Drilling Night - 1. Distinguished Lecturer Program with L.W. Ledgerwood III and 2. Tomax, Nils Reimers

An Extra 45 Minutes Can Provide a World of Knowledge

SPE Bergen Section would like to invite you to the TechNight with SPE Distinguished Lecturer at Nøsteboden! This is a great chance for you to keep yourself updated on latest technologies in the market and to meet your industry colleagues during the dinner after the presentations.

1. Distinguished Lecture L.W. (Roy) Ledgerwood III (BHGE) : Solving the Mystery of Low Rate of Penetration in Deep Wells

Rocks deep in the earth have unique and enigmatic material properties due to the confining pressures in the earth. Confining pressure increases rock strength and changes rock from a brittle to a ductile material. Humans tend to think of rock as brittle, since all of our direct experience with rock is at atmospheric pressure. But as wells were drilled deeper into the earth, it became apparent that the rock drilled in oilfield wells yielded much lower penetration rates than rocks of the same composition near the surface. About seventy years ago, researchers in drilling mechanics began to study this by building high-pressure test facilities in which rock could be confined and drilled. Even with these new test machines, researchers had to hypothesize what was happening to the rock at the bottom of the borehole because they could not observe the drilling process first-hand. Though they understood that rocks under confining pressure become ductile, they continued to form hypotheses based on brittle failure mechanics. This presentation reviews the detective-story history of model development to explain low rate of penetration in deep boreholes. It then describes our current industry understanding of rock failure in a borehole, which includes a significant role played by crushed rock detritus. Current challenges facing the drilling mechanics community are identified. This presentation constitutes a plea for continued research in this area.

2. Why slow with heavy mud? Nils Reimers, Director R & D, Tomax AS

In 2012 Tomax started a project to reduce the hydraulic jetting forces and reducing the impact pressure on the bottom. A reliable solution was found by applying the suction principle from a sewage pump for bottom hole cleaning.

The pump would by design eliminate the flow pressing cuttings down to the bottom to be re-ground. It would also remove the risk from reactive pressures charging natural fractures. This meant more stable near bore rock. The solution was realized for drilling by five ejector pumps, also known as jet pumps, arranged to replace the waterways in a stabilizer located close to the

bit. The system was set up for standard pump rates from surface. In addition to keeping the bottom clean, the jet pumps also produced a significant extra thrust or tractor force. This gave the project its name Afterburner.

Become part of the steadily growing number of participants at SPE Bergen's tech nights!

Take part in the professional discussions and meet people within your industry. There will be dinner served at the hotel's restaurant after the presentations!