Exploration drilling in the Samgori-Patardzeuli area started in 1974 for the Lower Eocene – Paleocene formations, during the exploration campaign oil discoveries were made in Middle Eocene sediments. The Samgori-Patardzeuli Middle Eocene delivered the bulk of the production in Georgia and is now a depeleted reservoir. Although more than 200 well have been drilled up to date, only 13 wells from them were drilled to the Lower Eocene, therefore Lower Eocene have not been studied sufficiently and gas reserves have not been estimated. Despite this, 29.97 million m3 of gas has been prodused so far from the Lower Eocene sediments. This paper describes the successful experience of drilling one of the deepest exploration well PAT-E1 on the Patardzeuli field to evaluate Lower Eocene gas reservoirs. Exploration drilling for oil and gas involves numerous risks related with limited information about geological structure and drilling conditions. Successful drilling of planned deep exploration well requires good understanding of hole stability to find the optimal mud properties, proper casing seat selection and out-of-the-box engineering solutions to reach well objectives. Multidisciplinary team, including drilling engineers, reservoir engineer, geologist, geomechanicist, petrophysicist, drilling engineer, mud engineer worked in collaboration to design and drill one of the deepest exploration well in the area. Interval from surface till Upper Eocene was characterized by offset wells, but most of decisions were made based on trial and error. Main problems in the upper sections were related with extreme borehole breakouts and severe losses, while the lower sections was known for losses and gas kick. The PAT-E1 well was successfully drilled to the main target in the Lower Eocene and penetrated down to the top of Upper Cretaceous formation with well TD at 5020 m. Elimination one of intermediate sections allows to decrease well construction time and costs with controlled risks of borehole breakouts and losses. Geological support allowed to place casing shoes in a very narrow safe interval to separate the interval of high breakout risk and total loss interval of fractured reservoir with abnormally low pore pressure. Real time pore pressure and fracture pressure prediction service in the lower sections allowed to monitor hole condition in real time and provided timely recommendations for well control. The PAT-E1 well is first deep exploration well that was sucsesfully drilled Upper Cretaceous formation on Patardzeuli field which allow to complete advanced formation evaluation and testing. Best practices developed while drilling this well will be applied for future safe drilling in the region.

A major oilfield services company has a project management group that, through the course of its business operations, travels over 38 million miles a year. This is an extremely large exposure to an activity that is the largest common cause of fatalities in the oil and gas industry. To exacerbate this exposure, 75% of this driving is subcontracted. Successfully managing contractors and subcontractors is a challenging task in our industry. Within the contracted group, there are approximately 200 transport contractors and logistic providers, and about 3,000 contracted vehicles operated by 8,000 different drivers. The escalating use of contractors came with an escalating and significant increase in the motor vehicle crash rate (MVCR). Vehicle rollovers within the contract group represented 11 crashes out of a total of 18 for the company over a 1-year period from May 2007 to May 2008. And some accidents had dramatic consequences, including one fatality and several major environmental spills. In order to manage the increased exposure and reverse negative trends, it was deemed critical to go beyond traditional approaches addressed by contractor management fundamentals. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a driving safety campaign aimed at transport contractors. The campaign contributed significantly to improved driving performance, with reductions in both the frequency and severity of transport-contractor–related incidents. The safety program was launched in 2008 on managed projects worldwide. The initiative analyzed existing performance, defined targets to ensure utmost positive impact, established clear roles and responsibilities, formalized package content in five languages, and implemented systematic monitoring processes to measure impact. The campaign materials put a strong emphasis on professionalism and on associated responsibilities with slogans such as: "I'm a professional driver," "Professional drivers don't…," and "Lives are in my hands." The paper also describes the campaign tool box that was developed to support the initiative. This program has created a solid foundation for further improvements in land transport safety. In a a typical well construction project, where operational continuity is imperative, field logistics is a key component that can have a significant impact on the project's success. Crashes, and other transport-related events, can cause significant delays which dramatically impact operational continuity. As well as this direct impact on NPT, another factor of even greater concern is the fact that crashes can cause other irreparable losses: human lives, life-altering injuries, and environmental damage.

This paper describes some of the major issues around drilling world class ERD well in the Baltic Sea by a team of industry professionals from Lukoil, Schlumberger and Eurasia Drilling Company (BKE). The ultimate goal of the well construction organization was to deliver quality well under budget and within schedule with zero environmental impact.A challenging well was successfully drilled to explore Cambrian production zone in D-41 structure. Key contributing factors to this success were:solid preliminary analysis, understanding of well bore stability by real time geomechanical modeling, comprehensive directional analysis, revised casing design, application of latest drilling technologies, creation of multi-discipline team with common goals.

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The success of the drilling campaign including drilling efficiency, service quality, personnel safety and cost is critically dependent on robust solutions developed during the design phase of the overall well construction process. One of the most critical stages of the overall well construction process is the well design phase. The drilling project service quality, personnel safety, drilling efficiency and cost directly depend on the robust solutions elaborated at the design phase. This paper describes the advanced technical engagement between an operator and an integrated services company to generate a basis of design for drilling and completing development wells in the Filanovskogo offshore field, in the north of Caspian Sea. The basis of design is a document that describes well design principles, engineering solutions and technologies required to drill and complete the wells. The paper explains the design approach selected by the project team, project design stages, foreseen challenges and technical solutions to deliver efficient well designs that could meet operator requirements and comply with Russian regulatory rules. The key technical challenges of the Filanovskogo field are that the reservoir zone is located at shallow true vertical depth (TVD); the high formation collapse gradients and low mud loss gradients create a narrow mud weight window environment, along with complicated well profiles involving – multilateral horizontals and extended reach (ER) wells. This paper illustrates the development of a basis of design to ensure cost-effective access to reserves. It covers the operator and the service company experience in the drilling of ERD wells, applying advanced technologies for windows milling, completion options screening process and designing a multilateral junction. It also provides an understanding of the importance of operator and service company departments integration processes in order to achieve well objectives. To support the basis of design development, a comprehensive risk register was generated to minimize drilling risks. The process of technical integration between the operator and the service company in the early stages of operational planning by developing drilling and completion design is unique for Russian O&G operators and was done by assuming that it would be very efficient through providing technical integrity and minimizing the project risks. The drilling and completion design consideration processes described in this paper can be used to provide valuable insight for future projects where up-front complex technical study is key to success.