Shell planned to optimize drilling performance in the deepwater well, located in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. With scarce offset data, SLB coordinated a cohesive multidiscipline team for planning and execution of the high-risk project that faced an HPHT environment up to 340 degF, salt avoidance, and TVD greater than 25,000 ft.
SLB used the fully integrated, multidiscipline petrotechnical engineering center for prejob planning, BHA design, and job execution, assembling PowerDrive X6™ RSS, MLWD services, Rhino™ integrated borehole enlargement systems, PDC drill bit, and drilling fluids with prejob simulation and analysis of the entire drilling system.
We delivered 18 days ahead of plan, saving approximately USD 18 million off AFE, optimized drilling with an integrated team specialized in drilling, MLWD, bits, reamers, and fluids, and drilled each section of the 26,678 ft well to TD in one run with zero NPT, avoiding midsection BOP trips.
For BHA optimization, i-DRILL™ integrated dynamic system analysis service was used for predictive modeling to simulate BHA tendencies and stability for each of the BHAs. The team analyzed potential for stick/slip and shock and vibration (S&V) and BHA behavior in multiple scenarios given the unknown environment. VIRTUAL HYDRAULICS software—a proprietary integrated suite of programs from SLB predicted the swab and surge pressures in the wellbore as well as ECD and provided a hole cleaning overview.
The six hole sections were each finished in a single run without tripping up for regulatory BOP tests, tool failure, or hole conditioning, resulting in zero NPT. The 26,678-ft vertical well was drilled with minimal stick/slip and S&V and in great condition for logging evaluation and casing runs. SLB drilled the well in 18 days less than AFE, saving Shell approximately USD 18 million.
