23-05-04

Many of the new systems for drilling, completing or remediating a well are conveyed on coiled tubing, which is gaining popularity with the oil and gas industry around the globe. Much of the new equipment being introduced by Baker Oil Tools into the Permian Basin oilfields is conveyed through coiled tubing, noted Alex Ortiz, region manager, West Texas region.

"It makes for faster operations and is done under pressure. It's a growing sector of the market. For us, it's grown 200 % or so over the last two years," Ortiz said.

George Arnold, applications engineer with Baker, explained that using coiled tubing means the service company does not have to kill the well, run the risk of introducing skin damage to the existing casing through the use of heavy well-killing fluids and the operator does not lose production from that well.

The company, which has been active in the Permian Basin for over 55 years, utilizes coiled tubing for a wide range of operations, from well cleaning to fishing and milling, isolating producing zones, stimulating and fracturing production zones, completing wells with sand control equipment, gas and water flow management, plugging and abandoning a well or sidetracking and re-entering a well.

According to Baker Oil Tools, the use of coiled tubing can eliminate the need for a rig and lets coiled tubing be used for a variety of functions downhole, from cutting pipe to performing zone isolation operations. Baker is also utilizing coiled tubing to convey its new line of expandable solids, which it is introducing to the Permian Basin.

Coiled tubing is expected to play a major role in the development of new drilling technology, according to Roy Long, technology manager of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy.

One new technology being developed by the oil and natural gas industry, in conjunction with the laboratory, is micro-hole technology, which Long described as a jump beyond slimhole drilling. New coiled tubing rig capabilities and new coiled tubing metallurgy are being developed in conjunction with other aspects of micro-hole drilling, from a new generation of smaller tubulars to microelectronics for downhole.

Development of coiled tubing-conveyed micro-hole drilling is to reduce the costs of drilling shallower wells -- to a maximum of about 5,000 feet. Over half the nation's remaining reserves are at 5,000 feet or less, Long noted, and reducing the costs to drill those reserves or to implement secondary recovery projects would increase domestic supplies.

Source: MyWestTexas