Batch Completion Operations Cost Reduction in a Segregated Drilling Campaign: Surface Equipment Requirements

Abstract

In an effort to reduce project construction and start-up costs, novel and alternative well construction models have been developed and adopted globally. One such approach is to adopt a segregated drilling campaign, the well construction and completions operations can be segregated into two distinct phases. A drilling and casing phase leaving a cased well in a Temporary Abandonment (TA) status, followed by a phase consisting of WBC (wellbore clean-up), completion and stimulation operations resulting in the handover of the well to production to bring hydrocarbon production online. As such this provides an opportunity to reduce surface equipment specification and costs, in comparison to that which is required for drilling activities. A potential solution exists by utilising alternative technology with the capability to perform perforation, multi-zone completion installation, stimulation, WBC operations and well testing, at comparatively lower cost than conventional drilling technology. This paper describes the collaborative development of such technology, and focuses on the definition of the surface equipment requirements and specification phase, pertaining to the typical downhole operations required to be executed during the multi-zone completion installation, stimulation, WBC operations and well testing. Each operation is assessed to give a base required capability, with further operations that are deemed to have a critical effect on the efficiency and duration, identified. A typical anticipated operations program is presented and the study focuses on the first principle requirements of each of the steps. Further operation considerations are presented and discussed for each operational step, forming the basis of discreet specifications per step. Further, the identification of operations not on the critical path that can be performed simultaneously or as an offline activity, have the potential to make high cost impacts. Collaboration between the Yangon based operator and service provider drives a design which provides a technically pragmatic and capable ICU (Intervention and Completion Unit) and as such attracting project cost savings allied to lower support equipment costs. Further, the deployment flexibility of the ICU allows it to perform operations ranging from well construction activities such as well slot preparation, completions and intervention, to well deconstruction activities such as heavy workover, Permanent Abandonment (PA) phases and slot recovery. The ability to perform multi-phase operations whilst mobilized to a platform brings further cost benefits and operational flexibility.