Manual drifting of drill pipes from the derick constitutes a potentially serious risk from dropped objects. When drifting in the derrick, traditionally rig crews manually place the drift in the carrier on the bails and transport it to the Derrickman who will usually be around 90ft above the rig floor. He then has to retrieve it and place it in the drill pipe. When the drill pipe is picked up, the drift falls out of the bottom tool joint and the Roughneck retrieves it to begin the process again. There is a potential dropped object risk every time for the Derrickman if he mishandles the drift and if it falls toward the rig floor and potentially strikes a member of the rig personnel. This paper will detail the risk of manual drifting in the derick and also present a novel alternative method using a drift catcher sub that eliminates the dropped objects hazard completely – while also saves significant operational time when utilized.
Field Background In Aug. 2015, Umm Lulu drilling team drilled and completed well014 as a first linerless design by setting the 9 5/8" casing in Thamama-I formation and drilling an 8 ½" section till TD, relying on swell packer for zonal isolation. Post evaluation of UL-14 design found cross flow between Thamama-I formation and Thamama-II target reservoir. The drilling division developed another design by extending drilling the 12 ¼" hole till Thamama-I A base to isolate Thamama-I with cement after running the 9 5/8" casing and drilling 8 ½" hole till section TD. This scenario was not possible to execute due to the unavailability of completion equipment (4 ½" × 8 ½" swell packer). The drilling division thought out of the box to drill 6" hole directly from 9 5/8 casing to address the equipment availability constraint. This option was pursued after thorough evaluation of all potential challenges. In April 2017, well018, which was a first revised design, was drilled and completed successfully 10 days ahead of plan, saving $2.00M. In June 2017, well020 was delivered with the best jack up 10k duration in ADMA-OPCO (31.5 days) and the best single oil producer with lower completion duration of 56 days, saving more than 15 days and $3.2M.
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