Geology Drives Technology - Application of Coil Tubing Underbalanced Drilling in the Cooper Basin, Australia

Telesford, Arthur Linus; Cheong, Sharon Kah Heng; Cotton, T.; Chipperfield, Simon

doi:10.2523/iptc-12439-ms

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Obviously, the restricted pulling capacity, weight limitation, and inability to rotate the string or place drilling jars within the continuous string can often limit coiled tubing drilling and fishing capabilities in horizontal wells. However, several documented case studies (Solanet et al, 1999;Byrom, 1999;McCarty et al, 2002;Engel and Rae, 2002;Johnson, 2007;Telesford et al, 2008;Li et al, 2010) have shown that tremendous cost savings can be achieved by using coiled tubing for many drilling and completion applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Post-Stimulation Coiled Tubing Drillout

Asafa

Williams

González

et al. 2014

Day 1 Tue, March 25, 2014

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In the last few decades, coiled tubing has been widely employed for post-stimulation drillout of composite or cast-iron bridge plugs and isolation sleeves used in multi-stage hydraulic fracture stimulation in horizontal wells. Due to its inherent capability of continual deployment, coiled tubing technology has increased in popularity for this application over conventional jointed-pipe snubbing with rig-assist snubbing units. Despite the increasing use of coiled tubing units, drillout practices have typically been based on "art" rather than science, often resulting in drilling problems such as poor fluid efficiency and hole cleaning issues, lost circulation, stuck pipe, lost-in-hole tools, and parted pipe. Unfortunately, a greater percentage of stuck pipe incidents are directly related to poor hole cleaning, and it is not surprising that the causes of these problems are often not well understood. Thus, various approaches have been utilized to prevent recurrence based on incorrect assumptions. While some of these problems have been adequately dealt with in several publications, the determination of optimum fluid properties for efficient hole cleaning as well as the effectiveness of short tripping have been given minimal attention. To a large extent, fresh water, or brine, is mixed with various additives such as friction reducer for pressure loss and pipe friction, hydrogen sulfide scavenger and inhibitor, biocide, scale inhibitor, and polymer gel while drilling plugs. A common hole cleaning practice is the use of intermittent high-viscosity gel sweeps, wiper tripping to kick-off point after drilling a predefined number of plugs, and flowing back the well in an underbalanced condition while drilling and short tripping. The effectiveness of these practices is worth questioning based on the occasional drag and stuck pipe encountered while tripping out of hole. This paper addresses the misconceptions related to coiled tubing hydraulics and hole cleaning, as well as reviews the common drillout practices and their cost implications including coiled tubing rig up, coil size selection, bottomhole assembly, fluids efficiency, and short tripping. Various best practices are recommended for improving post-stimulation drillout, with specific emphasis on how to minimize drillout cost.

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