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Abstract
Deepwater high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) drilling
environments present difficult challenges to well engineers.
Typical deepwater pore pressure and fracture gradient profiles
result in a narrow drilling window that can lead to seven to
nine casing points. The high cost of these wells demands a
high rate completion for economic payback, which defines the
size of the production casing and liners. Drilling casings are
restricted by the standardized 18-3/4 through bore diameter
dictated by high pressure wellhead housings, blowout
preventers, and riser systems. Furthermore, high pressures
require thick wall casing, especially if sour service materials
are specified. Satisfying all of these pressure and geometrical
constraints requires some unconventional practices.
Current and emerging technologies offer several ways to
address this design dilemma. Riser-less drilling can be an
effective way to delay running the high pressure wellhead,
allowing for additional large diameter casing seats. Dual
gradient drilling is a concept that can decrease the number of
required casing points. Solid expandable liners provide a way
to add or push casing points without the geometry impact of a
conventional string. Managed pressure drilling may also show
promise for eliminating a seat. However, heavy reliance on
these new technologies may run counter to the guiding
principle of keeping HPHT wells as simple and reliable as
possible.
This paper presents the concept of using conventional oil
country tubular goods (OCTG) in unconventional sizes to
increase the number of available casing points in deepwater
wells. The method has several advantages in the areas of
performance and reliability compared with the previously
listed technologies. The decades of industry experience with
conventional OCTG make the technology especially
appropriate for containing high pressures and sealing off
trouble formations.
SPE 97565
SPE 97565
steel, and then welding the seam formed by the two edges.
Both methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages.
For the ERW process, two methods are used to produce
non-standard OCTG. If sufficient tonnage is required, the
coils are trimmed to the proper circumference and the tubes
formed using the ERW process. Tooling and set-up charges
for custom hot finished OCTG can be significant. In addition,
depending on the mill schedule, lead times of 6-9 months are
required to produce the new tooling.
For smaller tonnage requirements, hot finished pipe of a
standard size is cold drawn to the required diameter and wall
thickness. The tube is then heated followed by quenching and
tempering. Although the cold drawing process is more
involved, it is the most cost effective process for smaller
orders since new tooling is not required. As an added benefit,
lead times for production are much shorter.
The steel market is highly volatile and strongly influenced
by the forces of supply and demand. With this in mind, the
average price for a custom OCTG order in mid-2004 was
$1.20/lb for P-110 and $1.30/lb for Q-125. This represented a
premium when compared to standard sized casing but
significantly less than the cost of expandable casing.
Connections. Connections can be threaded on tubulars with
wall thickness as low as 0.400 without forming the pipe ends.
For casing diameters greater than 16, additional wall
thickness (0.425) is required.
To help ensure that casing will meet drift requirements,
steel mills generally roll casing very close to the upper limits
of the +1% API OD tolerance. The variability in the actual
measured OD between various mills can lead to threading
difficulties on thin wall pipe. In order to overcome this
hurdle, connection manufacturers typically swage (expand) the
box and (crimp) the pin on tubulars that have a diameter to
wall thickness (D/t) ratio greater than 30. Swaging allows the
connection manufacturer to place the material where it is
needed for threading. Although the actual swage creates a box
OD that is 3-5% greater than the nominal casing diameter, the
swage is machined down and the maximum box OD is
typically less than 1% over actual pipe body.
Connection performance for a swaged connection on
custom OCTG is very similar to that of OCTG in standard
sizes.
The tension efficiency is about 70% and the
compression efficiency ranges from 50-70% when compared
to the pipe body. These ratings are more than adequate for
service conditions applied to drilling liners.
Connection development costs for drilling liner service
range from no cost for an existing design to $100,000 for
development of an entirely new slim line connection with a
metal seal. This does not include physical testing, which,
depending on qualification requirements can range from
$25,000 to $50,000 or more for each connection. FEA models
can reduce the amount of physical testing required to finalize
the design.
Custom connections can be developed with lead times of
four months or less when the size is a close extension of an
existing design. Gage equipment takes about 6 weeks to
procure, as can the forming tools required to swage the
connection.
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Nomenclature
APB
API
D/t
ECD
ERW
FEA
HPHT
ISO
kip
MIYP
MPD
OCTG
OD
psi
S
t
TD
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the management of BP for
permission to prepare this paper and present the subject
material.
References
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SPE 97565
36
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22 224.0 ppf (1.000 wall) X-80
18 117.0 ppf (0.625 wall) N-80
36
28
22 224.0 ppf (1.000 wall) X-80
18 117.0 ppf (0.625 wall) N-80
11-3/4 ppf 126.20 (1.109 wall) C-110
x 10-3/4 ppf 108.70 (1.047 wall) C-110
16 128.6 ppf (0.781 wall) Q-125
SPE 97565
36
28
22 224.0 ppf (1.000 wall) X-80
18 93.54 ppf (0.500 wall) N-80
36
28
22 224.0 ppf (1.000 wall) X-80
18 117.0 ppf (0.625 wall) N-80