve understanding of downhole dynamics, facilitate continuous operational improvements, and ultimately achieve a robust field development strategy.