Casing While Drilling

Abstract

Conventional drilling methods have faced significant operational and financial challenges, such as the cost of purchasing, inspecting, handling, and transporting drill equipment, and, most importantly, tripping in and out of the drill string whenever the Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA) requires replacement, a wiper trip, or total depth is reached. Tripping the drill string in and out not only contributes to Non Productive Time (NPT), but also causes well control issues such as wellbore instability and lost circulation. All of this has prompted the oil and gas sector, as well as any other engineering industry, to look for innovative techniques and approaches to address these issues. A new drilling method has emerged as a result of technological developments and continuous improvements to conventional drilling methods. Casing when drilling has been established as a result of technological developments and continuous improvements to traditional drilling processes. Casing Drilling is the process of drilling and casing a well at the same time, employing active casing to maximize production. This paper provides an overview of the casing while drilling method (CwD) and its practical application in well drilling. The typical drilling method and casing while drilling are also compared. The CwD approach outperforms the standard drilling method by a wide margin.